So I just started messing with Ableton and got some help from Pinstrype Kouzin to make this song happen.

Check out his page here.
https://soundcloud.com/pinstrypekouzin

The Drop

This is kind of late, but this is Day 1 of VGMAcademy's 7 day challenge. This time it's music for kids' game. As I don't have a lot of time, these will just be sketches, not full songs. So they may not sound entirely complete. Just ideas and concepts.

#7DaysofVGM Day 1 -  Title Screen sketch

Firstly, I thank God for the time needed to make this track. This is a sketch for Day 3 of VGM Academy's 7 days of VGM challenge. The prompt was some crazy kid-friendly chaos ensuing. So I imagined a fun mini game where you got thrown into a ball pit, but all the balls grew three times their size and are trying to roll over you and you have knock them all out of the pit before time runs out.

 I did this on stream in about two hours, so I know there are some parts missing. This was actually completed Saturday, but couldn't post until today.

#7DaysOfVGM - Day 3 Ball Pit Battle Sketch

An old recording from 2010 from the very first time I played my music live. It was at a DIY house show on April 16th, 2010, in Berea, Ohio, where I currently reside. I bowed a crash cymbal, while I had alligator clips on my Yamaha Pacifica, and I had a cassette recording of Rocky River, a local waterway near my house, playing back through a four-track tape machine.

The recording of the river was made with a hand-held tape recorder (the kind one would use to record a teacher's lecture), set on the "fast" recording setting, so that if played back at regular speed, it would sound slowed down. On top of which, I then adjusted the pitch knob on the tape machine to its lowest setting.

At the time I was completely obsessed with the music of the group Mirror, which consisted of Christoph Heemann of H.N.A.S. and Andrew Chalk of Ferial Confine. This is essentially me miming them.

Live @ Kemoton House 4/16/10

This is the instrumental arrangement of a song called 20th, November from the beatmania IIDX series. It was originally produced by DJ Nagureo 1997. Fun fact: This is actually his birthday!
Original song here:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=WlzevRRubeE

20th, November (20x3 Mix) [Instrumental]

The structure of Between Event and Crisis is loosely based on the structure of David Foster Wallace’s 1996 novel Infinite Jest. Wallace’s novel is non-linear, non-climactic, and was originally conceived as a pyramidal fractal. The story does not unfold chronologically in a tidy “left-to-right” fashion, but rather in layers and episodes, allowing it to travel in several directions. Even the pages are read out of order, as the reader is constantly turning to the last 100 pages, for they contain the novel’s 388 endnotes, some of which have additional endnotes. As it progresses, one finds that the story has no real beginning or end, but instead presents itself as a snapshot, a moment in the lives of its main characters. 

Taking this structural plan as a point of departure, I tried to create a piece that unfolds in layers and is to be heard non-linearly. There are three main “characters” in the piece: the vibraphone, the bass drum, and the tam-tam. The additional instruments act as distorted mirrors: the crotales reflect the vibraphone, the triangles and cymbals reflect the tam-tam, and the toms and bongos reflect the bass drum. The woodblocks attempt, but fail, to reflect the toms. The main sections of the piece are actually fractured smaller pieces: One large vibraphone solo broken into four parts, three meditations (one for the reflecting instruments, one for the bass drum and tam-tam, and one for the bass drum alone), and three canons (one for the toms and woodblocks, two for the crotales).  Transitional tangents, asides, and commentaries given by the reflecting instruments tie these main sections together. 

Between Event and Crisis was commissioned by Alec Schumann and completed in the spring of 2013. The piece lasts approximately 70 minutes.

For best listening: Headphones, a low-lit room, and 72 uninterrupted minutes.

Between Event and Crisis

I've Certainly Had Better Weeks

Factual Brains - Screen Test (Happy Robo)

Bell guitar

Remix of Factual Brains "Moon Owl/Timers" off the new album "Scooter" download it at https://factualbrains.bandcamp.com/album/scooter

Moon Owl / Timers (Furface Remix)

Like it says, a remix of Factual Brains' "Moon Owl."

I've Certainly Had Better Weeks

Alec Danger Schumann