Ambient, Mood & Movie Music

If I should not make it for any reason as a recording artist in my own rite, I would be more than satisfied making music for films or broadcast programs or even commercials. I enjoy writing lyrics and singing even though I find it incredibly difficult to sing on pitch, but I also enjoy creating mood music and letting the instruments do the 'singing.' I am particularly interested in foreboding or suspenseful type music, like the great sounds that can be heard on many if not all the crime drama movies and TV shows of the late 60's through the mid 70's. That stuff is classic. SWAT, Kojak, Mission: Impossible, The Mod Squad, The Mechanic, Death Wish and so many others featured such amazing mood music soundtracks. But I don't want to limit myself to just that era, even the sounds created during that time sets the bar in my opinion.

I have here 2 pieces of original work I created. This first one is more modern sounding and could be used in a variety of applications. It's just a 2 track recording and completely recorded on my Yamaha S90 synthesizer. It could best be described as New Age or Ambient. I'm not sure what other classification I could put this song under. Perhaps Soundtrack. I think Ambient fits best.

This is a short 2 minute piece that I made in 2011. It's different from anything I created up to that point and anything I've done since. It's just a synthesizer track plus a piano track. I call it "Open Sky."




I was going for a simplistic yet foreboding feel. I just completely improvised on the piano part.

This next track has a more 70s feel to it. No wonder with the Wurlitzer and Rhodes electric piano parts! But that's what I was going for. I think it is more than just background music when compared to "Open Sky." It does have more movement to it and a fuller sound thanks to the electric piano parts, electric guitar, electric bass and drumstick beat.

I don't usually start recording any song with drums or percussion but this one did begin with the drumsticks. I was working on another song at the time--probably "Blow Your Mind"--and took a break. I had the vocal mic hooked up to some serious delay and reverb and just started messing around with some drumsticks. I came up with the idea for the cool beat you will hear in this song. I tried playing it in time for about 2 and a half minutes so I could have a decent length recording. After I had that track down I just started layering the other parts on top. The parts on this song were more planned out than on "Open Sky." At least the first half of the song could definitely be used during an on-foot chase or pursuit scene and the second half during some suspenseful or revealing scene. But you listen and decide for yourself.




This is one of my newer projects having been recording just last year in 2012. Would love to make a whole album of just this 70's tinged mood/movie music. The good thing is the songs don't have to be long. They can be 2 minutes and under. Consider this a preview of an album to come then. Perhaps you'll hear this stuff in the theatre or on TV in the near future.

(Edit: I forgot to mention that on 'Coming Apart' there are a few additional percussion instruments I added on there courtesy of my Yamaha S90.)

Homemade Electric Guitar & Bass

My very first amplifier was a mini-amplifier that I purchased from Radio Shack:

This thing was the first step towards 'electrifying' my homemade stringed instruments. This was way back when. I had this game set made out of round aluminum or some other kind of metal that resembled a pizza pan. On one side was a checkerboard design, on the other was a Chinese checkers game board. The 'pan' opened up and stored all the game pieces inside. In essence, when the pan was opened up I had 2 pans. After I had no one left to play the games with, I decided to find a new use for these aluminum pans.

I had these pretty thick and oversized rubber bands that I put around one of the pans. The size of the rubber bands gave nice low tones when plucked--tones similar to that of other stringed bass instruments. But the tones could only be heard if the pan was placed really close to the ears. And needless to say the tiny amp pictured above was not going to reproduce any low frequency sounds. So I had to explore other possibilities for amplification of that instrument.

But what that amp did turn out to be great for was the other pan, which I also put rubber bands around. But these rubber bands were the more typical thin and smaller type. Not good for bass sounds. But good for tenor type stringed instruments!

So I used an old speaker that I pulled out of a broken radio or something as the pickup or microphone. (I used to save old speakers and parts from old radios or tv's or other things that no longer worked). The good thing about using a speaker was that it would lay flat against the back of the pan and remain held in place by the rubber bands. The rubber bands served a dual purpose--the musical notes and keeping the speaker in place. A typical mic would not cooperate as well.

I had wires going from the speaker to a 1/4" plug on the other end for inserting into the mini amp. And when I turned on the amp, VOILA! I now had the sound of amplified rubber bands! It wasn't very musical and it was difficult to get the right tones. But if there was a recording I wanted to make I would mark the rubber bands just where I had 'fret' them in order to get the proper notes. And if I turned the amp up all the way it really sounded like a distorted guitar.

Here is a little recording I made using that set up. Remember, this is before I actually had any real instruments whatsoever. I had no musical training or any lessons. And the recording itself is very old and originally made on very cheap Certron cassette tapes from the 80s and early 90s. This may be as lo-fi as it gets.




There is my rubber band electric guitar! If I can locate the whereabouts of the pans I will gladly photograph them and post on here to give a better idea visually.

I also want to include a snip of how the bass rubber band instrument sounded:




Very hard to get the correct intonation but for me it was super cool and exciting because I got to experiment with sounds and music!

(Doesn't That) Blow Your Mind

I'm going to stop posting my songs in chronological order from here on out. Mainly for 2 reasons: first, like fine wine, my songs/music/recording abilities have improved with time. If I continue to blog about my songs in the order I made them, it's going to take quite some time before I get to my most recent material. Second, 2006 is the year I started working on more than just one song per year. And not having had kept good records of when I recorded my songs at that time, it would be difficult to proceed chronologically.

So today I will begin with my most recently completed song, "(Doesn't That) Blow Your Mind," which I completed in 2012. With this song I was trying my hand at early to mid 70s r&b or soul. Other than most of my vocal parts I believe I successfully accomplished the sound I was going for.

As of the last few years when I started recording the drum tracks at home, I've been recording with the benefit of only two mics. I do have a set of drum mics which I have used on previous recordings. I've recorded with as many as 5 or 6 mics. But as I have compared the recordings made with 5/6 mics to those made with only 2 I have found the ones with only 2 mics sound much better. And so I've been recording with only an overhead Shure 57 and a kick drum mic. That is the case with this song.

In addition to drums, this song features: about 4 electric guitar parts (2 clean & compressed, 1 with wah, 1 with phaser); 5-string electric bass; Nord 73 keyboard (clavinet and Fender Rhodes parts); and several vocal parts.




I think the instrumental minute-and-a-half ending part can stand on its own as a sort of song itself. Featuring a little light improvising on the 'Rhodes' with a few bluesy guitar licks here and there. Could even be a theme for a retro TV show or sitcom. I really like it. There are some moments when everything comes together just right and feels like a group of guys gelling. Check it out for yourself.

Most Amazing

I've gone several days without posting. I apologize. Something unexpected happened but now I'm back. So let's continue with my next song, "Most Amazing."

This was my song for 2005. I was aiming for a different sound from "You Are So Good." I had started to listen to some other bands and more modern music and this is what I came up with. It's definitely a driving alternative rock song featuring several electric guitar tracks, an acoustic guitar, an electric bass, drums and vocal track. At the time, this was the first song that did not include any keyboards. It was also my first song to feature an e-bow. The purchase and use of an e-bow was the result of a strong influence by Marcus Beaumont of Hillsong on their 17 minute epic song titled "Highest." That is the song I could be found listening to/watching the video of almost all the time back then.

This song is also different from anything else I made up to that point in that I tried singing in a different voice during the bridge part. As I was listening to a lot of alternative at the time--The Calling, STP, Live, Creed, Staind, Jeremy Riddle (of Vineyard), Tony Sanchez (of Vineyard), etc.--and was influenced not only by the guitar playing but also the vocal stylizing. Took me a while to get it, but eventually the end result was satisfactory to me.




What was not satisfactory to me is the overall sound of the drums. They sound muddy. The snare especially. The toms I can barely hear. Short of re-recording the drum track, I'm not sure there's much I can do to improve its sound. Also the overall sound of the track is a bit trebly. In particular the vocals and drums.

The guitars used in this song include: the white Les Paul Studio I pictured in the last post; a black Fender Aerodyne Strat which I had for a few years and regrettably traded for an Epiphone Dot; and a Gretsch White Falcon used for the solo during the bridge. I have none of those 4 guitars anymore. Here are some photos of the Aerodyne Strat:

(All these guitars makes me think I should devote one post to all the electric's I've had over the years.)

I entered this song into another Billboard Songwriting Contest and it ended up winning an Honorable Mention by placing in the Top 500. This was the best showing for any of my entries. I even won 2 prizes which included a book and a pair of sunglasses.

Do I want to spend the time reworking the odds and ends of this recording? Not really. I feel it was just another stepping stone to where I am now. It's a part of the past that should stay there. To be honest, I have new and exciting musical endeavours I want to embark on. Going back and working on stuff from the past is regressing, not progressing. This song was great when it happened. But I feel it really pales in comparison to some of the stuff I have done within the last few years. In fact, it has not stood the test of time for me like "You Are So Good" has. I find myself always coming back to listen to "Good." I rarely listen to "Most Amazing." "The Moment of Truth" is another I keep coming back to, especially after I re-recorded the vocals.

You Are So Good

I don't remembering having recorded any songs in 2003. I may have been still working on polishing up some of the other ones. Not completely sure. But the following year I made an 'epic' song. Titled "You Are So Good" it was really a work of art for me and the best thing I made up to that point. Actually it still stands as one of my best songs lyrically and musically and is the first song featuring my Gibson Les Paul Studio electric guitar:

I don't have this guitar any longer either. This was my first really good electric guitar. And it smelled good! Or maybe it was the case. I don't know. But something about Gibson electric guitars/cases. They have this aroma that makes playing even more enjoyable. Anyway, this was the guitar used in the solos for this song.

As I mentioned this song was recorded in 2004. But in 2010 I came back to this song and and added one more thing to it. In the early part of that year I purchased a Korg Micro Sampler.

Around that time I had become interested in sampling as a result of much listening to the music of Sigur Ros. More on that in a future post. But with this Korg I recorded an electric guitar part for the pre-chorus of the song. Then with the help of audacity I added that part to the song and I also reversed the part and added it as a layer over the piano intro to the song. And it turned out pretty well. Unfortunately, when I released my EP I inadvertently did not include this new, updated 2010 version and instead released the original 2004 version. The original version is available on iTunes, Amazon, Spotify, etc.

The instrumentation for this song includes: acoustic guitar; digital piano; electric bass; drums; several electric guitar tracks; tambourine; electronic keyboard (organ sound); and 2 vocal tracks. Here is the song:




This song also received an honorable mention in another Billboard songwriting contest. I don't have the exact details. I did perform this song twice at church with members of the youth group. To this day some of them can still sing the chorus.

The Moment of Truth

This next song has been the longest in the making. I started recording it in 2002 and only finished it in 2010. I was satisfied with the instrumentation and arrangement but the original vocals left much to be desired. Originally I had sung the main vocal an octave lower that what you will hear in this version. I didn't like it. It sounded too laid back and wasn't a good match for the subject matter of the lyrics.

I worked on the instrument tracks for much of 2002 and 2003. I was very pleased with the music itself and definitely felt it was my best work up to then. Even to this day it remains one of my favourite songs and I really love the semi-psychedelic folk rock sound I created on it. Even a fellow musician of the reggae/rap genre had shown some interest in sampling the instrumental version for his own music. As far as I know, that never came to pass however.

The drums on this song sound very good to me just as on the previous song. The overall balance of sound and instruments is also very good.

I recorded multiple takes of the vocal track but none every sounded right. So for years I left the song alone until 2010 when I decided to try something different with it. What I tried was to sing the whole song an octave higher than originally planned. To me, that gave the song a much better sound and a sense of urgency that complemented the lyrics. It also made it much more difficult to sing the chorus without going flat. Nonetheless, I think it sounds great. And I added a falsetto harmony track on the verses. Icing on the cake!

Instrumentation includes: acoustic guitar; several electric guitar tracks; electric bass; drums, electronic keyboard (organ sound); and digital piano. The electric guitar used in this song was my very first electric. It was an Epiphone Les Paul Special which I no longer have. I don't have any pictures of it either.

Here is the song:




Since this is one of my personal favourite songs and one of the best sounding ones, I included this song in my 5-song EP which I released in November of 2011. This song can be found on iTunes, Amazon, Spotify and various other music websites.

I never entered this song in any contest mainly because I stopped entering songwriting contests in the mid 2000's and this one was completed in 2010.

On my next post, I will have another one of my favourite songs. It's a song that also took on a life of its own for a while and some people can even sing some lines from its chorus even to this day.

Next Song: Thank You (For Loving Me)

This is the first recording I made that I actually was pleased with the overall sound and balance of instrument mix. Even to this day I can listen to it and feel that the sound quality is pretty high. One of the measures for me of how good the quality of a recording is is the sound of the drums. In this song, the drums sound very good, from the snare to the bass to the toms to the cymbals. A badly recorded drum set sound can turn a great song into something pretty awful. I don't remember how many mic's I used to record the drums. Seeing how this is another one of the songs I recorded on the Boss BR-8 it is very possible that I only used 2 mics. The BR-8 has a 2 mic input capability and unless I used a mixer which would allow a greater number of mic's to be used (which I really doubt), that's all it was. It's not impossible to get a very good drum set sound with only 2 mics. I can to this day get a pretty solid recording of drums with only 2 mics as long as the drums are tuned well. I recorded this song sometime around 2002 and the drum sound still impresses me. To be honest, I'm pleased with all the instrument tracks. The vocal tracks needed some more work.

So this song was my second attempt at a gospel song. I called it "Thank You (For Loving Me)." I do believe this one was a lot better than "God of Love and Peace" in every way. It definitely showed progress on many levels. And it didn't sound country. Well, maybe still a little. But I blame that on the vocals. I don't think any of the instrumentation or guitar playing sounds country.

The guitar solo in this song is quite different from the solo in "God of Love & Peace." It's clean and loaded with reverb and delay. The electric guitar used for most if not the entire song was an Ibanez Artcore AF75 hollowbody guitar, which I no longer have. Here is a photo of it:

The instrument tracks include: a couple of electric guitar tracks; an acoustic guitar; electric bass; drums; electronic keyboard (organ sound); tambourine; and some vocal tracks.




This song placed in the top 1500 and won an honorable mention in the 12th Annual Billboard World Songwriting Contest.

First Gospel Song

Here is another song that would otherwise not see the light of day from a musical standpoint. I figure if I ever do become a paid recording artist or musician and I were to release the typical 'rarities' album that all artists now seem to have, this song would probably not even appear on there.

This is the first gospel song I wrote; 'gospel' being a generic term for any Bible based music. Just like "Autumn" before it, when I completed recording this song I thought it was quite an accomplishment and the greatest thing ever. Now, I can't really listen to it without cringing. Needless to say, I don't find myself listening to it often anymore.

I recorded this song in 2001 and though I was not going for a 'country' sound I realize that it does have elements of country music. I do enjoy country music from the 1950s through the early 1980s but I never really set to make any country-sounding music. I guess it's mainly the electric guitar parts that give the song a country flavour. Maybe the vocals, too.

The recording features a couple of electric guitars, an acoustic guitar, bass, drums, electronic keyboard (organ & piano sounds), tambourine and some vocal tracks. It was recorded with the Boss BR-8. Here it is.




I did enter this song in the 11th International Billboard Songwriting Contest and it placed in the top 1500 for which it received an honorable mention. I don't know how legitimate those contests were but I do have a few more awards I won over the years for some of the other songs I'll be posting here.

Unlike "Autumn" in my last post, I have never considered re-recording this song ever. This is one of those that will remain in the vaults of time and really only served as a stepping stone to much better things.

Autumn (The Recording)

Seeing how this blog is about my own musical endeavours I am now going to embark in the direction of uploading my own songs and recordings here. Another good reason for this slight change in direction is that I don't have any more tabs that fellow musicians want to see at this time.

One more reason for doing this is to just make my music available to anyone and everyone. Life is fragile and you never know what can happen. These are crazy times now more than ever. This can serve as part of my legacy. And some of these songs/recordings would never see the light of day otherwise.

So I'm going to start with the first real high-quality recording that I ever made. I mentioned this song in a previous post. It's "Autumn;" the sonnet that I turned into a song. I made several recordings of this song including some abbreviated demos dating back to I believe 1995. Regrettably, I did not document recording dates during those times so I cannot be certain of precise dates. The recording that is here on this post is the final one I made of this song and is from about 2001.

This was the first song I made on my new-at-the-time Boss BR-8 digital recording studio. It had 8 track recording capability and recorded onto Zip disks. And that did rather suck because Zip disks were expensive and had limited space. And his Boss machine only worked with the lesser-capacity disks which meant that if you were going to record on all 8 tracks the song could not be longer than about 6 minutes. In reality that meant about 1 song per disk. So yes it had its shortcomings but it offered a sound quality better than anything I had tried up until then.

The recording features both 6-string and 12-string acoustic guitar, a couple of electric guitar tracks, bass, drums, an electronic keyboard and a couple of vocal tracks. I believe that of these instruments the only one I still have is the 12-string guitar. The rest was sold or given away. The drums were not mine.




I was really excited when this song was completed. It took a long time to do so. There recording is not mastered because the BR-8 offered no mastering capabilities. It is just a mixdown of the tracks. But I have come a long way with my recording and production skills since then. As I continue to post my songs here--chronologically for the most part-- you will definitely be able to see the progress made over the years.

From time to time I do think about re-recording this song with some different arrangements. But the idea of redoing old songs is not something I'm really crazy about. I'd rather work on the new stuff at hand. Of course it can be a great project if I'm going through a spell of writer's block and there's nothing else to do.

On a side note, I'm glad I came across Soundcloud. I was looking for a stable website where I could upload my music and be able to embed it here and Soundcloud has turned out to be the best choice.

I'll be blogging here more often now and the posts will feature my songs and a little bit of history behind each one.

Social Media

Here's an idea that came to me and I just sat around a bit working it all out. It's a sort of poem. Yes, I do dabble in poetry and have for quite some time. And since I have not posted here in a while this is better than nothing.

Also, I'm posting it here because when it goes crazy viral, I want the original source to be duly noted as having come from my social media website(s).

You have filled my days with pound signs
And endless one-liners from across the time zones
Only spring and summer
Have brought forth more tweeting
But in the form of pleasant, dreamy bird songs
Some have gained a following
Some have gained notoriety
I have neither one nor the other
And now I say "Goodbye, Twitter"
And off to something more useful.

You gave me the dashboard but you firmly held the wheel
You allowed others to follow without actually stalking
Questions and answers
And rebloggings galore
I never really had to contribute anymore
The silliest of photographs
The strangest of micro-writings
At the end of the day it was all out of mind
And now I bid adieu, tumblr.
And off to time better spent.

You gave me a wall but then you tore it down
You replaced it with a line based on time
Had the opportunity
To like nearly everything
Without actually liking anything
The number of virtual 'friends'
Greatly surpassing actual friends
And bringing the realization: I don't really know my 'friends'
And now I say "Farewell, Facebook"
And off to more meaningful things.