Spare Time Arrangements
Since I am working fulltime outside of the arts, there is little time or opportunity to work on music and photography.
So whenever I feel the motivation and sense a spark of inspiration in my spare time I’ll take that chance and see where it leads me. Garageband on the tablet is sometimes all I need. Even though the sound is somewhat dominated by the tools, I still feel like I can express myself with that.
Allowing me to experiment with genres I usually don’t do.
Let’s see where this goes :)
Morning Glory
February 2023
A spontaneous weekend arrangement. As you might hear it is done with garageband on the iPad.
I was in the mood to combine heavy piano chords with drums. The rest developed by itself, adding more texture and depth to it. With that lead synth instrument somehow evokes memories of Super Nintendo game soundtracks.
Since it sounds so grand, Morning Glory it is.
Epilogue
September 2022
A weekend arrangement. Starting from the simple vibraphone pattern, growing into a larger orchestration.
Somehow, listening to it now, it reminds me of a credit sequence for a video game. Very mild and soothing. So let's call it: Epilogue.
Originally I wanted to do something with faster rhythms and more dissonant sounds. But this is where it led me, I was too chill. Sunday mood :)
The Unknown Path
September 2022
A spontaneous Friday evening recording.
Now that Autumn has started and the sun sets early, it is a track more tense and sombre in its tone.
Maybe simply because it is the end of a long week ;)
The photograph is from 2016.
Taken out of a plane, somewhere near the alps. Maybe it is the river Danube ... ?
Here it appears like a path, meandering into the horizon.
Into the unknown.
The Return
October 2021
This time one cannot consider this an improvisation anymore, spending roughly 8 hours on this one. Spread over two days.
Inspiration comes from a Saturday walk through a relatively nearby forest in southern Bavaria in mid October. The air was clear and fresh, the inhabitants of the forest energized and lively. On the brink of fully turning into an autumn scene.
Musically it had an influence from a Japanese tv drama I had recently been watching: Pension Metsa. Where I could not get the beautiful main theme song out of my head, 空飛び猫 by Schroeder-Headz with vocals from Taeko Onuki.
So the beginning basically follows the same chord progressions. Moving downwards quint by quint starting with E flat major.
But the melody is changed of course.
I still have the feeling that I only use 5% of what Ableton live has to offer, but I must admit, that I could move on relatively fast this time. It was fun to orchestrate with the given tools :)
A side observation is that my pc is clearly overwhelmed with that convolutional reverb, that took the impulse response of Ely Hall.
The end result is not experimental and acoustically ambitions but very pleasant.
Fine for me. For sure would fit into a tv drama ^^
Hope you like it! An 8 minute soundtrack for your personal slice-of-life drama then :)
Rush Hour
11 Jul 2021
Another little improvised arrangement.
I was in the mood for something more upbeat, something more electronic. Did not turn out the way I originally intended, but I just went with the flow. Still learning.
If this ends up on an album I might have to rework the mix and mastering. It’s messy :)
The cover is a collage of Saigon at night. Taken back in winter 2019.
Journey through the Night
10 Jul 2021
Another weekend impro :) Noticed that GarageBand also offers a Guzheng.
Since it is already late night and the neighborhood is quiet with the occasional barking of a dog or some lonely footsteps passing by, this improvisation turned out to be on the mysterious and spooky side.
I wish I had some good shots of a landscape in moonlight … But then I realized that I still have some impressions of evening walks through the back alleys of Vietnam.
Rumor has it
04 July 2021
On a summer's day in 2021 we played around with the Polaroid camera while taking a walk. One of the photos triggered my ears: two women alone in a back alley, talking to each other in a soft voice. Taking shelter from the burning afternoon sun.
Looking at it I heard something with acoustic base and clarinets. Something mysterious.
So time to spend an hour with GarageBand again. Sketching some atmosphere with music.
Picture is taken in Munich Haidhausen.
Rise with the Wind
13 Jun 2021
After my melancholic TGIF improvisation (Fare Well), now lively TGIS (Sunday) music ;)
Playing around with GarageBand. The one feature I really relied on here is the virtual drummer. Very impressive feature!
The violin like instrument is a virtual Erhu. Weird mix, maybe, but it breaks a bit with the rest of the sterile GarageBand sound.
Fare Well
11 Jun 2021
A little TGIF improvisation. Windows open, birds singing (dishes already done) … time for some pleasant play! 2 takes. To record four hands. Hope you like it!
released August 14, 2021
Miroirs
28 Feb 2021
At a winter weekend we had the chance to get out of the city and watch the sunset at the lake of Wörthsee.
Wonderful moment, seeing the evening sun reflected on the crystal clear water surface.
...........................
Since I got my upgrade for ableton Live 11 I wanted to try out the new string quartet sounds and new reverberation plugins. Especially the reverb is gorgeous (this is with the impulse response from Ely Chapel).
I only had 2 hours to pay around ... looking forward to spend more time with it.
At the Speed of Light
21 Feb 2021
Rushing through downtown Munich, "almost" at the speed of light ;)
www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbxCf9n5dk0
Instead of simply recording 1 channel of music, this time I utilized the 2 channels that my Kawai ES-8 gives me (I wish it would be more).
So without an additional computer with audio interfaces and all that jazz it was simply 6 attempts for the baseline and the piano by pressing a couple of buttons. A bit of thinking regarding the chords in advance ... That's it.
A bit exhausting since the takes have to work without interruptions. No chance to post-edit (you can hear some little mistakes in the pacing and chord progressions here and there ;)
But fun nonetheless!