| Music? I don't know if I
can claim that, but it's mine.
My music is something that I do as a hobby. It is
another one of those things I insist on keeping fun and never
using as a method for income. There are two reasons for
this: 1) I don't want it to become work, and 2) I'm quite sure I
could not make any money with it even if I wanted to!
I've never been part of a band, even though I would have
enjoyed that tremendously! All the songs I've written and
recorded are only me. Whatever you hear is generated by my
voice, fingers, or instruments. I tell you this not to
brag, but as an apology and to explain the many shortcomings of my music!
With all this said, here are a few of my songs (and videos).
New things I add I'm putting at the top of the list:
BROOKE SHIELDS - Winds
of Paradise: I'm starting out with this song that few
people in the world even know exists. Brooke Shields has
been my favorite for many years, and recently I was watching a
low budget movie with her in it and this song started playing
when the credits were coming up. I knew immediately who it
was, and copied it onto my computer and saved it. I think
she does a great job in this song! Though, I'm a bit
prejudice. But still, here's just another talent she has!
VIDEO Ghost in the Guitar:
This is actually quite cool! This is a video, and it's
pretty short, so check it out! Here's the story
behind this. I was playing with my guitar once, making a
song, and recording myself as I did it so I could remember what
I came up with. I got tired and felt that the writing of
the song was getting tedious, so I took a "noise" break where I
just make interesting sounds with the guitar. This
recording was digital with no voice-box or anything like that
modifying the sounds, and the only thing feeding into the tape
is the one guitar I was playing at the time. When I
listened back to the session afterwards, I noticed something
that sounded like words. This should have been impossible
since I had no microphone set up, and there was no way for a
voice to get into the guitar recording. I listened to it a
few times and decided that the words were this nonsense: "Sell
the house, Sell the cars, Sell everything! SELL
EVERYTHING!" Yep. That's what the voice that
came from my guitar was saying in a whisper. Some would
attribute it to ghosts or something, but I just figure it's just
some odd physics. However, I tried for quite a while
afterwards to reproduce something that sounded like a harsh
whispering voice or words at all, and never was able to even
with everything set up identically. A ghost? A
helpful spirit? An evil spirit? Who knows!
Check it out to make your own decision! Either click on
"Ghost in the Guitar" to see it, or right-click on it and select
"Download" then view it from your computer. Send me an
email to let me know what you think!
Fighting Guitars:
This song is a quickie that I wrote while playing around.
It's basically just me on two guitars trading off licks.
It's short, and worth listening to. You can also see a
video that Paranoia Productions created for this song at the
following link:
Music Video. Check out the rest of the things at
Paranoia
Productions! (It appears that Paranoia Productions no longer
exists. You can view the video file from my site by
clicking HERE).
Dance With Me: This song was
a musical effort using looping technology. I just picked out
little pieces of music and looped them and stuck them together in
such a way as to
make this song. I call it "Dance With Me" because I felt that
it sort of invokes the desire to dance or move. I made a music video from the New Years celebration I went to (Together as One) in 2006. Click HERE to download the video (WARNING: It's 43 megabytes, and not all that interesting).
Remembering: This song was
created entirely on my Korg X3 keyboard. I stayed up one night
creating it with my headphones on as the night ticked by. I
was really getting into it, thinking it was something special, and
before I knew it I looked outside and realized the sun was about
to come up. I took my headphones off, listened to it, and
thought, "Cool!" Then I went to bed. The next morning
when I checked it out I decided that it was a bit tedious and not
nearly as good as I had thought the previous evening! I
shortened it a little, and quit working on it. So, here is the
result.
Eternity: I have quite a few
songs that were never finished. This is one of them.
One of my weakest musical talents is the drums and the bass.
This song has neither included since I was putting that off
until the end before adding. Since I never finished the
song, the bass and drums were never added. I'm adding this
because my dear, sweet mother asked me to include a song that
has me singing on it. So here I am singing, harmonizing
with myself, and playing several layers of guitar.
Everything: This is another song
created exclusively on my Korg X3 keyboard. The story
behind the title is that I was listening to a song by Cracker
called "I Want Everything" and admiring the chord progression in
the song. I started playing with the chords on my keyboard
and came up with this song. I called it "Everything" to
remind me how I came up with it.
Midnight Sky: This song had
some tentative lyrics to it that I have since lost. It is
about loneliness and dreams and waking up from a dream of being
with someone you love and finding your arms are wrapped around
the "midnight sky" instead of your imaginary lover. I
wrote this song on the guitar, but never recorded it with the
guitar. This is recorded on my Korg X3 keyboard, but I
tried to make it sound like a grungy guitar hammering out the
chords. There is only enough recorded here to help me
remember the song to later record it with guitars, etc.
Within or Without: This is
a psychotic song about a guy who loves someone so much that even
though she's not really a part of his life, that she is because
he keeps her safe "within" his heart as a never-ending undying
part of himself. It starts out with an excerpt from "Braveheart",
then leads into the song, starting with a dull recording of how
I wrote the song, strumming on my electric guitar without it
being plugged in, then switching to the powered version.
Like MOST of my songs, I never got around to recording the drums
or the bass and it's only partially completed.
Contemplation: Recorded using
my Korg X3 exclusively, this is Contemplation. It is
finished, which is nice. No singing, no lyrics, just music
that sounds like it should be the soundtrack to a movie or
something. I like this song, even though it's as simple as
it is. I named it because it sounds like the backtrack to
someone considering some serious decision that needs to be made.
It also reminds me of "Bolero", though I have no real foundation
for that. And it's a shame to compare something so lame
(my song) to such a masterpiece as "Bolero", but I'm just
telling you that in my mind, perhaps how I imagined my song to
be, it reminds me of such.
Aye Cara! Okay... This is
just silly. My best friend is Cara, and I wrote this song
about her. The lyrics are just silly at best. "Aye
Cara! Aye Cara! I care a lot!", "We've got to have
at least two of the hot mustard sauce!" What can I say?
Here's a surprise for you! This song never was finished,
and the bass or drums were never added to it. Oh well,
here it is regardless.
Been There Before:
This song was finished, recorded on guitar and included lyrics.
However, I lost the recording I did of it with the guitar
(actually including drums and bass!) and only have this version
which is an instrumental version of it. It's also not a
full length version of it. The lyrics were about a love
gone bad, where the girl wants to get back together again.
The chorus goes "I've been there before, and I ain't ever going
back again, to a love... a love gone bad." It's
drawn out a bit more than that, but that's the gist. This
is an interesting piece to show my piano playing.
You're Mine: Okay...
this is a mock song that I wrote that has hardly any words to it
and is very short. It's trying to be as trashy as
possible, and sticks to that with the few lyrics as well as the
quality of the recording. It's short, but loud and
obnoxious with such an overdriven voice track that it's hard to
follow at times. Basically, this guy just says that even
though his girlfriend is leaving him that there's no way that
could be because she'll be with him until the day he dies
(obviously because he's such a stud and all).
It starts out with a snippet from "Pretty Baby" with Brooke
Shields. At one point I say in the lyrics "You're my
little baby, you're mine" and I planned to change it to "You're
my pretty baby, you're mine" just to go along with the
introduction. But I never did. Be warned, this is a
trashy song! ...though it ends with a simple, clean,
guitar riff without any distortion as a juxtaposition to the
rest of the song.
VIDEO You're Mine:
Here's a little video I made to go with this song. It was
just an effort to learn text graphic manipulation in Premier.
Either click on "You're mine" to see the video, or right-click
it and select download and then view it from your own computer.
Searching For Myself:
I made this song into a music video. That was my very
first music video effort. It was kind of cool THEN, but
looking back on it shows how incredibly stupid it was! I
was experimenting with special effects and the like, using Adobe
Premier, and trying everything I could think of. Anyway,
this is short, incomplete, and likely never to be completed.
It's about a guy who realizes that his biggest search is just to
find himself, who he lost a long time ago. I'll search my
old files and see if I can find the Music Video version of this
(which is also incomplete). If I find it, I'll post it
later on. -- Okay, here's the video. It's
SILLY (And REALLY bad)! VIDEO
of Searching For Myself
Rapture: This is the first
thing I did with my Korg X3. I sat down and started
playing with all the cool and unusual sounds I could make with
it. Then I said, "Hey Self, why not make a song from all
these cool sounds?" Self was kind of surprised at that
idea and thought it would be kind of stupid, but Self and I
worked together and came up with this. Self has always
felt that this is a lame excuse for a song, but Self thinks it's
unusual and sounds like the Rapture of a man taken from this
world into what follows. You hear the heart beat as it
goes from the fear and excitement of dying, to seeing the "white
light" to finally being taken inside to something totally new.
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