Holiday Music Plans For 2020

 It's the holiday season and in terms of having new holiday music ready for this time, I have learned my lesson. Well, not really. Neither is it officially the holiday season--though to me it is because it really starts to feel like it even before Thanksgiving--nor have I learned my lesson in terms of releasing new holiday music. Can I just add that the holiday season to me starts with Halloween? There's no denying that Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas & New Year's are all very much related with some fascinating parallels in the subject matter of endings and new beginnings. The last quarter of the year really is my favorite time. 

Anyway, I am working on new holiday music. Considering my history of timing I'd say I'm pretty early. But I cannot guarantee I'll have anything new. I will try, however. The good thing is that I have plenty of time to keep 'promoting' last year's tune, "You Know It's Christmas Time." That was another late release--December 11 to be precise. Traditionally, holiday albums are released in October though I don't know who buys them that early. I have to admit that I'm not quite in a Christmassy mood pre-Halloween. And nobody plays it that early either. ChristmasSongsRadio.com started playing holiday music before Thanksgiving this year and I'm grateful to hear the wonderful, diverse variety you can find there which includes my very own songs.

I have no problem with recording and releasing an electronic tune. "You Know It's Christmas Time" was virtually such a recording with the exception being a real guitar track and my vocal. While I was able to get the music tracks down rather quickly, it was the vocal that held the release up. But one thing I didn't know was that as a result of releasing that song through CD Baby as a "Pro Single," I was granted a free membership into ASCAP. That was cool. 

Another song I have nearly ready for release is "Christmas In The City (reprise)". The problem is I don't have the non-reprise version of the song anywhere near completely written! The reprise version is a 6-minute track featuring a repeating 4-part harmony of "Christmas in the city, lookin' so pretty" trading off with instrumental solos. It was just meant to be a fun, 70s funk inspired song. But I need the main song it's based off with a lot more lyrics than that. Have you ever heard of a reprise being released without the song it was based on?

So that's something I can work on. I also wanted to do a minor key version of "Jingle Bells." That may be something I could do quick if my vocals don't fail me too much. But I'd prefer doing something original. 

As I write this I have a working demo song titled "A Winter's Day" playing in the background. I like its mellow sound and feel but I've been stuck on writing for a few years. And it's another 4 part harmony song so it surely would take me quite some time to finish up a recording.

So there's lots to do. I will be seriously thrilled if I can just have a new recording released in time for Christmas. It's just about 4 weeks away so there really is no time to waste. Wish me luck.

The Pumpkin Smasher

Occasionally I will stray on writing about my musical projects or past endeavors to present some other thing near and dear to me. And that will be the case with this post.

With Halloween right around the corner, I want to touch on one of my favorite childhood books of the holiday, "The Pumpkin Smasher," by Anita Benarde from 1972. Some years ago I was able to relive my childhood memories of checking out this book from my school library each year by acquiring a hardcover copy. This book along with "Georgie's Halloween" were probably my 2 favorites of the season.

I'm not sure why this particular book is out of print. This is a classic and should be readily available. The artwork is great and the story really draws you in. I'll be sure to revisit the pages of this nostalgic tale in the coming days.

There are several other blogs which present this book as well so I will not say too much more about it other than it brings back lots of memories.

My Scary Halloween Video #3

Here it is. My 3rd creepy, unsettling video for the Halloween season. Another simple concept. Just going down a staircase with some spooky sounding notes played on a piano.

So I just made a video while going down a staircase and then slowed it down and distorted it a bit. The music comes from a band called Starfield and a song called "My Generation". I just used the intro, looped it, slowed it down, changed the equalization and added a scratchy record sound to it. I think that together with the video it is absolutely chilling. Upon retrospective consideration I perhaps should have made the film black & white and also more grainy.

Anyway, here is the song I borrowed the music from.

There it is. I uploaded my video to YouTube nearly 2 years ago and it hasn't done exceptionally well. There's always now.

I don't have any additional scary videos that I made. I didn't make any last year and I have not made any this year, but perhaps if I get the right idea and right sounds I will make a few more clips.

My Scary Halloween Video #2

So what sort of impact will this tanked economy have on Halloween and its trick-or-treaters? I'm eager to discuss the ramifications of this situation, but this topic has nothing to do with the music of Exit World so I shall proceed no further on the subject.

Here is my 2nd scary video creation for Halloween. Hope you like it. Again, the image is simple; just slowing walking down a dark and empty hallway with softly glowing lights at the end. Nothing gruesome. The atmosphere is enough. Very creepy indeed.

What do you think? The music comes from Boards of Canada and the song is called "Color of the Fire." I had it playing backwards on the video. To be honest, the song is pretty creepy in its own right playing normally. Here's how it sounds:

Interesting thing is, the voice comes from a Sesame Street clip of a little girl writing out the words "I love you." Here is that segment:

As one comment states,"In its normal form it just sounds normal and innocent, yet in Color of the Fire it sounds distorted and creepy as hell." Very true. You can take something as simple, unassuming and innocent and turn it into something sinister and frightening through sound technology. Boards of Canada did it by adding delay, distorting the original audio and adding unsettling keyboard sounds. Amazing what can be done.

So that is my 2nd scary video for Halloween. Stay tuned for my next one.

My Scary Halloween Video #1

I had created a few musical pieces/videos for the Halloween season. Here is the first of three I made and my personal favourite. It includes my own original music and a 'scary' video. I have always felt that atmosphere makes for scariness, and that 'gross' is not equivalent to 'creepy.'

It is 2 days shy of 3 years that I have uploaded this video to YouTube. And 1001 views in that amount of time. Nothing to write home about, but the fact that something original I made received that many views is pretty cool. So here is the video. Check it out and let me know what you think.

The music comes from the ending of one of my songs called "Erie's Song." I created the recording of the song to have an overall scary, lonely, dark, somber, unsettling, uneasy vibe to it. This particular part of the song features a sampled, heavily reverbed piano loop playing forwards and backwards along with some trailing reverb-heavy vocal and bowed acoustic bass.