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The 1st Mode (Soundcloud)

Score on Google Drive - forgive the messiness, I did this quickly

I wrote a quick'n'dirty harp solo using Messiaen's first mode of limited transposition (a whole tone scale). I cheated and threw in a few tuning changes to give it some tonality so that I could resolve to a at the end.

Choral Sketch (Choral)[Themed]

I'm back! Didn't have time to complete this tonight, but I have plans to expand on this, and add some percussion, strings and guitar, maybe some more keys or piano.

Future Lover - Break the Ice (Psych) [Themed]

I haven't gone to bed yet, so here it is...still technically Wednesday, for me anyway. I tried to write a simple song this week, but I got carried away.

This one is about the DAPL and the brave people fighting against it in the dead of winter for the future of their land and their children, and for the future of our water, and our children's water. “When the last tree is cut down, the last fish eaten and the last stream poisoned, you will realize that you cannot eat money.”

There's also a musical quote from Lords of the New Church in there in the bridge section, and a bit of a busy mix...still working on that. The idea is there!

ETA: Forgot to add that the themey bit this week is the drum treatment, and the effect on the "Heeyy heeyaaa" backing vocals. I bounced them both to tape. You can hear it most prominently when the drums are by themselves in the pre-verse. The tape is duplicated three times, panned hard left, right and center and EQed in different ways so it acts as sort of a warmed up slap echo. The "Heyyya..." vocals were bounced to a crappy old cassette and blended back in.

Take Me Home (Psych) [Themed]

Just finished this...pretty stoked on how it came out. My general approach this year is from the point of view of someone that has survived the apocalypse, writing about the world around him. The songs might not explicitly mention that theme, but that's how they're all (prospectively) going to be informed.

Fusion (EDM, trap) [Not Themed]

Probably one of my favorite songs to date. A friend heard me make the bassline and she sounded the bass sounded like a "Tron, video game" type of thing. I was trying to make it a trap beat from the very beginning but I liked the idea of it sounding futuristic. So I called it for Fusion because of the blend of genres. I normally tend to blend the electronic sounds with hip hop rhythms but I think this is was a better representation of that.

Breathless Air (Hip-Hop Fusion) [Themed]

Here's my submission for this past week.

It's mainly composed of major 7ths with some variations here or there. Here are some keywords: hip-hop, retro, 8-16bit, Casio, traditional African. I experimented a bit this time, going for something similar to what you might hear in a game like Little Big Planet.

I was inspired by a book I read recently called, "When Breath Becomes Air," by Paul Kalanithi. I'd highly recommend it.

Thanks as always for providing this forum. Keep up the good work, y'all. Only 2 weeks left!

ONE (lazy) [Themed]

I didn't commit much time to writing this week, so here is my most boring song yet. I wrote a line in two seconds, then just randomly fiddled knobs for ten iterations. Ta-da!

Otherworldly (Electronica) [Not Themed]

Not sure what I was trying to do exactly with this one. Some kind of sci-fi type thing.

Update: added some percussion ~ Otherworldly 2

Souncloud was causing problems for me so I uploaded it to ReverbNation. The song is called Resonance, and it's my first non-cover song using my guitar. It's a little short, but enjoy!

Silver Mile (Psych) [Themed]

Called it quits on this one. I'm not feeling well, and this theme didn't really speak to me, so this is me jamming with myself a bit. Don't really know if there's much of a song here, or if I'll go back and write lyrics or do more overdubs. It may end up in my sketchbook folder.

Update: Just found out my friend passed away today, and I had to get it out. I was going around and around on this one, and I couldn't figure out why it felt so depressing...then I got the news and I just had to get it out.

Song Sketch - 7ths (Psych?) [Themed]

I really struggled with this one. All week. I don't know why, I just don't like 7th chords. I ESPECIALLY don't like the 7th turnaround. It's just SO painfully cheesy.

I really don't like to give up on things, but I'm throwing in the towel on this one. You can kinda see the direction I was taking. I wanted to do an A-B-C-D-A kinda thing, and then switch to 6/8+4/4 at the end to get real proggy, but I got frustrated. I didn't make it past laying down drums and acoustic 12 string, and a little synth and Rhodes for good measure. There's always next week!

Leaving Song (Ukulele) [Not Themed]

Hey I'm on time this week! Very much not themed, inspired by my procrastination to pack for a two and a half week trip to the Philippines. I'll still be writing songs, but I probably won't have time to record/share them. Hopefully I'll make up for it with three or four new songs whenever I get back.

Life in Five Places (Ukulele) [Themed]

Late as always, anyway here is my entry - a REALLY rough recording, but it's nearly midnight here in Korea and I don't feel like doing a better job. The mic on my phone broke and my laptop mic isn't quite as good.

However, this ended up being completely different from what I had been working on all week, and truth be told I'm kinda happy with it, especially since I wrote it in less than an hour. Hope you guys enjoy!

Alien Blue (EDM) [Themed]

Aliens visit Earth after finding the Voyager 1, but when they come here they think the dolphins are the sentient species.

Ironically, the track was removed from Soundcloud because it contains a sample of Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground. The same sample that was sent to space on a golden record attached to the Voyager 1.

Ohhhh yes. Lovely sounds mate. Really well produced too. This is one of my favourite things I've heard on this sub so far - You nailed the LBP feel, great vibe! The book you mentioned looks really interesting. One of the related books on there is "Being Mortal" by Atul Gawande - If you haven't read that yet, you should check it out too! :)

EDIT: Now I've gone and bought When Breath Becomes Air. Thanks for the recommendation!

Giants (FolkPop) [Not Themed] I guess this is a song about impatience - with the status quo :) Actually this was inspired by a great sci-fi short I just read: Ogres

78 (electronic rock) [themed] - This is the first song I've ever done in an atypical time signature (7/8).

...just a song stub for now but I have a really busy week so idk if I'll have time to expand on it more, will update if I do.

Commemoration In The Winter Of Focus (Dwarf?) [Themed]

One of my favorite games, Dwarf Fortress is adding a musical form generator to it's build. This is my realization of one of the sample generations.

Morning Light (Ukulele/Instrumental) [Themed]

This was a lot of fun to record on Audacity using my shitty laptop mic! Just played around with all the noisemakers in my apartment - none of which I'm very good at, nor have very much experience using, haha, but I'm pretty happy with the result.

Bad Memory Blues (Ukulele/Blues) [Themed maybe? Blues is minimal, right?]

I wrote a different song earlier this week, but I couldn't record it the way I wanted it to sound, so I opted for a last minute blues song inspired by a rainy day.

Confusion in the Confucius Temple Garden (Ukulele) [Not Themed]

I'm late to the party, but better late than never! Here's my first post to Song A Week. Hope you ukulele enthusiasts enjoy :)

I'm still not 100% clear on self promotion rules here so please take this down if it's breaking any of them. I wrote all these songs for this challenge in 2015 and 2016, took some time off last year, and then redid all of them more intentionally in the second half of 2017.

I honestly don't think I ever would have made something like this without joining this sub. You guys rock.

Here's a couple places you can find it if you don't have Spotify:

Youtube

Amazon

It's supposed to be in Google Play/Apple Music but I don't have either of those

Haha I would, but it's on kindle. This is the one : https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B008Y0XH1C/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1

I was browsing some old posts from here and someone had posted about a coursera lyric writing course about a year ago - it's by the same guy, and the first lesson mentioned it pretty much follows this book. So I thought it'd be a good way to pass time on a long haul flight!

Haha I would, but it's on kindle. This is the one : https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B008Y0XH1C/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1

I was browsing some old posts from here and someone had posted about a coursera lyric writing course about a year ago - it's by the same guy, and the first lesson mentioned it pretty much follows this book. So I thought it'd be a good way to pass time on a long haul flight!

Thanks! I used a Shure condenser mic, the PG42 I believe. I think it's been discontinued but is pretty similar to this guy.

If I were only allowed a single mic, it would be this one. It's an inexpensive SM-57 clone that some of the guys over homerecording.com, including some pros like it better than the original. It's basically the swiss-army knife of mics. I have a pile of them.

Tried a Scarlett 2i2 but had driver issues, ended up with a Steinberg ur22, which I'm very happy with. Beats the hell out of the lightsnake I was using