MI7®

Hi there!

As you know, I enjoy composing for my “Quest of the Heroes”-project immensely, but lately I’ve tried to compose pieces not connected to a specific story. Its absolutely great to compose more “freely” and let the music lead the way in different directions. Due to my lack of patience, I improvise a lot to get the pieces finished. I rush through my compositions leaving them with apparent flaws... But, I’m still fond of them and I will probably revisit and rework them some day!

And now, I've uploaded a new song again, made with no restrictions of a story but with inspiration from… …trains.

So this time, its a piece about trains. Trains? Why? Well... Why not!

As a kid I was fascinated by trains (along with Star Wars and dinosaurs, of course). I played with them, and I read about them. Now, thirty or so years later, I finally have the possibility to make music. So why not make a piece for trains? So this is my homeage to all the trains in the world!

I've got tons of ideas and I'm thinking about, someday in the future, expand the music into a longer and more worked-through piece, a kind of "Train Symphony". So this is a kind of a little test, like a demo for more music to see if the music holds up. Most parts are improvised but I'm really fond of the piece, especially the "happy moment" beginning at about 2:47 and when the main hammering motif returns at about 4:06. I think my arrangements improves as I keep on composing, learning more and more about my humble equipment (no, I don't even use midi yet), trying to get the most out of it. I've learned more how to cut pieces together in Cubase, to edit, fade in, fade out, cut, paste... And by putting small pieces together into a longer piece my computer holds up a lot better and I can use more sounds and instruments in my music.

I had such fun doing this piece anyway, the music coming straight from my heart. At first I thought about using military march drums, clashing cymbals and metallic sounds but I didn't find any good of these sounds in my keyboard, so I used hammering piano and a lot of pounding drums instead to drive the piece forward. And I'm quite happy how that turned out, the main "hammering" motif is distinctly "trainy" and instantly recognized. Like trains could go on forever, I could do variations on this "train music" forever. The piece uploaded is finished with a little coda, just for fun.

By the way, the "Nightmare Suite" is thrown out in favor of the trains, but can still be heard at www.myspace.con/quest oftheheroes

Regards

/Simon

I've uploaded some new tracks.

For the last weeks I've been composing music for horror and death. Nice! I actually had a couple of bad dreams during this time. In my brother's role-playing game adventure there's a lot of nightmares and stories that helps outline the plot. For all these story-telling nightmares, filled with creepy incidents, death and terror, I've composed music. All connected somehow to the big bad guy (err, girl) - the evil witch Kha Harnia. I've uploaded a suite of this "nightmare music". There are plenty of themes and melodies going on in these dreams, weaving them together and connecting them to the story. I had a lot of fun doing "scary" music, and I've been able to twist some of the heroic themes into sorrow and horror. Fun!

Update: The "Nightmare Suite" is removed in favor of my latest piece, called "Trains!". But the nightmares can still be heard at www.myspace.com/questoftheheroes 

Another new track I've done is a more uplifting and heroic piece (I had to do it after weeks of terror and nightmares!). The track is still unnamed (suggestions anyone?) since this is one of my first songs ever written and recorded without a specific purpose. As you might know, my musical journey started just a couple of months ago, with me composing and trying to perform and record music for my brother's role-playing game adventure "Ereb Altor 386 e0". This music is always specific to a place, a person, a battle or something else in the adventure, trying to capture the heart of the story. But this track is just done with no such restrictions. I just wanted to do something uplifting and powerful after weeks of nightmares. I hope I'm slowly improving on my arrangements, but I have to get a new computer! The track is based on a slow heroic theme played four times, each time with a grander arrangement. Notable is the last arrangement where my computer didn't hold up, it simply can't work with so many different audiotracks at the same time, so some of the intruments I planned are missing. I didn't get the powerful closing I intended. Some latency problems at the end as well. Ah well...

The third new upload isn't new. Its my old track "Remembrance" but I've added a piano performance of the song after the harp, violin and flute version previously uploaded.

Otherwise, I struggle to find time to compose and trying to learn more about my equipment as usual. I've borrowed a midicontroller and a software synthesizer but haven't had time to use it yet. Perhaps that could take my simple music further, but first - a new, more powerful computer please!

Take care!

/Simon

I've never liked any of these communities on the internet, I've never visited Facebook and I don't like MySpace (even though I now have a page, Yes). But then I stumbled across MI7 when searching for an upgrade to Cubase. I hesitated a lot before putting my music on the net, but some friends kept pushing me so finally I thought, well, I'll try to upload some songs... And that MI7 community seemed okay.

Suddenly some friend requests popped up and by now I must say: What a great community this is! Full of talented and caring people, real professionals alongside with total amateurs like myself, but always there to give uplifting comments but also intelligent advices and tips. I'm truly grateful for your comments! Its great that you all take time to listen, and its great to have different point of views on my stuff. I don't really know what I'm doing, how to perform, write or record music, so its really hard for me to see if my musical ideas have any potential. So I really appreciate any comments.

Now I've already got a better understanding of music and I think I have a clue what to do next to take my music further. I've got to start working with midi, pre-recorded symphonic sounds, a softsampler so I can process the sounds from inside Cubase. I have to learn more theory, more about the instruments I'm using... (on the other hand I got a comment about my music being a unique soundscape, thanks to my rather unconventional use of some instruments. That, of course, depends on me not having a clue about the nature of these instruments). And I will never make any complaints about my gear again, I will just do the best I can with the equipment and knowledge I've got.

Another obstacle for me is my patience. I have very limited time and so much music I want to put down so, I must admit, I don't give every track the time needed by far. I rush through the tracks (5 minutes of music takes me about 2 hours to do, from idea to finished recording), and my fear is this: Since I don't really know how to write notes (or have the patience doing it) I fear the day I'm sitting with a better equipment trying to perform and record my music once again. I hear myself shouting: How on earth did I play that? Or do that? And of course, the quality and details could be much more worked through... Well, maybe my ideas will slow down sometime so I really can work with my existing material and learn more about recording and my equipment...

Oh well, I'm really happy about finding this "musical hobby" at the age of 35 and will keep on trying! I´m constantly uploading new music, I uploaded two (actually four, see my track descriptions) new songs while writing this blog, "The Island of Mereld" and "Mereld burning". Take care and feel free to comment!

Since I’m a total beginner in music production and recording, I’ve just begun to record my music in Cubase. I’ve now recorded a few pieces and even added some effects to my recordings. Hopefully I’m slowly going somewhat in the right direction.

But something with my recorded music didn’t seem right, I didn’t get the right feeling in the music. When listening to my recordings, the music lacked a “flow”. Something was wrong, even if it was really hard to say exactly what it was. A dark enemy was slowly approaching. An enemy who struck my recordings hard, painfully, without mercy.

The enemy is Latency.

Sure, I’ve got a pretty decent audio interface, but there’s still those few milliseconds of latency and it really bugs me! The music feels just a little bit out of sync which gives the music a quite strange flow.

The road to make a recording of my music as it sounds in my head goes ever on…

I'm really happy about the positive (and, of course, there are some negative) responses I've got for my simple music so far, even though the music sounds like a lousy "demo". I don't know anything about the role-playing games I'm currently writing for except what my brother's told me. But the music seems to work, as the inspirational music it was intended to be. (If I get a negative response, the music still served its purpose - inspirational...).

This gives me even more inspiration, knowing that at least some people likes my musical ideas. I really want to keep on writing these tunes, and it would be great to someday have my recorded music bundled with a role-playing game for sale.

But its a long road... 

I'm also frustrated... I really want the recorded music to sound as it does in my head... And it feels like I don't have a clue how to do it! Since I've got no musical training or experience whatsoever, I'm really starting from the beginning with this (see my previous blog). And the step to make the music sound as it does in my head seems VERY VERY big...

Anyway, one step at a time, I've finally managed to get some recording equipment (instead of my low-quality mp3-player...). I now have a decent audio interface along with Cubase LE4. Seems like a pretty neat recording software! But it will take months, even years, to learn how to master this program. The manual is thick as a wall!!! So far, I can make a recording, but I still have to learn how to master mixing, editing, effects...

I've made one recording so far, its presented in my sound clips. But I'm not happy with it, the sound is to low and I don't get any nuances in the music. And the sound feels somewhat "murky". In this stage I still use the sounds in my keyboard, which are quite bad, and therefore the music still sounds like a bad "demo".  Of course, I will keep on trying! So far I've written about 3 hours of music and my next step is to learn more about Cubase and make a proper recording of all my music.

In the future I really hope I can use pre-installed symphonic orchestral sounds in my computer to make my music. But there are two not-so-easy steps on the way to come that far: time and money. I don't have much time for my project, and I definitely don't have the money to get the right equipment.

But the challenge is also an inspiration!

Where to begin?

Okay, so I've decided to start writing some music. First of all, I needed inspiration. My brother is an author of adventures for RPG's (Role-playing Games) so I thought it would be great to write "inspirational music" for his game adventures. I don't know anything about these games so my brother gave me some information. I seemed perfect! A chance to write big adventurous music, mysterious music, love themes, exotic places, evil themes, heroes & dragons, epic scenery, great battles... Fantastic!!! The music just kept spinning in my head!

Then what?

I have no musical training what so ever, no experience in performing music, no experience in recording music, I can hardly read (or write!!!) notes and I can't play any instruments. So, where to begin? That was the point I easily could give up the hole thing... But I didn't want the themes in my head to disappear. So I bought a keyboard/synthesizer. An instrument on which I only have to press buttons and at the same time can make a lot of different sounds.

Then what?

I started to experiment with the keyboard, identifying the different instruments suited for my music, playing my themes and ideas. I learned how to record, in the keyboard, up to six layers of music on top of each other. Now I was getting somewhere! I was actually able to put some pieces together!

Then another problem came along... How to remember in detail what I was playing? Well, I had to learn how to write basic notes and put them down on paper so I could play my music (approximately) the same tomorrow, and the day after that, and the day after that... Now I know what button on my keyboard that represents C sharp!

Then what?

I can put pieces together that sounds a bit "plastic", but okay. Then I wanted to record my music. How do I do that? I had (and while writing this, hardly still have) no idea how to do it! Suddenly, an idea! I plugged my rather lousy mp3-player to my keyboard and was able to record the music. Then I could plug the mp3 to my computer, and...  ...I had my music as mp3-files! But the sound quality (as you can hear on the soundclips) was really, really bad...

The next step is to get some kind of "desktop recording studio" equipment so I can make proper recordings and also mix my music. How do I do that? What equipment should I get? Where to begin? Sigh... The future will tell how that goes!