Goodbye 2021

Can you tell I just got a volume pedal and needed an excuse to use it?

The most exciting music theory part of this tune is the phrase structure. I'd been wanting to write a song with three-bar phrases for a while, and this is the song that resulted. Originally, the plan was just to have three bars of ambiance at the beginning of the tune so that the actual start would be surprising. However, as I wrote the tune, I decided to make the main riff three bars long as well.

In hindsight, I'm not happy with the mix on this track. I think I cut too much low end out, and if I ever revisit this track I bet I'll overcompensate and drown it in bass. Dear future me: please don't do that.

All in all, my favorite part of this tune is the verse riff and melody.

The guitars used in this track:

1. Rhythm guitars were my Fender Telecaster Deluxe and Epiphone Les Paul Standard, both on the bridge pickup.
2. Lead guitar was played my Fender Telecaster Deluxe.
3. Squier Affinity Jazz Bass, as always.

Alilgnment

This track was mostly done in LMMS, which has been my fix for electronic music sounds ever since I started making music. Something new that I've started enjoying, though, are the ZynAddSubFX presets. I'm not super interested in making my own patches, so it's awesome to have so many useful sounds ready to plug in and play, so-to-speak. In Alignment, the Rhodes Space2 preset features as the main arpeggio and chordal sound, while my own BitInvader patch holds down the low end.

I think with this track I have officially done quartal harmony to death. It's my go-to for a static, almost-minor sound for a reason, but I tend to gravitate to the same patterns every time I go quartal. I'll give myself a pass because I like this tune, but next time I'm likely to go quintal or modal. I liked the pairing of the quartal harmony with a whole tone scale bassline, despite the fact that there are no perfect fourths in the whole tone scale. In that way, you could see the bassline from this track as a continuation of the ideas in my Whole Tone Power Chords video from way back.

Drum sounds come courtesy of my high school drumset samples, and a couple LMMS built in samples as well. The guitar swells and solo were done on my Fender Telecaster Deluxe.

Insistence

Insistence is another track that seeks to unite my electronic and instrumental music processes into one sound. For years, I used to think of my electronic music as a fun side project that didn't have much to do with my guitar playing. Sure, there was some overlap, but I had very much separated the two musical approaches. That started to change in my Music Technology class, where some of the assignments forced me to combine MIDI and audio tracks in one project. Since then, my electronic production and guitar playing have converged, and this track is a good example.

Another idea that I thought about as I worked on this track was the role of the drumset in my music. It's extremely easy to program up a cool sounding drum beat with generic fills, play some guitar over it, and stop there. Of course, rock beats have their place. I'm a guitar player, there's no way I'm going to ever give up my beloved rock-n-roll backbeat. However, the drumset can do more. Writing the drums with the other parts in mind opens up a new world of possibilities. When the guitar solo comes in, though, it's all rock-n-roll.

I started this track off in LMMS to write the synths parts, so that I could then export the MIDI into MuseScore to write the drum parts. Nearly all of the synth parts were doubled on guitar, and on this track I mostly used my Epiphone Les Paul standard. I also used the default MuseScore piano sound to fill out the track. As I work on creating a cohesive blend of multiple styles of music, I've found that doubling parts between live instruments, programmed synths, and even a touch of generic MIDI piano all blend to create that sound I wanted. It's not a synth backing track with a genre-blind guitar solo on top anymore. It's a track written from the ground up with all of the physical musical instruments and electronic plugins contributing their strengths in service of a whole. These principles have guided my experimentation over this past year, and I think it's been the most exciting part of making music for me lately.

To summarize:

1. The synths were programmed first in LMMS, including melodies, harmonies, and a bassline.
2. Drums were written in MuseScore with the MIDI output from LMMS as a reference, so that the drum part could compliment the synth parts as best as possible.
3. At the same time, the MIDI piano from MuseScore was exported so I could mix it in for color.
4. The synth parts were doubled on guitar, with a few lead parts added as my ear guided me. 
5. Guitar solo out, because improvisation is another great way to make music come alive.

Onyx

This tune turns my usual method on its head a little bit. Okay, the guitar lead and rock feel aren't at all unusual for me, but the rest of the production was different compared to what I'd been doing lately.

First up, the drums were done in LMMS. It's the easiest way for me to experiment with different samples and have better control over dynamics, but fills are less convenient and it's a total pain in the rear to depart from the 16th note grid. That limitation didn't really hold me back here, as I was really just interested in putting together some loops quickly so I could play guitar.

I lifted the bassline from the A section of I Got Rhythm. It has just the right amount of swagger for this tune, while being tonally ambiguous enough to work in minor without alterations. I used my normal bass signal chain, which is Reaper's built in amp simulator and a ton of compression.

The synth was a last-minute addition that wound up, in my mind, stealing the show a little bit. It's a simple patch I threw together in ReaSynth, but it gets the job done and provides a break from the onslaught of guitar shredding. 

Aside from that, there's not much to it. Just a lot of notes, a wah pedal, and way too much distortion (which is the correct amount, of course). I got to bust out the automation feature I never use in Reaper in order to do the sweep panning of the tapping part, but other than that it was a fairly normal production for me. Onyx will probably go down as my grooviest tune of the year.