This playlist contains the tracks I've been creating with my new digital piano, a Roland F-140R.  It's a fantastic little instrument.  I'm still very much a beginner, but having a great time with it.  I've been using Garageband MIDI to create some really cool soundscapes by layering multiple effects.  (I Feel Like) A Martian has some good examples of this.  All the sounds you hear in this song were created by my keyboard (or guitar) except for the beat track.  Black and Chrome is a fun song written in some flat minor keys(Eb Minor and F Minor)while also using chromatics in a few places.  These Dusty Old Keys has some beautiful Garageband piano loops combined with my guitar for a really interesting sound in C Major and A Minor.  Fugue in Eb Major is a classical piano piece with a few passages repeated with different string effects and organ-synths.  It comes together especially nicely at the end.  I hope you have time to delve in and enjoy this playlist!

Deciphering The Keys

Black keys and chromatics lend their sound to this song.  Chromatics have their own real distinctive sound to them, especially when placed several in a row.  I also went for it way to the left in the wheel of fifths, the flat keys!   I love the flat keys, my fat fingers appreciate them too.  This song starts in F Minor and then goes down a step to Eb Minor for awhile.  Finally, you gently land in a floating G Major with a modulation that stops you in your tracks, but still provides the needed continuity with the rest of the song, or at least I hope so.  After a quick turn to E Minor and then back again to G Major we go back to Eb Minor and finally end where we started in F minor.  I used my keyboard quite a bit in this song; the first new wave jazz song that I've used it for actually.  I have about four tracks of keyboard, playing the same notes, but with different effects.  They blend together for a really cool keyboard sound.

The song starts with some inversions; the ones I happened to be assigned by my piano teacher to work on that week:  Ab, Db, and Eb.  I threw in Cm at the end of the intro just to round it out and plus, I play Cm in the guitar rhythm to transition into the first section of wacky chromatics, so of course it was fitting.  The first section is in F Minor and is basically Fm and Ab arpeggios with some Cm and then Eb chords strummed in the middle of the phrase.  Then just before the chromatic weirdness, I strum Cm, but this time instead of Eb, I follow with C7.  You can hear the first chromatics in the section from 0:30 to 0:36.  This is a quick arpeggio/strum in C7 then B7 and finally Bb7 and then ending the quick phrase playing Eb and then Eb7 chords.  The Eb and Eb7 chords kick off the transition into Eb Minor; I know it's weird to use Eb major to go to Eb Minor, but maybe it's because the major chord is more dominant in the ear than the minor would be.  I just liked the sound of using the major chord better for this job.  Immediately after the Eb to Eb7 chords, we have the progression  Cb - Ebm - Abm - Bbm - Gb - Db  (this I thought was in Eb Minor, but kinda sounds like Db major too.  I can't tell for sure.)  This is also easily my favorite part of the song and totally reminds me of Frank Zappa's album Hot Rats due to the underlying keyboard.  I love that album.  After this first quick progression we are firmly (in my opinion) in Eb Minor for 24 bars playing Ebm - Bbm - Cb - Gb.  After cycling between the first and second progressions a couple more times in succession, the first progression ends in Db7 instead of just Db.  This lands us fairly softly in a drastic key change to G Major.  This works maybe partly because D is dominant in the key of G (but yes, I know, I played Db7, maybe that's why it sort of works, but is also still kind of jarring.) The brief relaxing interlude in G Major and E Minor is a nice break from the frenetic pace of the rest of the song, but after we go back to Eb Minor you can hear the pounding bass beat from the beginning of the song coming back to life as it's volume rises.

This beat leads us through a repeat of the Ebm - Bbm - Cb - Gb and  Cb - Ebm - Abm - Bbm - Gb - Db progressions, with the last 4 bars of this 12 bar phrase in Eb Minor going Ebm - Bbm - F - F7.  The F to F7 switch up at the end sets us up nicely for the transition back to the F Minor phrase that we started the song on and is in line with the Eb to Eb7 that we did to transition to Eb Minor earlier.  The chromatic weirdness at this part is from the keyboard as I play the keys D - Eb - E - Eb - D - Db - C - B - Bb - A in rapid succession.  The leads us back into F Minor as the beat comes blasting back, having been missing for these last four bars.  The F minor section carries us back to a repeat of the chromatic chords from earlier in the track:  C7, B7, Bb7 and we end the song strumming Eb to Eb7.  Gotta love those flatted 7th chords!  This song was a ton of fun to make.  Thanks for listening.

Guitar Fusion

Black and Chrome

Fugue in Eb Major

This track starts out with a nice mellow C/Cmaj7 arpeggio.  I alternate between landing on the C or the B to give it that sound.  My keyboard quickly comes in with some heavy effects that I really love and were composed with an emphasis on C Major as well.  So we start briefly in C Major, but the majority of the track is written in F Major, with some parts sounding F Lydian because there is a continuous emphasis on the F whilst switching between B and Bb in the melody.  When the first keyboard melody starts at 0:14, I switch to a plain old F arpeggio on guitar (though it sounds kind of funky because the first keyboard melody starts on E, but skips over the F key, but still uses Bb.)  Plus, at the same time the effects that were written more in C Major are still going on (why the effects sound a little off, but in a good way.) The entire song is ambiguous between the keys of C Major/C Mixolydian and F Major/F Lydian actually.  Both notes actually sound ok as tonal centers due to the switching back and forth of B/Bb in the melody and the emphasis of the chords Fmaj at some points or Cmaj at others in the progressions. 

The lead guitar comes in at 0:32 playing the F Pentatonic scale while the keyboard melody switches to an ambiguous F Major/F Lydian mode. The melody now starts on F, but avoids playing a B or Bb during the first time up the scale, but it does play a Bb during the second to cement the F Major; this also contributes to the C Mixolydian sound of the song here, I think.  The only real switch up that sounds kind of like a modulation, but I don't think really is, comes at 1:27.  I believe we are in solid F Major, the guitar progression goes like this:  F - C - Dm - C.  The chords are both plucked like an arpeggio and strummed, in a kind of mixture.  We see the emphasis on F and it’s dominant C in the guitar progression and the keyboard is playing the F Major scale, with a trill that uses Bb and so really emphasizes F Major in the melody as well.  The same weird MIDI effects that are used during the first part of the song are now used for playing the corresponding major chords on the keyboard:  F - C - Dm - C.

After this section we break back into a more loose F Lydian mode.  It starts with the F Pentatonic scale on the guitar at 2:30 and then the change comes with the keyboard melody that starts on F and first avoids the Bb (F Lydian) coming back in at 2:40.  I can't get over how it sounds like a return to home at 2:40 so the new tonal center may be more C Mixolydian.  There's a lot of ambiguity in this track, but this part sounds really definitively like a change in key (maybe the tonal center goes F to C.)  Is it really that the middle section is in a more solid F Major whilst the rest of the song is more a C Mixolydian/F Lydian mash-up?  Anyhow, the C note really competes with F for "home" during the whole song.

Well, I've confused myself, can someone who really understands modes help me out here?  I think the ethereal sound is definitely at least partly caused by an overall lack of a real tonal center.  Does the middle section sound a more solid F Major than the rest to you?  The whole song kind of blends two Major keys that are a fifth apart, which in a way is what a Lydian/Mixolydian mash-up is (using the same tonal center.)  If you get a chance, play an F or a C note over that section and let me know if you think it’s in F Lydian or C Mixolydian.  As always, thanks for reading and for listening!

(I Feel Like) A Martian

This song starts in the key of B flat major.  The first rhythm progression is Bb - Cm - Dm - D to Eb.  The last chord, an accidental, quickly slides up to Eb and I think coming right off the Dm helps the Dmaj chord to fit better too.  (The beginning arpeggio is Bb - Cm - Dm - D with no slide up to Eb and it still sounds pretty cool.) The next progression is F7 - Bb - Cm - Gm.  The second time played it ends on Bb (then sliding up to B) instead of Gm.  This slides us into the first key change Bb to B major starting at 0:56.

The progression in B major is B - C#m - D#m - E and you'll notice some synth that kicks in (my keyboard playing the B major scale with several different effects.)  The third play-through of the guitar progression ends on E7 quickly sliding down to Eb7 to help nudge us "back" into the key of G Minor starting at 1:20.  It really does sound flat here, the dissonance is kind of cool though, I think.  So in the new key, I start the lead on G and this helps cement the G Aeolian mode instead of a return to the previous Bb Major (which the ear is more expecting as it’s a “return to home.”)  This new progression is Gm - Eb - Dm - Cm.  It ends the third time through on a Cmaj chord instead of Cm which pulls us into the key of C major at 1:44 and I play the progression C - Dm - Am - C against some more zany sounding synths from my keyboard.

Finally, at 2:08 the final key change is into F major using a C7 chord instead of the final C major in the third play through of C - Dm - Am - C.  This section is interesting though because I use very, very similar progressions to what I used at the beginning of the song:  F - Bb - C(C7) - Gm(Gmaug5) and Bb - Cm - Dm - D to Eb.  This time however, it is firmly in the key of F, not Bb.  I start the lead on F and I stay soloing in the F pentatonic scale the whole time so even though I use almost the same chords it is now F major (of course being a fifth apart they have many of the same chords being used, except the C and the Eb.)  This is an interesting thing though, the lead guitar really does determine the key.

Reminisce

“Music is a journey into the sub-conscious.”

Influences include:  Radiohead, Pink Floyd, The Grateful Dead, Beck, RHCP, The Beatles, Coldplay, The Doors, Led Zeppelin, Shinedown, Genesis, Weezer, The Cranberries, Frank Zappa, Fleetwood Mac, Chris Cornell, Incubus, Muse, 10,000 Maniacs and more.

Reminisce

Metatron