PVC 2.0

I am really excited to show off my new and improved 'PVC Marimba' (still, I have no name for this thing). As you can see, the frame is completely made of wood now. I originally had the bright idea of making the frame with PVC pipe (wanted it to be as pure PVC as possible). Well, the PVC frame did not hold the weight well -- especially when traveling! Eventually the frame had crack and fell apart from time to time. The new frame is completely made of professional looking and sturdy wood. This frame is not breaking...dangit.

A big thanks to Andy Massoth (wood-working genius) and my Dad (general all-around genius) for creating the new frame. They put in quite a few hours making it and you can see that it looks AMAZING. I especially like the advertising on the front :).





Now, time to hit the streets and bum out on this thing!

Midnight Pavane

Check out my new percussion ensemble piece for 10 percussionists. It is based on the theme of "Pavane" by Gabriel Fauré. You can hear his piece here. Very beautiful!

I kind of took his beautiful music and warped, bent, tore, shred, twisted, corrupted, and Frankensteined it into something totally different. Nixa Junior High percussion ensemble will be performing it this year.



Pavane is a type of dance. I envisioned terrifying spirits dancing in the air at midnight. Think of being haunted and chased by these angry specters! These were once happy people, dancing with their loved ones to beautiful music, but have now been twisted and angered by the afterlife. The theme to "Pavane" itself has been twisted and now feels angry and terrifying. Aiiiee!

Primordial Daydream

A new short composition I wrote today. I experimented with recording an African mbira mixed with samples. I also recorded myself playing some primal effects on a flute.

Description: "Your mind suddenly takes you back to your most primal state. You are running through a jungle, lead only by instincts, being chased by an unknown danger. Everything feels familiar -- as if it were some distant memory. Just as you feel the jaws of death around your neck, you wake up."

I don't know why I had a description for such a short piece, but it was what I was kind of thinking as I wrote it. Enjoy!

Hard Wire

Here is a new demo I put together with commercial music in mind. I wanted to do something new with this, so I featured my PVC instrument (something I haven't put into any of my compositions yet). The song starts out with a single PVC pitch and I layered in a few effects. I hope to involve my unique instrument in many more projects to come. I hope you like it!



Oh, and I guess I accidentally disabled comments -- fixed now. So, you know, comment if you feel like it.

Tracks and Fields

So I found this great website called Tracks and Fields. This is how it works: Ad Agencies, Film Producers, and Game Producers of the sort can send them request for music they need. This website will post these requests and composers turn in submissions based on the needs of the client. The client then gets to pick from those submission and the composer chosen gets PAID. Pretty cool idea if you ask me. Although, I believe any artist should get paid for their work. Not only are we working hard to create something like this, but we are producing something nobody else can create. So, when a company says,"create something for me and I will tell you if I will buy it," that puts us in a bad spot.

Anyways, despite my general conflict with this, I will try it out a few times. Some day I will get my feet on the ground and will not need it anymore. If anything, it's a cool way to give myself composition assignments when I have some free time.

FMOD: Creating Adaptive Audio for Games

For those of you into game audio, I am finding FMOD to be a very powerful program for making your game music/sound effects creatively adaptive and interactive.

I have always wondered how game composers made their music so well integrated into the thier games without having any computer programing skills. Sure, the programmers do a lot of audio programming, but there are just somethings only an audio dude can do. As awesome and important programmers are (my brother is one in fact), I never felt completely comfortable giving them 50% control of my music.

The FMOD Designer software was the answer for me -- why? Because it is designed for audio geeks that couldn't code their way out of an 8bit sack! All that seemingly impossible, high-level stuff I can now do, such as:

1.) Create music that changes seamlessly depending on the state of the game (exmaple: you are fighting a bad guy, then 10 more bad guys show up so you want the music to get more intense)

2.) Variation and/or randomizxation of music/sound to create a unique audio experience every time the player turns on the game.

3.) Create real-time atmospheric audio events via randomization effects.

4.) Incorporate real-time audio effects (example: reverb for when the player goes into a cave. The music and sound with have an "echo" effect to it until the player is out of the cave)

5.) Save on system resources using banks, randomization of your sound files (so you don't have to make a bunch of different sound files, FMOD does it for you), and real-time effects.

I am still trying to wrap my head around this program, but it is actually pretty easy to use. I hope to create some adaptive music demos soon. I also plan using it in a few upcoming game projects I have in the near future. If you are into game audio, here is a great YouTube tut to get you started (aside from just reading the documentation of course):

Job Posting: Composer for Hire

Time for a rant. If you are a composer, or a Freelancer of any kind, you may know a thing or two about what I am going through. So here is a recap of the past few months: I have (with the help of my brilliant wife) have started a freelance music composition business, built (with the help of my brilliant brother) a website I am proud of, estabished my fees, established my services, opened a bank account for the business, purchased enough professional music gear for the studio, launched a social marketing campaign, started this blog, started networking with game devs and other audio professionals, and created a long list of demos to demonstrate my abilities to potential clients.

I am proud of what I have accomplished; however, all that is just the first level. I have now arrived at level 2-1...get some work! I have experience writing music for games and promo videos for businesses, but I am looking for some consistent projects. I am VERY lucky to have a full time job teaching music. That way, I don't have to rely on writing music to eat. I can just be fully creative without the pressure of basic survival at hand,

However, getting work is a very tough thing -- especially when I live away from the main hubs of my industry (L.A., San Fransico, Seatle, Austin, New York). I do my best with trying to connect with others and giving myself some online visibility. My plan is to continue with that, but also go to some conferences in my field and meet some people face to face. I also plan to seek out clients locally and build a reputation with my community. There are plenty of businesses and production companies that need music and sound for advertising.

As far as game music, I have completed a demo reel aimed towards a specific local developing company. I plan to send it out this week and hopefully get in co tact with them shorly. In th coming months, I plan to create an amazing demo reel and send it off to at least a hundred game developers -- just go all out!

So, I have been working hard and I have a lot of hard work ahead of me. This new level will be toug, but I know if I am persistent and patient I will land some gigs and I might even land a huge one. If not, I will keep movivng forward because: the princess is always in the next castle.