Wasn’t sure how this would end up when I started with urmymuse’s guitar stems. If you think this sounds like a Japanese Anime soundtrack, then I’m glad
Was toying with urmymuse’s guitar stems. Managed to record a decent sounding lead guitar part for the chorus (which is what you hear in the track) but after that I couldn’t work out an opening guitar melody. So I headed over to Freesound.org for ideas. Found hanstimm’s “This is a strange town” spoken Japanese recording. Learned from one comment that the words meant “I’m looking at a strange town” and that inspired the title. morgantj’s track and yewbic’s Freesound sample completed the picture.
Here’s one interpretation of this song: A son and his father is grappling with the loss of their mother/ wife. She has just passed away (due to illness or old age, it’s up to you to imagine). The son is making arrangements while the father appears to be more distraught and has left the house. You can say they are in denial, or they are looking at the passing of a loved one in perspective.
Dan O-Connor’s instrumental track, “Love Letters” (by Dan O’Connor – Free Music By DanoSongs.com – licensed under a Creative Commons ATTRIBUTION 3.0 US license).
Lyrics:
———————–
It is over now, she is gone to rest;
I have clasped the hands on the quiet breast;
Draw back the curtain, let in the light,
She will never shrink if it be too bright.
If stars were really watching eyes
Of angel armies in the skies,
To keep me from their longed-for day,
I could not feel more far away.
What will he say when he comes in.
Waked by the city’s morning din,
Hoping to find and fearing to know
The sorrow he left but an hour ago?
If stars were really watching eyes
Of angel armies in the skies,
To keep me from their longed-for day,
I could not feel more far away.
He thought to kiss her by morning gray,
But God has thought to take her away.
What will he say ? God knows, not I ;
“Good-night,” he said, but never ” good-bye.”
We were two in here but an hour gone by.
No streak was then in the midnight sky ;
Now I am one to watch the day
Come glimmering up from the far-away.
If stars were really watching eyes
Of angel armies in the skies,
To keep me from their longed-for day,
I could not feel more far away.
I could not feel more far away.
I could not feel more far away.
I could not feel more far away.
***
WORDS ORIGINALLY FROM: “CAELl” by Francis William Bourdillon. & “GOOD-NIGHT” by Christina Catherine Fraser Tytler.
The mixing can be better. So can my vocals. But I tried my best. I’ve uploaded 3 versions, with version 1.3 being the latest (was trying out the Normalisation/ Compression/ Amplify settings in Audacity and some new plugins, like this one).
I would love to hear what you think of this track. Feel free to comment.
I wanted this version to sound opera-like. The mix ended up a bit noisy though. Ah well, that sounds just like love. I dedicate this to my wife. Happy 10th wedding anniversary.
This one is for all the heroes and heroines out there: Firemen, Teachers, Police, Doctors, Nurses, Army buddies, WWII Veterans, ccMixters, Social Workers, Librarians, Wives, Husbands, Mums, Dads.
Download page here. To credit the track, you can copy this block of text:
Recorded and mixed in GarageBand ‘08.
Guitar: Epiphone Les Paul Standard.
Guitar effects: Line 6 Pod Farm.
This is my Pod Farm amp and effects settings:
Imported Scomber’s track to GarageBand. Plugged in my guitar and started jamming to it. Listened to the rough mix and selected the nicer parts for melody and chorus. Practiced a bit more and recorded the rest of the guitars.
Post-recording work included cutting up some parts of the guitar tracks, to quantize it and remove some buzz and noise. Then adjusted the overall sound levels. Which is always a pain.
I came up with some lyrics for the chorus part. They seem quite cheesy but I guess you have to believe in the hero or heroine you have in mind to make the lyrics work:
“They are our heroes
They are our shining beacons
They are our heroes
They seek no fame nor glory
Shine your light
Right down on me
Break our chains
You’ll set us free…”
My attempt at a modern-day reinterpretation of a folk classic. I wanted to preserve the bitter-sweet feel invoked by the original folk tune, with a mix of medieval new age rock. “Alas My Love Greensleeves” by Ivan Chew. 2009 – Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution (3.0). Feel free to copy, share, remix, modify, re-post, as long as you credit to MyRightBrain.wordpress.com.
I deliberately chose to work with fully mixed samples (see this page for details). I ran them through Audacity to change their tempo to a slower BPM (90, in this case). Also applied a “Reverse” for some tracks to play backwards.
Interestingly, by remixing fully mixed tracks that way, I discovered it’s another way to draw inspirations for melodies. When I slow down the tracks, sometimes I hear musical notes that weren’t apparent in the track’s original BPM. Maybe it’s the change in frequencies or something. Or I’m imagining all of it. Whatever the reason, I get ideas for melodies that way and would attempt to create it using another instrument. In this track, the main melody from the flute was created that way.
I opted for a relatively standard pop-rock arrangement. Kept snowflake’s vocals in its original sequence (her vocals are so good they didn’t even need reverb and stuff). Tweaked her piano stems by copying and inserting extra notes here and there. Added an electric guitar track, drums, bass. That was it (as usual, adjusting the sound levels is a pain).
How I did it
Imported Snowflake’s stems to GarageBand (vocals and piano).
Listened to Snowflake’s piano sample for inspiration. There were 5 notes that stood out (which I copied and used as the refrain).
Arranged the song largely according to the original sequence of Snowflake’s vocals. Then added drums and then composed a simple bass track.
For the guitars, I toyed around with some amp sounds (through my Line6 POD Farm). Found this preset called “Stone In Love”. Sounded suitable and settled on using that. Turned out I just needed to play Am and G keys over and over… and Snowflake’s vocals did the rest.
Named this “Circus of Life” because it reminded me of a circus, for some reason. The choice of the percussion? Anyway, the title fits the idea that I’m trying to convey. I would associate this instrumental track with words like “dreams”, “emotions”, “beginning”, “end”, “cycle”, “birth”, “death”, “rebirth”. Not that I’m feeling particularly melancholic or anything. It just IS. 2009 – Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial (3.0)
I first heard colab’s “Piano 3/4” loop in Feb 2009. Those simple-sounding notes and progression (whose simplicity belies a certain sophistication, imho) really connected with me. I parked the loop under my “ccMixter Ideas” playlist for a future remix. A few days ago, in between Secret Remix #6, I worked out something that hopefully captures the poignancy I hear in colab’s piano sample. Serendipitously, I also found _ghost’s 2006 upload, which had the right feel I wanted to create.
The track is subtitled “Thread One” because I’m working on a second version to this. I’m having so much fun with colab’s piano sample.
The title was inspired by a phrase that popped up in DFF’s “Hornet” track. I could be wrong but it sounded like “launching a furious surfer crash”. So I ran with that idea to come up with a techno-style track.
For this Secret Remix assignment, I challenged myself to use only samples from whom I’ve been paired with. In the end I cheated a little bit. Maybe 10% was some generic drum loop from GarageBand. But everything else was sampled from DFF’s uploads.
I gave myself a few days to go through DFF’s uploads. Started with the 8-bit disco stems, as those had some prominent repeating themes. Then I went through a trial and error process of downloading all the other uploads, running them through Audacity to change the track tempos to 90 BPM. For some tracks, I applied Compression and miscellaneous effects (e.g. reversed the track). Imported the tracks to GarageBand, tried to see where they could fit in, cut and moved the pieces around. Then adjusted the sound levels.
Wasn’t quite sure if I could pull off a decent sounding techno track. But once I got into the remixing groove, I didn’t have time to question my lack of experience and simply enjoyed the process.
I highly recommend the Secret Remix for anyone who wishes to push their own musical boundaries in a non-competitive way.
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Copyright/ Creative Commons
Unless otherwise stated, all works by Ivan Chew is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Singapore License. AS LONG AS YOU ATTRIBUTE MY WORK TO ME (Ivan Chew, MyRightBrain.wordpress.com), you are FREE to COPY, SHARE, MODIFY, or SELL (yes, SELL!) content from this blog. And you do not need to pay me anything from what you do with the content(if you do, I'd be very grateful but that's not really required of the license). Do remember to ATTRIBUTE whatever you use here, to me. For permissions beyond the scope of this license, please contact me via MyRightBrain.wordpress.com or at RamblingLibrarian@gmail.com
Posted by Ivan Chew 
Posted by Ivan Chew 
Posted by Ivan Chew 
