Not A Blog™

Yet another contest entry. Entering contests is pretty unusual for me, but perhaps that will change in the future. This time around, I’ve entered the RiffTrax theme song contest. For those who don’t know, RiffTrax is the new Mystery Science Theater. Mike Nelson started doing the why-didn’t-I-think-of-that idea of recording himself making fun of movies in MP3 files, which you then sync up and play along with the movie. In this way, he can make fun of all sorts of contemporary movies without infringing any copyrights by reshowing the movies in the Satellite of Love’s theater-like setting. And when you think about it, you don’t need the silhouettes anyway. Just Mike—and recently, others from the cast of MST3K—and you’ve got comedy gold.

RiffTrax has been around for a year now, and the theme they currently use sounds like it is—according to them—”better suited for a 3M training tape.” I downloaded one and sure enough: stock city.

It was Mr. Paul, again, who informed me of the contest. I didn’t seriously consider doing anything for it because I didn’t really have any ideas, but also because he was entering, and he has a degree in classical guitar, which means he knows all about trembalos and arpeggios, and can probably play the hardest guitar chord ever. But despite this expert competition, he nevertheless convinced me to give it a go. This is the result.

I call it Anthem to Cheese. I think the theme is cheesy enough that this works, plus it’s intended use is to introduce cheese, which will, in turn, be made fun of in a hilarious if not cheesy manner.

If it sounds like I plagiarized off myself, that’s because I did. I don’t think this is what Mr. Nelson, et al, is looking for, but I thought it would be fun to do a parody, if you will, of real movie production company themes. I listened to Universal, 20th Century Fox, Disney—all the staples—and figured that I already had something similar to that: my Space Opera Theme. But there were a few problems with this theme. For one thing, it was my “learning a new piece of software” project which, like all my “learning” projects, isn’t necessarily bad but seems unpolished. Also, the Space Opera sounds like “space”, kinda, which is good—that was the intent—but not quite what appropriate for RiffTrax. I wanted something more “movie studio”-esque. More like a fanfare.

So I stole the first series of notes from Space Opera and used that as my starting point here, ultimately branching out in both directions, and ending up somewhere else. It did turn out more like a movie opening which is great because, frankly, I wasn’t sure I’d be able to pull it off.

Also cool: I got to make use of my theremin! Excellent. This is the song I mentioned on Sunday that I would be releasing soon. The part is exceedingly short: a good idea since I’m exceedingly bad. But it’s in there and I played it with my own two hands, so there you go. (I played a little piano in there, too, but it blends nicely into the background and doesn’t make itself known.)

It was a lot of fun to do this project but, like I said, I don’t expect it will get picked up. I’m not sure it’s what they’re looking for. Although—if even they don’t know what they’re looking for, I may just have a chance, yet. We’ll know by the end of the month.

-Ted