Not A Blog™

Back in high school and part of the way through college, I wrote quite a bit of music. It was always a lot of fun, even if I wasn’t very good at it. As the years went on, I got involved with other things, as so frequently happens, and over the past few years, I’ve only written a handful of songs. Even so, I still have people today asking what happened to my old music, and when I plan to put it all back online. (It was online as part of the now three-year-old non-WordPress blog, which was just a blog, not even Not A Blog™.)

Truth is, I wasn’t planning to put it back online. Well, maybe one or two of the most recent pieces—but the older stuff? I didn’t even like some of it then; how much less would I like it now?

It turns out that my music isn’t that bad, now that I go back and listen to it. Everyone is their own, as they say, worst critic, but a few years of not listening to any of these tracks have given me an artistic distance. I’ll never be able to evaluate them objectively, but I can take another look that is perhaps more honest than before. All that to say that I have decided to put up all my old music—with the exception of my MIDI stuff, some of which no longer renders correctly on more modern MIDI wavetables.

In today’s post, I’m taking a look at the period which roughly spanned my high school years. This was back when I was just learning the software and the basics of music theory and so on. Subsequently, some of these are pretty bad. It might not be the best idea to lead off with the weak foot, but I think it makes more sense to do it chronologically, and so I start at the beginning. If you don’t like anything here, try again Monday, when my work improves in college. If you don’t like electronic music at all, I’m afraid I have nothing for you these next few days.

The songs listed can be found here, or at the music link at the top. On that page, they are just listed without commentary—which gives me a reason to do a post today and Monday. I’ve decided to go through and listen to all my music, and give myself as honest and straightforward as a critique as possible. If this means making fun of my own stuff, so be it. But I still have that guilty pleasure of listening to a few of my own tracks, so I know for a fact they’re not all bad.

Let’s begin.

The Einstein’s Conspiracy Era

Back when I was learning Fruityloops and starting to write techno, I came up with the Techno Name Generator. It was a piece of notebook paper with one set of words on the top and complimentary words on the bottom. The idea was that you randomly chose one word from each group (using the scientific method of closing your eyes and waving a pen around, then tapping it down on a specific spot), thereby creating a name. It came up with usable names about half the time. I ended up filling both sides of the paper with a plethora of words, and it actually got to be a pretty complex and useful little tool, until I lost it. That was a bummer, really, because it was kind of funny. Anyway, many of the tracks in this section were named using the Techno Name Generator. (Note: these are in alphabetical order because I don’t remember their intended order on the album.)

Astral Revelation 5.5mb

This was written following an astral projection—or whatever sort of brain process causes that type of thing—hence the name. I always liked it because I think it captures my experiences well. Listening to it now, the drums are too strong. It also exhibits the “Layer Cake Style” of composing, which I used quite a bit during this period. I’ll talk about that more when I review Discombobulation Station, but it basically involves building up more and more instruments on top of each other, then dropping certain ones out to vary the tone and focus of what’s playing. I think this has some really nice breaks in it, too. One thing I can’t stand is music that just repeats for 80 bars before they tweak one little setting to mix it up a little. To avoid this, I tend to go to the opposite extreme, varying something every four or eight bars with rigid predictability. If there’s anything bad I can say about this—aside from the general unrefinedness due to my inexperience—it’s that the breaks are too predictable.

Caves of Steel 4.1mb

Another song I liked when I finished it, Caves of Steel is based on the Isaac Asimov novel by the same name. I like to think that it captures the environment of the book well. One thing that always bugged me about this song, though, is that it’s too quiet. During this time, I was really struggling to mix the music well. Most of it is terribly muddy (even worse if you listen to it on speakers instead of headphones), and I was trying different techniques to eliminate that. As part of my ongoing experimentation with audio mixing, this song came out a little bit different.

The synth-choir sound that comes in at two minutes was called “Orion”. I really liked the sound, and I got a lot of use out of it. Earlier on I just used it straight; later I learned to mix it with other sounds and run it through plug-ins to vary the sound. During some of the parts, I think I stretched the sample too high and it sounds kind of crappy, but for the most part, it works. The song does run a little long—as I said, I like techno to do things—and I probably could have chopped off the last minute without changing it too much. Still, a solid showing, I think.

Chaos Theory 3mb

The first “real” techno I ever wrote. Most of the sounds in this one (including the one it opens with) were prepackaged with FL. That gives the song a kind of stilted, clichéd sound. I eventually grew out of that as I learned to make my own sounds, but this one sounds very “Fruityloops” to me. A lot of the earlier ones are this way.

Discombobulation Station 4.5mb

I reappropriated the title of this one from Graham, who originally had planned to write a song with the same name for a band he was in. When he never wrote the song, I asked if I could steal the title and he said sure.

This is the quintessential example of Layer Cake Composing. You can hear each layer come in at the beginning, one every eight bars. The idea behind this song was that you can write as much crap as you want and keep piling it up—and as long as it’s all in the same key, the notes will sound good together. Surprisingly, it actually works. It creates a kind of beeping, squeaking soundscape, but it’s varied enough by dropping out the different noises to stay interesting and not be annoying. Again, it’s a little too predictable on the breaks, but this can be a good thing, e.g. if you’re using it as backing for some sort of dance-off (right, like that will happen). I’d also like to point out that the bass riff that starts at 2:48 is probably my favorite bass line out of all the ones I’ve written. It grooves.

Double Paradox 3.8mb

I hated this song when I wrote it. It is a little annoying, based on some of the sounds I selected, but it’s not terrible. I was experimenting with composition in this one, as well. I hadn’t yet learned about phrasing and “choruses” and “verses” and all that stuff real songs use, so this one sort of bounces around. Starting about two minutes in, I do a thing where each bar in the main phrase has a solo, followed by the entire phrase, then the next bar has a solo, and so on. It’s just a gimmicky way of extending the song, frankly.

Einstein’s Conspiracy 5mb

This is the track from which the album takes its name. I think “Einstein’s Conspiracy” was generally considered to be the best result the Techno Name Generator ever came up with, so that’s why it’s the name of the album.

The song itself was my attempt at some really hard-core house. It turned out nothing like how I wanted, which frustrated me to no end. Today, I can kind of hear what I was trying to do, but for the most part, this song is just a mess. It’s got that overused guitar power-chord noise. There is a build to nowhere, the choir at the end hits like a brick wall. The whole thing is really muddy, and it exudes a frantic scrambling, but it never gets anywhere. Now that I look back on it, I think that, ironically, the title track is one of the weakest. But really, when you get right down to it, I was going for a sound that was way out of my league. You can hear a few things in Einstein’s Conspiracy that hint at what my style would become.

Electronic Foundation 2.8mb

For a while, this song was the only one I didn’t mind letting other people hear. If I told someone I wrote techno, and they wanted to hear some, this is the one I played. It was annoying, though, because they always wanted to hear more, after that. One of the guys I went to college with was so blown away by this song that he refused to believe I wrote it.

It is a pretty neat song. I still like it. It is, perhaps, a tad short, but it’s tight. The drum break is probably the weakest part, but it recovers into another cool bass riff and keeps chugging away to a strong ending. It’s one of the few songs I wrote that I don’t skip when it comes up on the iPod.

Free Momentum 4.5mb

I remember almost nothing about writing this song. It just popped out in the midst of the rest. It’s a bouncy, happy techno, which is somewhat unusual for me. The main riff is repeated for too much of the song. Apparently, I was unable to come up with a second or third appropriately happy riff to use in there. In fact, this riff is relentless throughout the whole song, almost never letting up, and not varying one iota, until, by the end, you don’t care if you ever hear another happy techno riff in your life, as long as this one stops! Yeah, pretty monotonous. And it gets stuck in your head. Sorry about that.

Intersecting Forces 3.4mb

This song doesn’t really start until about 50 seconds in when the first good riff starts. Another riff is introduced soon after, and thus sets up the idea of the song, which is that there are two riffs that are supposed to compliment each other when played at the same time. It kinda works. I see what the idea is supposed to be, again, but it’s not quite happening. Mostly it sounds like two leads fighting for dominance. They’re really not complimentary in the least. Well, in that sense, the title is accurate, I guess. They most certainly do intersect. The song also exhibits another thing I’ve always had trouble with: writing good endings. Most of my songs just end. No resolution or climax or anything that would indicate an ending. I would just be writing until I decided, “ah, that’s probably long enough”, then stop. This is one of those songs. It just stops.

Jam Session 2.5mb

Not much to say about this one. I found a really cool slap bass sample, and I was going to use it, dagnabbit. It’s actually kind of a fun thing to listen to, but it’s not really a song, per se. What’s the musical equivalent of a pencil sketch? Whatever that is, that’s what this song is.

More Beepers 3mb

The title of this song shows what happened after I lost the Techno Name Generator. I’m terrible at coming up with titles most of the time, and so the songs end up being whatever file name I thought of off the top of my head. This song does, indeed, contain more beepers. I didn’t even bother running most of them through filters or phasers. Just raw sine, square, and saw waves, evidently. I’m actually surprised it blends together as well as it does in the middle. It does get aggravatingly beep-ey by the end, but there are some nice passages in there. Overall, not a great song, but it works well enough, I suppose.

Random Deviation 2.8mb

Dave described Random Deviation to me as sounding like the kind of music one plays on a rainy day. I think I’d have to agree. It is a very moody piece, and although it still sounds like a song written in FL (it was only the third or fourth song I wrote in the program), you can listen to it without cringing.

Resonant Particle 4.8mb

So named because the lead sounds like it is resonating inside a small chamber, with all that chorus applied. I like the organ part. I think it adds a touch of sophistication to this piece, even if it does get repetitive. The fast change to slap bass around 1:50 makes it sound like it should be a completely separate song. I’m not sure why I thought that was a good idea at the time. (I had that slap bass; I had to use it!) It sounds like I just said, “I’m tired of writing this song; I’ll just start a new song in the middle of this other song.” In my defense, though, I tied it back together at the end. Not bad, not bad.

Reverse Vacuum 2.3mb

This song was fun, but you can also tell it was written shortly after Chaos Theory. It has all the trappings: pre-made FL samples, almost no effects, monotonous electronic drums, etc. The only thing worth listening for in this song is the stall a little after the one minute mark. It’s pretty much a one-trick song.

Robotic Industry 4.1mb

I really wish I could write more songs like this one. I sat down and knocked out this song in one sitting. It just came together perfectly. This is the sort of techno I like listening to—kind of ambient; kind of slow; nice steady rhythm. That I was able to write some was a huge bonus. It eventually ended up being a part one to Robotic Evolution’s part two—but this one is light years ahead in terms of quality.

Even today, I have trouble finding something wrong with this song. It’s solid; it doesn’t get stuck on one riff too much; it has a few different riffs it moves between, not so many to be disjointed, not so few that it’s boring. If anything, again, I’d have to say the breaks are too predictable, but it really doesn’t bother me at all in this song. A Pulsar classic.

Robotic Evolution 3mb

Technically speaking, this one should come before Robotic Industry in alphabetical order, but since it’s a part two to that one, I put it after. After I had written a few of the above songs, I thought to myself that I should try another one like Robotic Industry—same style, but better. Because this was further along in my “career”, I named it Robotic Evolution, since I supposedly evolved in my style. I did evolve, but the charm of the previous one just isn’t there. This one just seems to be trying too hard, I think. It’s also optimistic, whereas Industry was more melancholy. It was supposed to be optimistic, but it’s just not the same. It’s mediocre techno.

Something New for a Change 2.2mb

After I finished the album Einstein’s Conspiracy, I decided to go back and try another song more along the lines of what I wanted the song Einstein’s Conspiracy to have sounded like in the first place. This turd was the result. Again: it’s frenetic without resolve, bottom heavy, muddy, and hard to listen to. There is very little I like about this song. If anything good came of it at all, it’s that it made me realize that I just can’t imitate that hardcore house style, and that I should stop trying to copy other people all the time and concentrate on developing my own style. In other words, despite the title, there is absolutely nothing “new for a change” about this song. That would come later.

Random Mutation 3 5.5mb

There is no Random Mutation 1 or 2; this is the third revision of this project. I like how this starts out. Typical techno two-step—a little long, maybe—but it opens into a pretty nice phrase. As the song goes on, it gets less interesting, but I never thought it was really horrible. Until I shared it with Dave a few weeks after I finished it.

He emailed me back saying, “It’s alright. But that part at 3:40 sounds like someone stepping on a row of ducks.”

Crap! He was right! That’s exactly what it sounds like. And ever since that exact instant, I have hated this song. Every time I think of it, I think about “a row of ducks”. I should just change the title to that; at least then it wouldn’t be a surprise.

This is all the music I wrote during high school—during the Einstein’s Conspiracy era. The only songs on this list not part of the album are More Beepers, Something New for a Change, and Random Mutation 3. Starting Monday, I’ll review my second period of music, which I call the Midnight Fugue era. It was mostly written while I was in college, and it leads into my present day state of hardly writing any music at all. More on Monday.

-Ted