thelittleparish

[thelittleparish]

Another lost song from the Twine audio folder hosted on my website (see previous posts).

If I’m remembering right, I wrote this as an end credits song.  I decided not to use it for a few reasons.

1. It was 10 minute game that was only made by one person that no one would play, it didn’t need ‘end credits’ louis, ya goof.

2. I ended up not having any other piano music in the game, so this felt more out of place than I would have liked.

3. The game was about my folks and childhood and I wrote this intending it to be about my Dad but it doesn't sound like my dad at all really. So while it was about someones Dad, it felt a lil wrong to use it here.

I kinda like it though, it’s relaxing. I like it when I allow myself to do something simple, to know that I won't force myself to add lots of bells and their corresponding whistles. 

[thelittleparish]

I was looking through the server that holds my website. Within it I found a few bits of unused music that I made for the Twine game I mentioned in a previous post. Its audio files have to be hosted online if you want other people to be able to play it, so I put them in there. Anyway, that’s not why I’m posting this... I recorded this on the fly to try to get an idea of the ambience of the game. I knew it wasn’t going to be final, but I needed to put the game in a space while I wrote it. Twine is all text, so having some sound idea was helpful. I ended up putting this music on loop as I wrote most of the text for the game. It was pretty crucial. I didn't actually use any kind of ‘main theme’ in the game. Instead, I relied on more ambient sound like the kind you can hear in the background of this track.

It’s fun playing off the cuff like this, I tend to find a couple chords I like and then go from there. It’s also a little stressful because the longer it goes on the more likely I am to play a chord that's off key.  I almost no knowledge of keys signatures and am only going off ear and my familiarity with a piano, much to my shame.

I get too comfortable (too cocky?) and bring in my voice. This makes it twice as hard because I’m guessing what the chord is going to be so I can sing in tune with it. You can pick out when I don’t quite get what I’m expecting from the piano when I pitch bend my voice to fit the chord better.

To get the general sound; it’s a good electric piano turned up loud and plugged in via MIDI.  And a mic somewhere in the room with the gain desperately high. There’s something perverse about recording an electric piano with a mic and I love it. I'll rely on the live recording of the piano most of the time, using the MIDI stuff to fill in any missing frequencies. It’s also nice to have a backup, and  much easier to manipulate in post.

Also also, I like the lil motif I come out with at the end. It feels like it fits something I haven’t done yet.

That’s all. Mbe I’ll put up the other lost music I made for that game.

[thelittleparish]

I made a twine game recently in which there is a secret ending and I wanted a cute lil sad song to play at the end. So I wrote this lil guy.

No one will ever find the ending cos it is very hidden but I like this song and I didn’t want to go unlistend, so here it is.

[thelittleparish]

Lost interest in this... 

I’m slightly obsessed with this chord progression, and I keep relying on it when I can’t think of anything else to play. I like step down chords, and this one has a little bit of complexity to it so it’s rather appealing to play.

I don’t have really anything more to say, just realised it’s been a while and i’m stuck in forward motion so I thought i’d busy myself.

Headphones? The way the sound is panned i’d imagine it would sound worse on laptop speakers. 

[thelittleparish]

Related to previous post.

And all other previous posts.

[thelittleparish]

This evening I forced myself to boot up Logic for the first time in quite a while. I had been avoiding recording anything from fear of the bad results. Boredom got the better of me. Anyway, as you can expect with that attitude, it didn’t go great and now I don’t feel well. The thing I wanted to do wasn’t working so instead I recorded a bunch of out of key, harsh/gross noises in rapid succession. It’s near unlistenable, so I thought I’d share.

and this will distort massively on any kind of speaker thing I’m assuming. Earphones are, as usual, your best bet. 

[thelittleparish]

(I’m gunna suggest earphones for this one, but whatever, you do you.)

I love the reverb in Leonard Cohens ‘Last years man’. It’s so nice and warm. Any way I stumbled on a similar sounding one yesterday and so mustered up my best Cohen impression and recorded it. It’s a very straight cover, which I used to do a lot of when I was just getting started but slowly stopped as I starting writing my own stuff. I’m not really comfortable doing a cover nowadays unless I have something new to offer the song, but I was just really enjoying singing this so I went ahead and recorded it anyway.

I did record the whole track but it was too long for tumblr so I just uploaded the last third. Which is fine because the end is the best part. I love the children's choir in the original, how it comes from next to nothing, and manages to be so impactful but also understated. 

I did move the key up a few semitones, and maybe should have gone one further as it is a little low for me still, but I liked the tone of this key and so sacrificed a couple notes .

There’s something I find incredibly satisfying about singing the word ‘Jesus’, the assonance of the ‘s’s’ teemed with the weight of what that name mean’s to some I suppose.

Also you get the sweet bonus sounds of my washing machine whirring and the builders outside putting up scaffolding.

[thelittleparish]

So I wanted to make a song that went on forever. Sometimes you find a song that you really like and you play it on repeat but ideally you'd like to just keep going with only variations. I wanted to make that. I got bored, because of course I would. So I just stuck some lazy harmonies on the end and called it a day.

The words are all on the spot recording I think, though the idea of a lady in a balloon was in my head. I sang with as little bravado as I could so most of the words are hard to hear, I like that little bits come through occasionally, I guess it fits. Lots of bad whistling. It is amazing how lazy I can be with re-recording things when they're out of tune, that habit really comes through here. The other instrument is an ocarina, which is really fun to play into a big plate reverb.

The voices at the end are my favourite part. Can't explain why. I ripped them from a podcast series called 'Tone Control' which is a bunch of interesting conversations with people from the video game industry.

It's fun taking something out of context and applying it to something else. I feel like it fits tonally in a kind of way.

[thelittleparish]

(earphones advised)

This is from the same project as the one I mentioned below, so for more on that scroll down a couple notches.

I like recording harmonies, I dunno if you noticed.

‘She’ is a word I use a lot when i’m improvising. I guess from conditioning of every other song being about love, also ‘e’ is a nice sound to sing.

I really like the quiet after the last ‘she’ and the feedback and shuffling at the very end.

[thelittleparish]

(earphones advised)

I have this Logic project that I always open and play in when I feel like writing but have nothing particular in mind. I end up making the most insular stuff in those sessions. Just sit at my piano with my mic listening to the reverb slide around my headphones. It’s probably when i’m at my most peaceful or something like that, I dunno. This logic file is the closest I get to truly writing music for myself, And now i’m sharing it with the internet, so pfft.

Anyways, they are just little musical ideas, never really have any desire to expand on them. Heres one. I have the worlds most ridiculous limiter in this project so I can hear all the nice fuzzy noises. the cars outside, my legs shuffling. Thats why the volume dips at the louder parts. so sorry. 

[thelittleparish]

So I know I ask you to use earphones a lot, and you probably never listen. That is very annoying. Just this once, could you please go get them? This will sound crap otherwise. Nice and loud too. Thanks bud.

Might be the most self indulged thing I put up. Its just me making sounds into a microphone for my own pleasure. But I love doing it and I liked listening back to it also. Thought it might be interesting to share, might not though. 

The mic I was using was faulty, hence the popcorn noises, but i kinda like it. 

I basically turn in to a kazoo by the end.

Sorry for the abrupt end also.

[thelittleparish]

This one made it all the way to Logic, it's got reverb and everything...

Really like the start. I made the main vocal very present, I almost wanted it to be like he (as in the character talking in the song... cannot not figure out how to explain that better) was whispering in the listeners ear, but not as unpleasant as that is in real life. 

The idea for the song originally started with the 'Ohms' after the verse. I had an image of a boy running his hands through tall grass. 

For some reason I wanted the whole narrative of the song to be told in one verse. I think I did that. I hope it makes sense. Debated wether or not to include the 'son' at the end of the verse. Not sure if necessary, couldn't help my self though. If I had finished the song perhaps I would have kept 'son' in but mostly drowned it out with the 'Ohms'. 

Had to give it up because I could not figure out how to make the 'Ohms' work. Really hard to sing, really hard. To get the sound I have to hum and breath out at the same time, difficult to maintain, but it does have a nice effect when done well. It could do with other accompaniment also.