This is my first song for February Album Writing Month 2022 created February 8–10, 2022 with Emagic Notator on an Atari Mega STE, Roland Fantom XR, and M-Audio Keystation 88.

Bandcamp: https://fullyfunctional.bandcamp.com/track/feb-8
YouTube: https://youtu.be/KqT48IrzlB0

Feb 8

Your planet is difficult to understand but I'm doing my best.

This is my second song for February Album Writing Month 2022 created February 10–13, 2022 with Emagic Notator on an Atari Mega STE, Roland Fantom XR, and M-Audio Keystation 88.

Bandcamp: https://fullyfunctional.bandcamp.com/track/alien
YouTube: https://youtu.be/rcG1Oie7Z0k

Alien

This is a tune for when you're cruising down the space highway in your spacemobile. It was inspired by a pulsing base line I heard when walking past a nightclub. When it came time to make another section of the song to go along with the main B♭ major section, I found it interesting to pair it with a B♭ minor section. Also, I found the reverb button.

This is my fourth song for FAWM 2020. Created with M-Audio Keystation 88, Roland Fantom XR, and Atari Mega STE with Emagic Notator.

Bandcamp: https://fullyfunctional.bandcamp.com/track/space-highway
YouTube: https://youtu.be/4Yet0qpzV1k

Multiple Techniques

Space Highway

This is a classical piano piece I wrote today, created with M-Audio Keystation 88, Roland Fantom XR, and Atari Mega STE with Emagic Notator. This is my fifth song for FAWM 2020.

I didn't want this performance to have a rigid tempo but I still wanted the notes to be on the right beats as far as the sequencer was concerned, so I tried to use Notator's tempo-learning feature, where it sets the tempo from moment to moment based on what you play. But I found that I couldn't both play the right notes and keep the tempo as steady as I wanted. So I recorded it with a fixed tempo and a click track to get the right notes, and then played it again very badly in a second track with tempo learning turned on and threw away all the note data. I fine-tuned the tempos and fixed a few missed notes in the event editor.

Bandcamp: https://fullyfunctional.bandcamp.com/track/revealed
YouTube: https://youtu.be/PcGHLJvqErI

Revealed

This track started out by using a distortion effect on a drum kit, which made most of the drum sounds unrecognizable. I then switched to the noise drum kit, which is mostly made up of white noise and other non-drum sounds to begin with. I put together a drum loop but didn't know what else to do with it. A few days later while working on another song, I found a monophonic saw wave patch with a considerable amount of portamento where I could play a low note and then play and quickly release a note several octaves higher to create a "pew!" kind of sound. I made a few variations of this for the bass line. I put together some more drum loops, added some synth lines with some reverb and pan effects, and there it is. Pew! Pew! Pew!

This is my sixth song for FAWM 2020. Created with M-Audio Keystation 88, Roland Fantom XR, and Atari Mega STE with Emagic Notator.

Bandcamp: https://fullyfunctional.bandcamp.com/track/pew-pew-pew
YouTube: https://youtu.be/Hq0CjMelgMs

Pew! Pew! Pew!

FAWM 2020 is almost over. (Time flies when you're having FAWM.) This track is fast, to help you quickly finish those things you're almost out of time for. (Did I finish this track quickly? No, I did not. Well, I did it in an evening. That's kind of quick.) The B section bears no resemblance to the Back to the Future theme; I don't know why you would say that.

This is my seventh song for FAWM 2020. Created with M-Audio Keystation 88, Roland Fantom XR, and Atari Mega STE with Emagic Notator.

Bandcamp: https://fullyfunctional.bandcamp.com/track/almost
YouTube: https://youtu.be/xYXj5Al8j_Y

Almost

If you have to be confined to the atmosphere of one planet, you can at least soar through it. This song began when I played the piano chords that are now barely audible in the final mix. I realized afterward that the rhythm of the piano notes was something I had heard before, both in U96's Movin' and in KDX 125 by the Pet Shop Boys, but I used major chords instead of minor.

This is my eighth song for FAWM 2020. Created with M-Audio Keystation 88, Roland Fantom XR, and Atari Mega STE with Emagic Notator.

Bandcamp: https://fullyfunctional.bandcamp.com/track/soaring
YouTube: https://youtu.be/myhjQ6fVYso

Soaring

Hey nah nah I wrote this song about FAWM, and it sounded like a guy-with-guitar kind of song, but I don't play guitar, so I visited the studio of my friend austinfiddle and he graciously and expertly played the guitar for me. He also suggested that we needed a glockenspiel and a shaker, and he played those as well.

This is the first time in a very long time that I've written lyrics for a song. It's not my strength, but somehow most of it came together fairly easily once I decided what the song was going to be about. Austinfiddle helped finish and improve the lyrics in several places.

Recording the vocals was probably the hardest part. It might have been a decade or two since I last tried to sing anything for a recording or a performance. There was a lot of re-recording and editing, which austinfiddle accomplished with the ease of a practiced professional producer. He also provided much coaching on singing and pronunciation and refined the melody. I kept him up far past his bedtime and I super tremendously appreciate the time and expertise he shared with me this FAWM.

This is my ninth song for FAWM 2020, and austinfiddle's first contribution to FAWM. Made with a guitar, glockenspiel, shaker, our voices, lots of fancy mics, and Avid Pro Tools running on an Apple MacBook Pro.

Bandcamp: https://fullyfunctional.bandcamp.com/track/wonderful-fawm
YouTube: https://youtu.be/7X521opmq1Q

Lyrics:

It's time to make some music, grab your guitar
Write fourteen songs, it isn't that hard
At the deli counter or when driving your car
Wherever inspiration appears

Every year we gather at fawm.org
Some of us are new, some have done it before
Writing tunes and lyrics or a little bit more
What you share I can't wait to hear

Singing hey nah nah nah nah-nah-nah-nah
Nah-nah-nah nah nah-nah nah-nah-nah-nah
Singing nah nah nah nah nah-nah-nah-nah
What a wonderful FAWM it will be

I'm making songs with friends and some it's just me
This is much more fun than I thought it would be
Music brings us together, don't you agree?
And we are challenging fear

Singing hey nah nah nah nah-nah-nah-nah
Nah-nah-nah nah nah-nah nah-nah-nah-nah
Singing nah nah nah nah nah-nah-nah-nah
What a wonderful FAWM it will be

What if I play the wrong chord?
What if I hit the wrong note?
Will they notice I rushed the tempo?
What if I can't rhyme the words?
What if there's no words at all?
It doesn't matter, it's just a demo

Now our time is over, we've had lots of fun
We've got so many more songs now than when we'd begun
Wish I had time to listen to every one
But I think I'd be here till next year

Singing hey nah nah nah nah-nah-nah-nah
Nah-nah-nah nah nah-nah nah-nah-nah-nah
Singing nah nah nah nah nah-nah-nah-nah
What a wonderful FAWM it has been

I hope you had a nice FAWM
I hope you wrote lots of songs
Guess I'll see you back here next year

Wonderful FAWM (fullyfunctional and austinfiddle)

I visited austinfiddle's studio where he came up with the chords and structure for this song and performed them on his mandolin, recorded with Avid Pro Tools on an Apple MacBook Pro. I took that recording home, chopped it up into two-measure sections using Audacity, imported those as samples into my Roland Fantom XR, assigned them to a rhythm kit, and recreated the original performance triggering those samples from patterns in Emagic Notator on my Atari Mega STE. I increased the tempo, which the Fantom's time-stretching capability handled great, added the Fantom's guitar amp simulator to the mandolin, and added bass lines, a pad, drums, and a little piano, played on my M-Audio Keystation 88 with patches from the Fantom. Then I started rearranging and condensing the song a bit, pulling the solo mandolin sections out and giving them reverb and later delay effects.

This song was intended to have vocals, and austinfiddle gave me some great pointers on his process for writing lyrics and sang a placeholder melody line, but we ran out of time. Thank you to austinfiddle for inviting me into his studio and for collaborating with me so enthusiastically. This is my tenth song for FAWM 2020, and austinfiddle's second contribution to FAWM.

Bandcamp: https://fullyfunctional.bandcamp.com/track/pocket-lint
YouTube: https://youtu.be/nX8qhWNiV8k

Pocket Lint (fullyfunctional and austinfiddle)

This is my first song for February Album Writing Month 2021.

Bandcamp: https://fullyfunctional.bandcamp.com/track/longing
YouTube: https://youtu.be/qt0-dh8DLec