Hello!
First of all, it's a pleasure to have you here. I'd like to take this opportunity to give you a brief overview of my background in music and songwriting, or lack thereof, so you can have a better idea of where I'm coming from when putting up with listening to my pieces.
Throughout my life I've had affairs with three instruments: piano, flute, and guitar, all of which I play poorly (in the order of bad to worst). While I've been privileged with opportunities to perform in front of live audiences, I've much prefered songwriting as a creative outlet. Not that I'm any good at it, mind you. Crap though I may be, I compose for the simple satisfaction of moulding emotion into an entity tangible to human senses (well, sense). Like all other things in life, the better you are at it, the more you're bound to enjoy yourself. This logic has led me to create this blog as a frontpage from which family and friends (and future friends, too) can access my work for the purpose of constructive commentary. I hope to learn from all your valuable opinions--whether or not you consider yourself a musician--with the ultimate goal of simply becoming a better composer than before. If it just so happens that you, too, are able to derive pleasure from listening to my music, then nothing would please me more.
Below is a list of some of my favorite composers--i.e. those who have had an influence on my own songwriting--in no particular order. I highly recommend you to check out what they have to offer. A quick search on google should turn up more than a few hits.
2) Nobuo Uematsu (and a handful of other Japanese video game composers)
And many, many more, but seeing how five is such a nice round number, I'm going to leave it at that. If you also happen to know of and appreciate the works of the abovementioned super-talented individuals, I'd love to hear from you! If none of the above names ring a bell, their collective styles could be summarized as predominantly, but not limited to, orchestral.
I compose my music using a MIDI keyboard and sequencing software, with which I'm several years away from gaining the knowledge required to exploit their full potential. I've been meaning to get properly educated in the way of MIDI-based songwriting (as well as songwriting and arranging in general), but seeing how it's been more ten years now since I started saying that, I might as well give up.
As for the format of this blog, I'll do my best to keep it simple, with a song or two introduced in each post in a format resembling something below:
1) Song name.
2) Background info/rationale.
3) Visual image (or video) upon which the piece was composed, if one exists.
4) Link to mp3 file of the piece.
My intention is to post not only the better pieces that I deem passable to be listened to by ears other than my own, but anything in a completed and reasonably audible state. Why? Because I want to improve, and improvement cannot be had if you only show people the top of your crop. I'm going to start with my more recently concocted tunes, but a little trip down memory lane (back all the way to 1996, yeah...) might be good for the soul. If I could bear having those tunes listened to, obviously. And no promises on regular postings--my creativity doesn't exactly flow freely like draft beer at the local pub on a Friday night.
Well, that's more than enough rambling for this first post. The rest, I hope, will be self-explanatory. So, go on! Listen to my songs! And...please be gentle--after all, I'm only human.
Extra notes:
- My song files are all saved in MP3 format, which should be playable on any self-respecting computer and OS.
- All pieces are copyrighted in the traditional fashion.
- When available, I intend to post images from which I derived inspiration to compose the associated tune, as well as give credit where its due. Should the posting of any of the images infringe on any copyrights, however, I will gladly remove them upon request.
