Ding ding. That's the sound of my lyric writing machine being switched on. It's worked out alright in the end.
I've set it up so that you tap a word into a box, hit a button, then it goes off and tries to write a song about that subject.
The way it works:
It looks up the subject you typed in on Wikipedia. It grabs all the words from the main page about that subject on Wikipedia (so if your subject isn't on wikipedia it won't work).
It then ranks the words based on how many times they appear on the page, and lists them in reverse order of popularity (meaning you don't get a list consisting of "if", "and", "or" etc. which wouldn't be very inspiring. I'm pleased with it but will work on a follow up version which has a stab at sentence structure.
iLyricise: http://tinyurl.com/asjhxz
I've really enjoyed being involved with Record Time this time around and will definitely compose some music next time round. Now I'm off to finish off my track for Superheroes of Space.
Saturday, February 28, 2009
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Days 3 and 4?
A lot has happened in the past few days.
I finished writing my music. I wrote 6 songs, and hit 32 minutes. Then, I decided to do something drastic: I cut one of the songs! I'm back down to 25 minutes, but I don't care...the 5 I have are fantastic, and I didn't want a mediocre 6th song dragging the album down. Also, I kinda like the idea of having 5 songs...this CD will be sort of the evil twin brother to my Mass album, which also had 5 songs.
I did bass and keys today...now I've got everything done but lyrics/vocals. I don't know what they're about yet, but I think I know the album title, and I have a song called Cherry Blossoms and a song called Super Dude.
Not to toot my own horn or anything, but this album sounds almost too good. The compression on the drums just makes this whole thing absolutely rip. It is teeth-shatteringly heavy. I think with this one I have pushed my MBox 2 to the limit...I'm going to go ahead and say this is as close as you can get to a big-studio sound with a 2-input, $300 inteface (well, 1 input now, the other one died).
Anyways...I like this one. A lot. I'm pretty excited...but still pretty sick. It's a good thing this album is not a happy one, because the vocal performance you hear may involve a good deal of physical pain.
I finished writing my music. I wrote 6 songs, and hit 32 minutes. Then, I decided to do something drastic: I cut one of the songs! I'm back down to 25 minutes, but I don't care...the 5 I have are fantastic, and I didn't want a mediocre 6th song dragging the album down. Also, I kinda like the idea of having 5 songs...this CD will be sort of the evil twin brother to my Mass album, which also had 5 songs.
I did bass and keys today...now I've got everything done but lyrics/vocals. I don't know what they're about yet, but I think I know the album title, and I have a song called Cherry Blossoms and a song called Super Dude.
Not to toot my own horn or anything, but this album sounds almost too good. The compression on the drums just makes this whole thing absolutely rip. It is teeth-shatteringly heavy. I think with this one I have pushed my MBox 2 to the limit...I'm going to go ahead and say this is as close as you can get to a big-studio sound with a 2-input, $300 inteface (well, 1 input now, the other one died).
Anyways...I like this one. A lot. I'm pretty excited...but still pretty sick. It's a good thing this album is not a happy one, because the vocal performance you hear may involve a good deal of physical pain.
Pipes and Dappers
Well my automatic lyric generating project is sending me off in all sorts of directions. I may end up just scrawling down the full concept onto a piece of paper, scanning it in and uploading it. There's now way I can work out how to do the stuff I've been thinking of. In the meantime here's a Yahoo Pipe which outputs words selected from a random article on Wikipedia whilst ignoring common boring words, and, amongst other things, any word with "a" in. The list of words seems to refresh every 5 minutes.I've taken the link away as it linked to an old broken version of iLyricise which I've now deleted.
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Day 4.
I hope to finish alot of my work Thursday. I'll finish layering some tracks so my friend will be ready to sing a little jazz tune with the lyrics she wrote. After that, i'm hoping to finish a little instrumental piece I composed.
Day... 3?
All I have is the three songs I wrote like last week.
I have some "lyrics" written down... don't know if I'll actually turn them into a song, or spoken word, or just keep it as written poetry.
I'm kinda screwed this weekend because I'm going back home to Chicago from Friday until Sunday, sooo I don't really have any way to work on my music. Well, that's a lie. I suppose I can mess around on my piano and see what happens.
I'm supposed to collaborate via internet on a few songs with a friend of mine, so I hope he sends me his guitar tunage soon.
I also gave my hip-hop-ish song to this dude in my sound design class to see if he would lay down some sweet percussion beats for me, and he liked it... so that's a start!
I have some "lyrics" written down... don't know if I'll actually turn them into a song, or spoken word, or just keep it as written poetry.
I'm kinda screwed this weekend because I'm going back home to Chicago from Friday until Sunday, sooo I don't really have any way to work on my music. Well, that's a lie. I suppose I can mess around on my piano and see what happens.
I'm supposed to collaborate via internet on a few songs with a friend of mine, so I hope he sends me his guitar tunage soon.
I also gave my hip-hop-ish song to this dude in my sound design class to see if he would lay down some sweet percussion beats for me, and he liked it... so that's a start!
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Red, the color of the POD. Black, the color of despair!
Not much to say about day 2...I've got 2 more songs, and I'm up to 22 minutes* of music.
*I generally write all the music in 3 days, and spend 4 days layering instruments and writing lyrics.
I think this CD will be alright after all. I did a strange little power-metal song with a middle-eastern vibe, and then I did a slowish song that will probably be the end of the CD.
Today was pretty relaxed overall...I even finished the day's recording with enough time to watch a little Firefly (hasn't quite lived up to the hype yet...but it very well could).
This is the first time I haven't named the album before writing anything. I don't know what the cover will look like, or what the lyrics will be about, but I'm getting a lot of red and black from the music. Of course, all of the color usually comes from the keyboards, at least in my music, and those won't be in for another few days. So we shall see!
*I generally write all the music in 3 days, and spend 4 days layering instruments and writing lyrics.
I think this CD will be alright after all. I did a strange little power-metal song with a middle-eastern vibe, and then I did a slowish song that will probably be the end of the CD.
Today was pretty relaxed overall...I even finished the day's recording with enough time to watch a little Firefly (hasn't quite lived up to the hype yet...but it very well could).
This is the first time I haven't named the album before writing anything. I don't know what the cover will look like, or what the lyrics will be about, but I'm getting a lot of red and black from the music. Of course, all of the color usually comes from the keyboards, at least in my music, and those won't be in for another few days. So we shall see!
News!
http://media.www.bsudailynews.com/media/storage/paper849/news/2009/02/24/News/Record.Time.Iv.Challenges.Musicians-3645349.shtml
Monday, February 23, 2009
Dia numero...uno?
I'm done with recording for the day...I'm stopping at 10 minutes of music, which I think is good considering I didn't get to start until 7 pm.
I think I have a good idea of what this album will sound like. The inspiration seems to be coming from the eastern hemisphere: I've got a long song based around a strange little Japanese-ish melody, and a shorter song that sounds like some kind of dark Eastern European wedding music. Oh, and they're both pretty darn heavy.
I should point out that I seem to be sick. I had to do an intense bit of singing last week, and my throat has not been happy since. It had better clear up before Friday or Saturday (when I usually do vocals), or I will be very upset. I don't want to release an album without vocals.
I think I'm going to stick with the Eastern-hemisphere thing. What's are some good Asian/European musical styles I can hit? I need suggestions. No idea what will come out of tomorrow.
I think I have a good idea of what this album will sound like. The inspiration seems to be coming from the eastern hemisphere: I've got a long song based around a strange little Japanese-ish melody, and a shorter song that sounds like some kind of dark Eastern European wedding music. Oh, and they're both pretty darn heavy.
I should point out that I seem to be sick. I had to do an intense bit of singing last week, and my throat has not been happy since. It had better clear up before Friday or Saturday (when I usually do vocals), or I will be very upset. I don't want to release an album without vocals.
I think I'm going to stick with the Eastern-hemisphere thing. What's are some good Asian/European musical styles I can hit? I need suggestions. No idea what will come out of tomorrow.
Going Bananas!
Hello friends,
Is a second post appropriate so soon? Maybe not, but it just felt right.
Day one is essentially done for me, as i will be spending the remaining 4 hours of this 24 hour cycle in the library behind the reference desk (my place of employment). I thought I would report on the day for this half of the Banana Team. Got one song written, I'm hoping to program drums tonight and retrieve my pedals tomorrow to lay final tracks down. Things are going much better than we had anticipated already!
Some Record Time trivia: for all who are interested (and hadn't noticed already), the acronym for our group name (TBOBT) is a palindrome. cheers.
Is a second post appropriate so soon? Maybe not, but it just felt right.
Day one is essentially done for me, as i will be spending the remaining 4 hours of this 24 hour cycle in the library behind the reference desk (my place of employment). I thought I would report on the day for this half of the Banana Team. Got one song written, I'm hoping to program drums tonight and retrieve my pedals tomorrow to lay final tracks down. Things are going much better than we had anticipated already!
Some Record Time trivia: for all who are interested (and hadn't noticed already), the acronym for our group name (TBOBT) is a palindrome. cheers.
THE ZONE
I always have to do a shot of heroin and a line of cocaine every time I initiate a song.
and if that doesnt' help me, I guess I crank up the tunes of The Carpenters and Bad Brains.
Maybe that works...
Thanks, brain...
I've been working intermittently on chorus and getting my brain in "the zone". Unfortunately, I don't have control over when this happens. I came up with a really cool song, at least two verses worth, and wrote out the words. The trouble?
IT WAS ALL A DREAM.
And now that I've woken up, all I know is that it had something to do with the rain. And apples.
iLyricise
Barney here from Cambridge UK. First time at Record Time, and I'm not writing music for it. I've decided instead, to use the week to learn how to create an online gadget which helps people randomly write songs. Could be useful for further speed composition projects. I've decided to try and build it as a Google gadget but haven't got a clue about them so have spent my first hours of record time learning. So far I've created a Google Gadget which if you add it to your iGoogle page, brings up some text. Astonishing. It's like the dawn of the web all over again. My aim tomorrow will be to see how I can get the gadget to trawl through copyright free text material online and pull it in somewhere, munge it around then spit it out again. I'm not sure what I'll have by the end of the week but there's a good chance my brain will be fried. I'll call the application iLyricise on account of not having enough time to think of anything better. If you want to add it to see how it progresses here's a link.
Sunday, February 22, 2009
Hopeful
This is Mike, from the Backwards Oscillating Banana Team (myself and Eric Putnam). I hope this Record Time works out well for me. Much like Dan was saying, I have been writing and recording a lot of music as of the past few years, and these Record Time competitions have really built up my writing and recording chops. After spending the past few years writing music by myself, I am hoping that by collaborating with Eric I can grow as a musician, and learn to play better with others as well.
As of right now, there is 2 hours and 8 minutes left until RT4 starts. I think I will try to come up with something before I go to sleep tonight...
Good luck, everybody!
Mike Weber
Saturday, February 21, 2009
Nervous
Dan here. I am very glad to see this blog being used already!
Friends, I am very nervous about this semester's Record Time event. I've spent the last 5 or 6 years developing my songwriting and recording skills, all the while having a very good idea of what I wanted to sound like. Astonishingly, I think with my last Record Time album, "Mass in C Major," I finally hit that mark. So I've been really looking forward to RT4 because, well...I'm not sure what I should do next.
I haven't written anything yet, of course, but I have made some preparations that probably hint at the direction of this record. First of all, I built a new drumkit with Battery 3, and it is designed to bring THE HEAVY. Second, I realized that all this time, I was not compressing my drum track whatsoever...a bad move that clearly does not help to bring said heavy. Third, I designed a new guitar patch on my POD XT, with an amp model not subtly called "L6 SMASH." This will be my guitar sound on the record, and will also help to (all together now) bring the heavy. In conclusion, this album shall bring the heavy, and will sound "like an ocean liner being dragged over concrete," to quote Martin Hagstrom of Meshuggah.
And on top of all that, I've done something drastic! I've made the switch from the beautiful Open C tuning (CGCGCE, my tuning for the last 4 years) to the demonic Open C Minor (CGCGCEb)!
Of course, no album of mine would be complete without 6-part vocal harmonies, glockenspiel, and extremely sudden and frustrating stylistic changes every minute or two. Don't worry, I haven't changed that much!
Friends, I am very nervous about this semester's Record Time event. I've spent the last 5 or 6 years developing my songwriting and recording skills, all the while having a very good idea of what I wanted to sound like. Astonishingly, I think with my last Record Time album, "Mass in C Major," I finally hit that mark. So I've been really looking forward to RT4 because, well...I'm not sure what I should do next.
I haven't written anything yet, of course, but I have made some preparations that probably hint at the direction of this record. First of all, I built a new drumkit with Battery 3, and it is designed to bring THE HEAVY. Second, I realized that all this time, I was not compressing my drum track whatsoever...a bad move that clearly does not help to bring said heavy. Third, I designed a new guitar patch on my POD XT, with an amp model not subtly called "L6 SMASH." This will be my guitar sound on the record, and will also help to (all together now) bring the heavy. In conclusion, this album shall bring the heavy, and will sound "like an ocean liner being dragged over concrete," to quote Martin Hagstrom of Meshuggah.
And on top of all that, I've done something drastic! I've made the switch from the beautiful Open C tuning (CGCGCE, my tuning for the last 4 years) to the demonic Open C Minor (CGCGCEb)!
Of course, no album of mine would be complete without 6-part vocal harmonies, glockenspiel, and extremely sudden and frustrating stylistic changes every minute or two. Don't worry, I haven't changed that much!
The Backwards Oscillating Banana Team
Last semester was my first completed contribution to Record Time. In Record Times past I would get several fragments, sometimes almost whole songs together but nothing would really come of them by the time the due date arrived.
You may have heard my bass stylin's and the fast hands of nathan shew on our debut single "Mexico on Mars". This time (Record Time IV), I'll be collaborating with Mike Weber on some whatever music. We're hoping we can shell out some good songage to use with a new project we're working on outside of Record Time (which is yet to be named, but temporarily using the monacre "the backwards oscillating banana team").
I'm really looking forward to working with mike, drinking tea, and hearing everyone's music again. The way that this thing brings people together and generates hours of original art just blows my mind.
-eric
You may have heard my bass stylin's and the fast hands of nathan shew on our debut single "Mexico on Mars". This time (Record Time IV), I'll be collaborating with Mike Weber on some whatever music. We're hoping we can shell out some good songage to use with a new project we're working on outside of Record Time (which is yet to be named, but temporarily using the monacre "the backwards oscillating banana team").
I'm really looking forward to working with mike, drinking tea, and hearing everyone's music again. The way that this thing brings people together and generates hours of original art just blows my mind.
-eric
Taking a stab at this thing for real.
I participated in RT3 last semester, and totally cheated because I didn't create new music-- though I did record and submit music I had written a while ago.
This time I'm actually creating new stuff! Its fun, but difficult (for me at least). I think the easy part is coming up with a melody I like (and the lyrics, which I never really like). The hard part is recording multiple layers with harmonies and adding instruments.
I have also started working on my new music already. I mean, if I get an idea for a song, I can't just put it aside and wait til the ACTUAL RT week to record, otherwise I'd forget it.
So far, I have three new songs in the works... all REALLY different. Its kind of fun to see what I come up with... you people are going to think I have a serious case of ADD. ^_^
One song is A Capella (with tiny bit of piano), the other song I think I'm just going to keep as a piano composition, and the third is sort of a hip-hop-ish ditty with some sweet ass background "instruments" (thanks to the sound kit on my keyboard).
I highly doubt I'm going to do more than these three. I'm already so sick of working on the songs with lyrics, but I think I'll leave them alone for a couple days and go back to them to see what I can improve.
I look forward to hearing/seeing everyone's work again! :)
This time I'm actually creating new stuff! Its fun, but difficult (for me at least). I think the easy part is coming up with a melody I like (and the lyrics, which I never really like). The hard part is recording multiple layers with harmonies and adding instruments.
I have also started working on my new music already. I mean, if I get an idea for a song, I can't just put it aside and wait til the ACTUAL RT week to record, otherwise I'd forget it.
So far, I have three new songs in the works... all REALLY different. Its kind of fun to see what I come up with... you people are going to think I have a serious case of ADD. ^_^
One song is A Capella (with tiny bit of piano), the other song I think I'm just going to keep as a piano composition, and the third is sort of a hip-hop-ish ditty with some sweet ass background "instruments" (thanks to the sound kit on my keyboard).
I highly doubt I'm going to do more than these three. I'm already so sick of working on the songs with lyrics, but I think I'll leave them alone for a couple days and go back to them to see what I can improve.
I look forward to hearing/seeing everyone's work again! :)
FIRST
I guess I'll write first because I'm a cheater and starting early on this project. I have all intention of playing fairly, but my time schedule is a little skewed. At any rate, I'm really excited to be finally participating in Record Time. I think I knew about Record Time II, and I definitely had the intention of participating in Record Time III, but school projects absorbed most of my attention/creativity.
At any rate, I've had plenty of time to think about my album. I was a sullen, mopey little brat in high school, therefore I had ample lyrical fodder for topics such as heartbreak, out-of-mind boredom, and self-loathing. Don't worry, this album won't be filled with that bullshit (or at least not a lot).
What I'm trying to convey with my album is the experiences of growing up in a town that may or may not have a lot of growing room. Are you trapped by the place or by the idea of it? Can you shift your life with a shift in perspective?
Damn, that sounds kind of pretentious. I swear I'm not.
Saturday, 1 p.m. Ready, GO!
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