Rain Random is a two-minute music composition with video images. The images are of rain. The piece is very cold and wet. Very empty. Like waiting for a bus on a street corner where there is no bus shelter without a raincoat during a huge rainstorm and everything around you just gets more blurred and dismal. More wet. More soaked. Please enjoy Rain Random.
Ra… Continue
Added by David Ocker on June 11, 2009 at 10:16am —
No Comments
No musician admits it out loud and a few probably don't even admit it to themselves, but every musician wants to get into the history books. I've seen composers open a new book from the back just to look for their name in the index. I do that myself sometimes.
I'm very proud that I got mentioned even once in Frank Zappa's autobiography. (On page 175 in case you run across a copy because Frank didn't believe in indices.)
Recently I was contacted by Charles Sharp (also known as… Continue
Added by David Ocker on February 11, 2009 at 5:42am —
No Comments
This piece is nearly 2 years old. I remember, back then, that I still wanted to change some things about it. So I flagged it in my mind as "unfinished".
Now, however, I can't remember what I wanted to change. And since it was written in an earlier version of Sibelius I imagine that working on it again would require more remedial effort than I'm willing to expend.
So, here it is, just as it was when I left it.… Continue
As promised and explained here, this is the sequel to This is not the title entitled This is not the title EITHER. You should probably listen to one of them before you listen to the other. Another piece of advice - play it loud!!
The two pieces are very similar. They have one melody and one sound effect in common and everything else is different.
This is not the title EITHER… Continue
You can listen to my piece This Is Not The Title. Skip to the end of this post, past all the verbiage and pictures, to the part about the sequel and then click the play arrow on the little embedded MOG thingee.
… Continue
In classic 30 Second Spot fashion the long title of this short quarter-tone piano piece was a sentence spoken by a high school student to no one in particular while he was relaxing at Starbucks before class at the very same moment I was writing music at Starbucks because I did feel like it. He'd probably be mortified to discover that his disinterest had been frozen in time -- immortalized.… Continue
I haven't composed anything in some time - several months at least. And I've been feeling bad about that. There are several nearly finished pieces on the laptop waiting patiently for me. And posting my pieces here was one of the main inspirations for creating Mixed Meters.
One day last week, trapped by the prospect of solving my computer-related technology problems by engaging in a "live chat session" (a horrendously imperfect form of communication the speed of which is dictated by the slowest… Continue
Recognize this tune?.
Of course you do; even though this midi sequence is just the chord progression. But it represents my first encounter with a venerable, senior composer.
Back in my high school years I performed in my home town summer concert band, the Sioux City Municipal Band, Leo Kucinski, bandmaster. We played two Sunday concerts - one in Riverside Park (a… Continue
Added by David Ocker on October 9, 2008 at 2:47pm —
No Comments
(Pre-Script: If the subject of this post is regarded as too "pop" for this "non pop" website, I will self-censor it. Please leave a message as to where you think the limits of NetNewMusic should be. /David)
If you think this post is going to be about computerized musical instruments called samplers, cousins of the synthesizer which play back little bits of real sounds (like maybe people singing), then you've got a big p… Continue
Therefore it is essential that even if you possess a massive amount of knowledge about classical music, do not share it with a white person regardless of how much they profess to love it. It’s a recipe for disaster and shame.
(First published on Mixed Meters a few minutes ago.)
"Rhythm & blues mixed with the avant-garde" That's probably the most direct way to describe Frank Zappa's musical influences.
Although I shared his interest in the avant-garde I knew nothing about that other stuff. One night long ago I got my first taste of just how little I knew when I got to hang out in Frank's basement listening as he eagerly played some of his favorite 45… Continue
(Prescript: I just posted this to my "real" blog Mixed Meters. I post a lot of stuff there. I thought I'd try re-posting things I write about music here - where musicians are.)
Timothy Mangan, the last full-time newspaper music critic in O.C., has a blog. (which is not true of the last full-time newspaper music critic in L.A.)
Tim posted an ex… Continue
