Lunch Break at the PWU School of Music Recital Hall

This is probably the first time I spent my lunch break on music rather than on food.

What’s happening here is actually a test of recording equipment. This is a video recording of myself and Jeepney Joyride trombonist Diamond Manuel performing a free improvisation jam. Everything here is completely improvised. The first piece is a 20th-century classical sounding ditty influenced by the likes of Bartok, Varese, Messiaen, Zappa, and maybe a bit of Debussy. The second piece is a pretty straightforward swing jazz in C minor.

Now, as to why I was testing recording equipment, I was checking recording levels on my Zoom H4n because I’m supposed to record Diamond’s trombone recital this coming Saturday morning. He will be performing his recital program on December 6, 2014 at the Philippine Women’s University School of Music Recital Hall. It’s free admission, and safe to say that I don’t think anybody’s going to hear this sort of jam session at the event.

The test did come out great on my Zoom H4n. I have to say, however, that the video posted here is from my crappy smartphone and so the audio quality is not so great. Since I usually have to take videos for my research, I suppose investing money on a real camcorder isn’t such a bad idea.

So, if any of you are in Manila on Saturday and happen to have some free time, please drop by and watch Diamond Manuel’s trombone recital. Cheers!

A Sneak Preview of Christine L. Villa’s “The Eskalets”

Music by Mark A. Galang

Solo Piano Music by Mark A. Galang Featured on “The Eskalets” by Christine L. Villa

About two months ago, I received a commission to write solo piano music for “The Eskalets”, a short story in DVD format by Christine L. Villa, a children’s book author and poet. For this particular project, I chose to perform and improvise a mashup of four of my solo piano compositions. For now, I can perhaps call that particular mashup as — guess what –“The Eskalets”.

If you’d like to discover the story of four baby robins and and their journey starting from their nest up until they learn how to launch themselves up into the air, click on this link (or the photo above) and purchase the DVD direct from Christine. I am sure that the captivating story of the Eskalets would teach your children the value of family, the way to deal with adversity, and the road to becoming independent.

Remembering “Archery: Shoot the Apple”

About a year ago I believe, I worked on this physics-based game called “Archery: Shoot the Apple”

I was successful in designing sounds and composing music for the game from scratch. The good thing is that anybody can still purchase the game from Amazon or Barnes & Noble for $0.99.

The thing that amuses me most this time is how they describe my sound effects as “funny”. I would take that as a compliment.

The Search for Christian Progressive Rock

About 9 years ago, when I was looking for progressive rock bands that were Christian in orientation, I first found out about Kerry Livgren’s work both with Kansas and then with Proto-Kaw and his solo work:

Afterwards, I discovered Ajalon:

Then I discovered Glass Hammer:

A few years after that, progressive rock giant Neal Morse became Christian (although he kind of misunderstands what the Trinity is all about; his views sound like a mix of tritheism and modalism):

It doesn’t really do any justice by just watching these clips. Keep in mind that Christian progressive rock (like secular prog) is known for suites and concepts albums so it’s always best to listen to entire albums to understand the big picture i.e. the love of God manifested through Jesus Christ.

The EDM Hat: Still in the Process of Getting One for Myself

I will admit that I am no expert with regard to electronic dance music or EDM for short. I have some friends who are involved with that genre including my musical mentor from the early  ’90s who currently goes by the moniker “Silverfilter” and Albert (physical therapist by day, DJ by night) yet for some reason I cannot grasp the process of how to go about writing EDM. Perhaps it may not be my thing at all. But in the spirit of open-mindedness and in the effort to learn new things, I am in the process of trying to learn how to write stuff that sounds like EDM.

I do wonder if it involves similar processes as I do writing prog and jazz, you know, the muso-oriented stuff. Perhaps it may just be like writing disco with the exception that I use purely electronic instruments like loads and loads of synthesizers, drum machines, etc. Probably the closest I got to writing EDM was when I was trying to emulate Vangelis (who is NOT an EDM artist, although he was certainly influential). Is writing EDM just as simple as laying down a four-on-the-floor kick drum track with some minor-sounding synth bass on a Moog or something similar to that? I am of course familiar with the bells and whistles such as the creative use of compression like “ducking” and what not. The trouble is that I barely have an idea of how to go making things sound authentic.

I went back listening to examples of my electronic music, including my attempts to write EDM, and I would say that I don’t come close to sounding like I would shake up the walls of dance clubs and concert halls any time soon. I still have trouble figuring out the aesthetics of EDM. Maybe I should listen to more EDM so I can understand what the heck is going on because at this point I am not yet a fan of it. Perhaps if I achieve some level of fanaticism with it, then I could get the hang of EDM. Heck, prog-rock guitar heroes like Mike Oldfield and  Steve Hillage got the hang of EDM, so why couldn’t I? I probably don’t have to go the length of going to Ibiza for that like Mike Oldfield did.

Anyway, it would suffice to say for now that I’m trying to learn EDM. A composer has to wear many hats, and if I want to make progress, I should acquire the EDM hat soon. In the quest to learn and understand EDM, I stumbled across this Saturday Night Live clip. I find it funny.

Newbie Tries Live Looping Using Ableton Live

I am that newbie, and boy do I suck at this. How many times do I have to suck before getting it right just like those folks at the BOSS Loopstation Championships? Gotta shed some more wood on bass? Piano? Ableton? I guess that would be everything.

Christian Rock Apologetics

I am very tired of the hatred and bigotry that these so-called Christian Rock critics hurl at musicians and listeners who want to worship God through musical styles other than the Euro-centric traditional hymns. In a previous blog post, I have said my piece about this. In this new post, I’d like to share a more detailed site that covers a lot of ground about the topic of music in worship. Here it goes:

http://www.mindspring.com/~brucec/craindex.htm

This site has a wealth of information and presents a balanced viewpoint regarding how music should be in worship along with answers to common Christian Rock critic accusations.

Berocca Aluminum Tube Kazoo

It’s true: You can create musical instruments out of garbage. Being inspired by Frank Zappa as well as the Landfillharmonic, I decided to go create an improvised instrument and improvise some solo quasi-trumpet garbage jazz on it.

I’ve been taking Berocca (the fizzy vitamin tablets) for the past three weeks now as supplements. As a result, I have these leftover aluminum tubes. I thought that perhaps I can turn these tubes  into musical instruments so I made a kazoo with one of them. I cut out the other end of the tube, place some kind of wax paper membrane on the other end, secured it with a hair tie, and voila I got myself a kazoo. I wanted to know how it sounded like  so I filmed myself. It sounds okay to me and I think it would be useful in various musical creations. At the very least, I can grab the attention of my cats with it. It’s either the cats love it or it emits certain sound frequencies that they themselves can only hear so well that it’s annoying.

Old Stuff, New Stuff

It’s been so long since I last posted something here as I was very busy with graduate school activities and work as usual. I find it refreshing that I got some time now to write something. This past week, I completed a 10-minute piece which I submitted to my composition teacher, Dr. Kristina Benitez, and got some useful feedback from her. This coming trimester, my new task is to expand that piece into a multi-movement suite. Expanding it into a suite is very doable since that piece has a lot of ideas going on. The next question now is whether or not I can get it performed or at least be able to record a good mockup of it. Because of that, I started to explore the Sibelius 7  Sound Library.

These past few days, I was occupied with testing out the Sibelius 7  Sound Library on my MacBook Pro, and so I decided to dig up my musical history. I’m not very fond of listening to the old stuff I’ve written and recorded since it feels very much like reading your high school diary (the thought of which makes me cringe). However, in this case I wanted to hear what it would be like to try out my old compositions on a new sample library.

I use a number of sample libraries in my music production in various formats like NI Kontakt, Apple EXS24, etc. and I also used to have the old Sibelius 5 sound library. I was quite fond of it when it came out (even though it was far from perfect), and so it was very exciting for me to use that new library for the first time. Hearing my old, old works on new sounds gave it new life. It still sounds far from perfect of course but the Sibelius 7  Sounds are usable to create orchestral mockups. The percussion and piano sounds were excellent although the tremolo is still has that slight machine gun effect. The other samples like strings, woodwinds, and brass are okay. As with many sample libraries, I found the guitar samples to be less than satisfying. The classical guitar samples could have been good except that it can be oddly squeaky because of the default fret noise setting. Imagine hearing playing single scale notes with every note being accompanied by a fret squeak, and so it sounds so unnatural. The solution to that would be to dial down the fret noise knob. Steel string guitar sounds are okay. The distorted guitar sound is probably the most awful of the bunch. It’s a good thing that I’m a guitarist as well and so I wouldn’t need to use those guitar samples anyway.

I said a while ago that I’m not fond of listening to my old recordings but I did find something good about that little exercise. I was able to uncover musical ideas that I would call diamonds in the rough. Bits and pieces of melodic and rhythmic themes here and there would make good material to expand for a variety of compositions that I could craft in the near future. I just hope that I get the time and patience to further explore them.

So, going back to my  graduate school composition work, I plan to expand that into a suite. I should probably start once the weekday hits, or maybe I should talk to Dr. Benitez first to plan it all out. After scoring it in Sibelius, I will tweak the hell out of the MIDI to make it somewhat realistic and then practice all guitar, iPad, and piano parts before recording. That should enable me to submit a good recording by the end of the term. Afterwards, it will be time to work on my graduate thesis. Seems like I should savor these light-load days as I will be very busy in the next few months .