It took me several months, but I finally did find a way to visually represent Pangaea on YouTube. One rather has to have at least an animated GIF or something -- after all, YouTube is primarily a video site.
So, anyway, now that it's all done, all the visuals are synched to the chord changes and the finished product is on YouTube, I'm considering that it may be, perhaps, just a bit too long. Without visuals, the song takes 8:40-something to play to completion. Whilst this kind of thing is good for relaxation CDs, where you're intentionally trying to get an effect out of it, I don't really think it works on the Internet. Not in a video, anyway. One goes to YouTube to be entertained quickly... it's this dratted McSociety of ours. Get your jollies in 60 seconds or less or it's on us.
Nevertheless, Pangaea may need trimming down for an online audience. Four minutes would be the second-longest video I've ever released... but nine?! That's not ideal.

It's early enough, I could remove the existing video, cut out some of it, and put it back up without anyone noticing. On the other hand, it seems somewhat unfair not to allow people to hear the whole song all at once. I suppose I could wait and see what people have to say about it. If the consensus amongst the viewers is that it's just too long and clunky for YouTube, I'll make a new rendition.

The thing about Pangaea, the song, is that it's versatile in this way. Since not much happens in it, I can cut bits out or even slice off the entire back half without anyone really conciously realising it.
The way I wrote it, one plays through the song from bar one to bar 19 in the major key, then goes back to the beginning and plays the whole thing again in minor. I could easily remove the da capo al fine and have the score end at bar 19, playing either major or minor the whole way through.
Nothing else could change. Note lengths, note values, and instrumentation would remain the same. All you have to do is change three ingredients and you have a whole different recipe. I don't want to set out with the objective of cutting Pangaea down and end up with a different song. It would still be the same relaxation piece... just a bit shorter.

Anyway, that's what I have to say on the matter.

Posted by jsebastianperry at 00:52 CDT

Updated: Saturday, 30 July 2011 11:28 CDT

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In my inaugural entry to The Thirty-Second Note, I was complaining about how I had no way to visually represent my blatantly new-age relaxation piece, Pangaea, on YouTube. However, I believe I have hit upon the solution.
As I'm re-acquainting myself with Windows Movie Maker (the last time I used it extensively was in sophomore year of high school... nigh on seven years ago), I'm discovering that there are a great deal of visual transition effects which, when used properly, can be used as a substitute for actual skill. To that end, I've decided to go ahead with one of my rejected ideas: Microsoft Word gradient effects. The gradients in Word 2010 are much more micromanage-y than in previous versions, allowing one to add so-called "gradient stops" -- that is, user-defined additions of new colour to the gradient.
Using these effects, I've made 21 representations of what Pangaea might look like, if music could be seen. They're loosely based on periods in Earth's development, since the song is about the formation of the World as we know it. It starts with fire, transitions through charred cinders, dirt, water, and grass, and ends with Pangaea, itself: a combination of all of the above. The final cels look somewhat like a blurry landscape: water on the bottom, grass in the centre, the sky on top.
The cels change in synchronisation with the chords. Each time a new chord is heard, a different cel displays... well, almost each time. I rather ran out of visuals, so I had to stretch a few out a couple of chords. Speaking as an amateur filmmaker, I tried to create a sort of artificial synesthesia with the visuals, tying them in with the music. However, speaking as a professional composer, I would encourage you to not focus on the visual aspect of the video so much. The colourful stuff is just a formality -- a transmitter, if you like, for Pangaea, the song. It lasts nearly nine minutes, so just defocus and let your mind wander -- that's what one does with meditative songs like this anyway, right?

Now that I've got Pangaea squared away, I should rather like to come up with something else along the same lines. Synthesiser, new age chords (maybe fifths... fifths are good), meditative, long-ish. Something like that. Fortunately, one of the many positive aspects of the Roland Fantom X series is that it contains quite a lengthy list of synthpads... I'm sure I can find something.

In any case, Pangaea is on YouTube right now. It's the huge, great video in the centre of my channel page.
Why not have a look, eh?

Posted by jsebastianperry at 09:39 CDT

Updated: Saturday, 30 July 2011 11:27 CDT

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Okay, so I didn't get back here in time to make good on my promise to explain why I took Freshmen 4 Ever down. It's a long and complex story which really has nothing to do with today's entry, so I'll just say this about it. I had to compress it too much to make it fit into my Tripod account's 20 MB of storage space, making it sound just... not the way I wanted it to. All muddy and difficult to listen to is not how it should sound. Anyway, onto the point for today.

Although I've already mentioned this on Of Carbon and Silicon, I wanted to talk about it again here because some new stuff has come up and this is where I talk about music nowadays.

The Sims is just about the niftiest game of all time. Notice I said "The Sims"... not The Sims 2 or The Sims 3. Why? First, a tale is required...
I played The Sims (or The Sims Classic) for the first time when I was 12. Although the game, itself, was frustrating at first -- "§20,000? That's not enough to build a mansion!" -- I did enjoy making Sims, because A) it's nifty to play God if given the opportunity and B) I liked the neighbourhood music and using Create-a-Sim Mode ad nauseam was more acceptable to me than just leaving the game running to listen to the score. It wasn't until I really started to pay more attention to music in high school that I did some research into the game's musical score. The majority of it was written by Jerry Martin, Marc Russo, and Robi Kauker. Further, it wasn't until I discovered my ability to improvise on the piano that I discovered the Build Mode piano solos were improvised. Finally, it wasn't until I started to do research for my side-project, The Mind's Rubbish Bin (a compendium of largely worthless information to clutter one's brain) that I discovered the precise reason why The Sims Classic's score was so different from its sequels.

Ever since Will Wright first approached Broderbund with the idea for a people simulator in 1990, no one thought it would work. In fact, Broderbund didn't like the idea, either... hence why it wasn't released until 2000. For that matter, Electronic Arts needed some convincing as well. They greenlit development of Wright's people simulator in 1997, fully anticipating market failure, just like the majority of the other simulators Maxis had been making since the advent of SimCity in 1989 (ever heard of Streets of SimCity, SimAnt, SimTower? No? Of course not, because they weren't particularly popular). EA's trepidation showed through in the project... critics had noted, upon the game's release, that even for computers of the time, The Sims AI was not as advanced as it should have been. This was mainly EA trying to save as much money as possible on a game they were convinced would fail. This modus operandi also explains the distinctiveness of the game's music. Most of the music and sound crew had worked on Maxis games in the past -- Jerry Martin and Robi Kauker had worked on SimCopter. Marc Russo got into the project because of his working relationship with Jerry Martin. Russo almost singlehandedly composed the entire neighbourhood score, with which I had been so enamoured when I first played The Sims.

The surprise success of The Sims led EA to spend quite a bit more money on development of The Sims 2, which included the musical score. Rather than hiring back Jerry Martin with his extensive connections with live orchestras and soloists, they chose to hire TV and film composing team Mutato Muzika (headed by Mark and Bob Mothersbaugh, ex-Devo)... for some reason, even though most of the team worked on the game's score, only Mark Mothersbaugh is given in-game credit.
In The Sims 2, the stereo object came into play. More significant was it in The Sims 2 than it ever was in The Sims Classic. Fundamentally, the stereo is an object in the Electronics category of Buy Mode. It plays music from one of several available "stations" (really, folders in the game's Music directory). The user can have their Sim activate it, change songs, change stations, dance to the music being played, and deactivate it. At first, EA hired local bands who, whilst not being household names, did have a number of posters stuck to bulletin boards and lampposts around L.A. Then, around the time the Nightlife expansion pack was released, Rod Humble was made vice-president of EA's new The Sims division (created from EA's own development studios and bits of what used to be Maxis) and was authorised to, in effect, "spend money to make money". Under Humble's Sims division, the stereo object began to feature "Simlish" renditions of popular radio songs, done by the artists who originally recorded them. Suddenly, recognisable names began showing up in the music menu... Skye Sweetnam, Natasha Bedingfield, The Pussycat Dolls, among others (and also male artists).

Now, here comes The Sims 3 in 2009. When it finally gets released, after being held back for what EA CEO, John Riccitiello, called "publicity reasons", I find that the game has started out with the background score taking a backseat to the big-name artists they have doing the "music" for the stereo object.

Allow me to reiterate the functions of the stereo in The Sims series... it is a furnishing object found in the Electronics category of Buy Mode. Once placed into a Sim's home the user can direct their Sim to activate it, change songs, change stations, dance to the music being played, and deactivate it. These options haven't changed since The Sims Classic. They're not likely to change in the future... really, what else can one do with a stereo? Apart from throwing it out a window, not much... nothing that would make a great deal of difference in The Sims, anyway.

Although I understand the capitalist viewpoint that you need to spend money to make money, I rather think EA have placed their priorities in the wrong area. Whilst I do like to see music, as a concept, get more recognition from the videogame industry, I don't like to see it being exploited for purposes of profit. As a composer, however, I find this emphasis on big-name artists to be a proverbial slap in the face. Not just to me, but to the music staff of The Sims Classic and, really, Steve Jablonsky, himself (the game's composer). Real composers, who slave over musical scores, day in and day out, until they get every note just right can't help but be insulted when a game designer calls for an unassuming underscore that won't outshine their all-star lineup of radio songwriters -- people who rarely if ever compose their own music or lyrics. The typical record label nowadays has a staff of composers and lyricists who write the material for which credit is usurped by some so-called "artist". The only art involved in radio songs is the art of the swindle.

Why does a stereo object in the fantastical world of The Sims, where money grows on trees and aging can stop long enough for one to become a police chief and a criminal mastermind, need to contain songs by actual, real-world people? There's a thing called the suspension of disbelief. Essentially, suspension of disbelief is the subtle science of fooling people into believing that what they are seeing is real (you, personally, are frequently under the suspension of disbelief, simply by playing games and watching television). This kind of mental trickery was present in The Sims Classic, thanks to the completely original stereo songs composed by Robi Kauker. The fact that Sims have different music than we do rounded out the illusion of the microcosm -- a miniature society with its own taste in music. Perhaps the singer says "glargo" here because to say "flardo" would be profane.
If the real world enters the microcosm too far, then the suspension is dissolved and the illusion starts to encroach into the uncanny valley. You begin to realise that these are electronically-created automatons that strive to look and act as humanlike as technologically possible.
I don't claim to be an expert on the mental processes, but to say that music is a huge part of this process would be a drastic understatement. There are no words that can sufficiently describe the effects that music has on the human psyche. Since music is purely auditory, it tends to carry more of an emotional response than something that is seen. A prime example of this is silent films. Since the movie, itself, has no audio of any kind, a piano or organ score was packaged with the film for a musician to play in synchronisation with playback. The sole purpose for this was that filmmakers discovered very early on that music plays a sizeable part in human emotion and, since they had no means of recording a musical score to play along with the film, they required a more hands-on approach, involving local musicians to play the film's score live.
Need more proof? Try playing a videogame with the music off -- not a simulator, but a game with a plot. Perhaps, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. Mute the sound before you enter a dungeon. Are you as edgy as you would be with the sound enabled?

If EA continues down this path, I predict that the fourth installment of The Sims will contain no background score at all, with the big names completely taking over the soundtrack. The microcosm illusion will disappear entirely, making players realise that Sims aren't real, which will decimate the game's appeal. Those who do not completely abandon the series will begin to look to the past and see precisely where EA made their fatal mistake. The musical score.

At this juncture, I would like to shamelessly point out that I am always available at low rates... not that money is much of an issue for EA anymore. Plus, I've been improvising Sims Classic-like piano solos ever since I discovered the key of C7. It's one of the precipitating factors which led me to become a composer (one of several others, but this one more so than most).

Imagine if The Sims 4 got back to basics, being just an enhanced version of The Sims Classic... in gameplay and in music. I ask you... would this song not work in Build Mode?
If The Walls Could Talk
Of course, this is a bit more... shall we say, saccharine than others that I have devised, but it's the shortest one, which is good when you only have 20 MB of storage space on a server.

If nothing else, think on the science of music for a bit.

Posted by jsebastianperry at 13:00 CDT

Updated: Saturday, 30 July 2011 11:26 CDT

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A couple of days ago, I was rummaging about in my composing folder on my computer, looking for an NWC I thought I saved somewhere and it turned out I saved it somewhere completely different. Anyway, I came across a folder of improvs I did in the latter half of the last decade. These were mostly based on existing scores by other composers -- Koji Kondo being the most present. What purpose these were supposed to have served, I really can't recall -- the most recent one was from February of 2009... that's five months pre-Utopia! Given the folder they were in, "resume" (like, something you submit alongside a job application), I can only suspect that I was trying to make people think I was a better composer by messing with the work of others.
It was kind of weird, listening to all of those again. I probably thought they were really nifty back in the day, but now that I've published three albums, they all sound so completely simplistic. There was one point at which I thought that the new age genre was like modern art... throw something together in five minutes and call it symbolic. It really isn't, and I know that now. One of the original improvs I found was called "Arachnophobia", which consisted of me banging on random piano keys for a minute and ten seconds.

But, there was some stuff in there that I still think is nifty. For example...
Grotto/Cave Theme (Zelda: Ocarina of Time)
This one actually got some airtime on my old radio programme (maybe you heard of And Now for Something Completely Different on KZUM 89.3? No? Well, never mind, then).
As the title implies, this was based on a song from The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time on Nintendo 64 (and, soon, Nintendo 3DS). The first opportunity the player has to hear the official version of this song is in the first dungeon, "Inside the Great Deku Tree". I liked how it's in an irregular key (C7), and generally how new age it sounds... somewhat out of place in a Zelda game, some would argue.
I recorded this improv before I even had my Fantom X6... the synth showcased here is the Yamaha PSR290. I got it in 2002 after pestering my mother for a new synthesiser (something to replace the PSS480 and to use in tandem with the YPP50). I still have it, though it gets very little use nowadays... mostly, it just sits under a towel/dust-cover, waiting to be used again.

One thing you've probably noticed about the music file at this point is that it's fairly low-quality. This is less about copyright and more about space... the original, uncompressed file weighs about 1.5 MB, and we just can't have that.
Otherwise, I can't remember the exact voices I used here, but I suspect it was the default grand piano and the first XG synth-strings voice one encounters whilst scrolling upward.

Next time, I will explain why Freshmen 4 Ever has been taken down.

Posted by jsebastianperry at 01:07 CDT

Updated: Saturday, 30 July 2011 11:25 CDT

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Remember back to the early 1990s (if you can, that is) -- there was a really nifty line of action figures called the Incredible Crash Dummies. They were, unfortunately, discontinued in the US in 1995 and Europe in 2001. However, they stuck around long enough to justify the production of a 21-minute-long Incredible Crash Dummies cartoon, rendered entirely in CGI (the character models came from the television advertisements).
Without re-writing my webpage on this subject, the Crash Dummies were an integral part of my childhood. In fact, Jim Morgan's theme to the pilot Crash Dummies episode was a key factor in my deciding to become composer.

However, even though 1993 seems very recent to me, it actually hasn't been 1993 for 18 years! Eighteen! Someone born on the day that The Incredible Crash Dummies aired will graduate from high-school this year! The line of action figures, though, is a bit older. It will turn 20 in, I think, November.
So, rather than let this momentous occasion pass unnoticed, I decided to use my Game Maker to make a Crash Dummies adventure game. Whilst the game, itself, is not finished (I'm likely to put it up on my other website when it is), I have finished with the overworld theme. And, to commemorate the niftiest line of toys since ROB, I've decided to post the theme's MIDI here.
The Junkyard

The game's title is Spin's Junkyard Adventure. As the name implies, it involves Spin exploring the Junkyard (where I always imagined that Junkman's lair was) in order to find all of Slick's parts. The Junkyard is one-half of the game's entire soundtrack (thus far, anyway) -- it plays during gameplay.

The song is based on Koji Kondo's principle that a level's background score should reflect the type of adventure the player-character is likely to find there. It's only a minute long, meaning that it can make two or three complete loops by the time the player finishes the level. Since it's likely to loop many times by the end of the game, I made sure that it wouldn't get terribly irritating. A lot of upstart Flash game composers make the mistake of writing short songs for long levels which include many of the standard MIDI sins -- putting a saw-wave in the melody line, trying to make the GM1 Distortion Guitar sound like its real-world counterpart (lots of slides and vibrato), and using a two-measure drum loop, for example.
I don't know the exact genre into which The Junkyard fits, but I used no synth-lead or synth-pad sounds at all, just the pseudo-acoustic ones. Plus, the chord on which the song is built, C-minor 6 (notated "Cm6") suggests neither the major key ("happy") nor the minor key ("sad"), but rather a sort of stealthy, misterioso situation.
The melody isn't really based on anything but the chosen chord. I suppose that parallels could be found between it and Morgan's Crash Dummies theme if one looks hard enough, but no reference was intended.
Also, the song is intended to loop ad infinitum.

I may, in the future, expand on this song to make it longer and more complex, but for the moment, I think it serves its purpose as a game underscore.

I appreciate feedback, also. So, if you liked it, didn't like it, think you can make it better, what-have-you, don't hesitate to post a comment.

Merci beaucoup. Rétournez a demain, peut-être.

Posted by jsebastianperry at 08:32 CST

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First, I should acknowledge that this is the first entry here on The Thirty-Second Note. I know I have two blogs already on another website, but I decided that I needed one specifically for music-related stuff -- especially since I may be headed back to college for formal training in music theory and will probably be writing a great deal of music as a result. Since I like to write about stuff, this will be the place to read about really nifty music (gangsta-rap, hip-hop, and R&B excluded).

Okay, then -- on with today's entry.
I've recently been inspired to upload a new song to YouTube, entitled Pangaea. This is an unabashedly new age meditation piece made entirely with the Fantom X. Here's a bit of it...
Pangaea (sample version)

The entire piece is actually nearly nine minutes in length.
Its semi-choral melodic line is reminiscent of something from SimCity 4 God Mode and its windchimes are similar to Koji Kondo's Water Temple theme from The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. Although "magnum opus" is not necessarily the term I would use to describe Pangaea, I do consider it to be one of my better works.

"So, what's the problem, then?" you may ask, "Why isn't this on YouTube yet?"

When I listen to the song, I see Earth as it was in the Precambrian period -- the first plants are starting to sprout, the first reptile stops swimming and starts walking (sorry, creationists), and all of what are now called "continents" are all starting the billion-year trek to their current locations. The air and water are pristine, the land has a few plants and stray boulders about but is otherwise totally empty. Everything is new and completely unprecedented -- just a few thousand short years prior, the Earth was little more than a ball of lava floating in space. Now, though, it's a verdant utopia for upstart lifeforms.

If I were to stick a title onto it and toss it onto YouTube right now, that symbolism would be lost, which would make the song less effective.  See, I can envision what the accompanying video would look like, with dynamic CGI views of Pangaea, itself, drifting apart. However, with my level of expertise in computer animation (which is animating a videogame sprite with stop-motion), I could never hope to achieve it.
The main reason why Pangaea isn't on YouTube right now is that I'm trying to come up with an alternative to the CGI planet thing. I've considered paintings, Microsoft Office 2010 gradient effects, stop-motion, and photo montages, but nothing seems as though it would work. I really don't want to have the song play behind a title screen for 8.75 minutes -- that's just a Windows Movie Maker cop-out if you ask me.

Thank you for reading my first TSN entry. Visit frequently or subscribe to the RSS feed to find new entries as they are posted.

Posted by jsebastianperry at 02:00 CST

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