I'm Not Productive, I Compose

Victorious Composers: A Process

noreply@blogger.com (Resist the Urge) — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 20:10:00 +0000

I've been working fairly seriously on the fifth track of the first act of RPG No. 1 lately, and I thought I'd share some my "design doc" as it has evolved over the past month of working on the song. If you're interested, it might allow a glimpse into my version of the creative process.

Notes/Improvements for 1.5 Victorious Heroes:

1. Transitions:

a. There might need to be a better transition from the first Bridge into the first Chorus (possibly done through the use of effects).

b. There needs to be a better transition from the first Chorus into the Counter-Melody.

c. There needs to be a better transition from the Counter-Melody into the second Chorus (possibly through an entirely new atmospheric section).

d. There might need to be a better transition from the second Chorus into the second Bridge (possibly done through the use of effects).

e. The Outro Transition has to be refined.

2. Effects:

a. Proper cadential effects need to be created for the various transitions. These might include:

i. An effect similar to a reverse-cymbal for transitioning out of a section.

ii. An effect similar to a hammered-cymbal for transitioning into a section.

iii. Various scratching and similarly funky effects to make the inner cadences of longer sections more clear.

b. It might be appropriate to synthesize the various effects needed using the NI synthesizer catalogue in conjunction with other FX plugins.

3. Instruments/Patterns:

a. This song might need a more prominent bass, but if so, where? And what kind? Some ideas:

i. Both a straight-funky electric bass and a more hip-hop-oriented bass/bass drum might help establish the funky atmosphere and the strong, syncopated rhythms of the song, respectively.

ii. The Counter-Melody could definitely use another voice, and a bass line would sit comfortably outside of the frequency range of the counter-melody itself.

iii. The Outro could benefit from a more House- or Hip-Hop-style bass line, in order to accentuate the unexpected rhythm of the chords in the section. This would almost definitely need some foreshadowing in the previous Chorus sections, in order for the effect not to be too jarring.

b. There are several areas in the song that are fairly repetitive, such as the three separate Chorus/Bridge pairings. These could use some spicing-up in order to clarify that the song is actually going somewhere, as well as to make the various rises and falls in the song more meaningful. Some ideas:

i. A couple of ideas for an overarching melodic pattern to tie the whole piece together:

1. A very soft and buzzy vocoded lead with unintelligible lyrics could fit well with the rest of song, and could lend a certain “loose” feeling to the atmosphere. Potentially, though, it could end up either getting lost in the pads or drowning out the 16-bit lead that pervades most of the rest of the song.

2. Another option that comes to mind is a billowy brass synth lead. It would have similar potential downsides, but unlike the vocoded lead, it would be intended to sit in the background with the pads more than standing out on its own. That raises questions about whether or not it makes sense to include it at all, though, because of the potential it has to muddy up the song.

3. Regardless of what kind of instrument is chosen, the melody has to both stand out from the half-lead, half-accompaniment 16-bit synth without drowning it out entirely, which will likely prove to be a challenge.

ii. The Outro section could use some accompaniment as well as a strong melody. Both the atmospheric pops from the chorus and the 16-bit square lead would function well in the accompaniment, possibly playing against each other in a loose counterpoint. As far as a melody goes, if either of the ideas from the previous section ends up working out, they might be considered for the Outro.

c. The Counter-Melody is a pretty underdeveloped section compared to the rest of the song. That has to do with the large amount of sonic space the counter-melody itself occupies, but what should be an interestingly but fittingly contrasting section of the piece feels empty and jarring. A short intro to this section could be in order, as suggested in the Transitions section above, but perhaps the Counter-Melody should be an entire B-section to itself. I think the payoff from returning to a Chorus/Bridge pair after the Counter-Melody could be greatly increased by extending the section to two Counter-Melody sections bookended by some sort of appropriate transitions and separated by a laid-back counter-bridge, of sorts. We’ll see how that goes, though.

4. Mastering:

a. Not many ideas on this front, right now. So far the individual-track mastering has worked out pretty well, altogether. Once these ideas have been implemented, though, that may be an entirely different story. I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it, though.

And there you go! Just thought I might share. I'm hoping to have the song done by the end of the week, so look for it in the near future!

Edit: I've got a draft of the song up over here. Let me know what you think!

Long Time, No See

noreply@blogger.com (Resist the Urge) — Sat, 10 Sep 2011 19:51:00 +0000

Wow, it's been quite a while since I last did one of these. It's also been a long time since I got any serious composing done, and I'm looking to change that. Uni and exams may have gotten the best of me for a bit there, but no longer!

Well, maybe a little longer. I'm heading back home on Monday, for the first time in 13 long months, and since my headphones, mp3 player, and synthesizer are all broken, things are looking grim for music making while I'm on the road. I'm pretty committed to getting further along in this RPG project, although I lost my original outline for it, so I'm going to concentrate on getting the first act finished while I'm at home, among other things. (Ha! Ha! You can't read that yet!)

Anyway, if you guys have been wondering what's been going on with me, and why there haven't been any big updates, that's why. But don't worry! All is well, and all will go on. Peace!

What It Means to be At Home

noreply@blogger.com (Resist the Urge) — Thu, 09 Jun 2011 18:25:00 +0000

in which I express concerns regarding my evolution as an artist and

the continuing production of RPG No. 1 in D minor.

I've been beating my head against a wall for the past couple of weeks, mostly because of the next song I'm working on for RPG No. 1. Some of you may have seen that I posted a rough (double rough) draft of the song here in a bid for comments and suggestions, because, at the time, I felt like I was at the end of my rope with the song's production. The version that's posted there was the third major rewrite and I still didn't know where I wanted it to go, and although I think I'm almost done with the song now, its production made me realize that there are a lot of things that go through my mind and questions that I have regarding the direction my music has taken since I've started writing, and I just need to get some of it off of my chest.

To get the ball rolling, let me direct you to the other most recent song I've written for RPG No. 1. To me, it represents one of the biggest problems I have when writing music: getting away from my old habits. I've been trying very consciously to improve a lot of aspects of my music with this album, and although I feel that I've been partially successful, Home Town felt like a huge step back for me. That's not to say that I'm not proud of it or that I don't like it at all. In fact, the problem lies in that I do like the song. I guess to understand that, I need to explain a little bit about my writing process and how it's changed over the years.

When I first started writing music with FL Studio, what drew me in to the program was how easy it was to get my initial ideas on the screen, and how I could, with a little inspiration, churn out a 10- or 20-second loop with a nifty hook and some cool techno accompaniment. Back in the old days, I'd write a couple more loops and then just string them one after another, because I could rarely pull the song together in any sophisticated way. The problem with that approach is that I kind of suck at writing music. I see the notes I've written, and I hear how they function with one another, but what I hear when listening to my music is so much more than what is actually coming out of my speakers. My mental playback of how the song should sound and how it actually sounds get inextricably mixed, and that's why disasters happen. I lose track of the polish I should be applying to the song, and instead I just loop the same melody over and over again, and it loses its meaning. I don't know how many of you listened to the first draft of The Town Cave when I posted it about a month ago, but there's a reason I took it down the next day. It was endless mess of poor mastering, uninteresting melodies, and formulaic builds and releases that I was somehow able to convince myself was good. It was a terrible reminder of the type of music I was writing when I got started, and how easy it is to fall back on that type of dreck, if I'm not careful.

So why am I disappointed with Home Town? On a technical level, it's the song's structure. The whole ABA structure is something I've used so incredibly often, and without a dynamic arrangement and some evolving melodies, it falls flat. It's also the static arrangement. I try not to get too crazy with the variety of synthesizers I use in my songs, because that used to cause problems with my older stuff, but this is an example of a song that could have used some variety. And speaking of variety, all of the melodic and accompaniment loops I used were so repetitive. Aside from the breakdown in the middle of the song, which I personally really liked, the vibe I get from this song is extremely copy/paste. But what pisses me off the most about Home Town is the fact that I let these problems make it into the final cut. I got impatient; I didn't let the song sit and mature and become the wine it should have been. I just uploaded it, overly confident in the purple drink it was.

That's why I'm disappointed with Home Town, and why I've been fiddling around with The Town Cave for over a month. In many, many ways Home Town is an improvement over my old songs, but for me, that's not enough. I want every one of my songs to be better than any of the songs that came before it. I make compromises, sure, and most of my songs reside in relative languor, as far as my development as an artist goes. But if I can make just one of my songs a breakthrough, then I feel like I've succeeded. And all of the Home Towns that I write are a step backwards in this race.

It's interesting, to me at least, that Home Town is one of the first songs I've written in a long time that exceeds 4 or 5 minutes. At eight minutes long, it's a reminder that I'm probably the only one who wants to drench their ears with my particular brand of redundant musicality, and a reminder that my music honestly doesn't have that much to say.

Anyway, like I said, I'm pretty stoked about the direction The Town Cave has taken, and I hope to have it done within the next week. I'll probably have more to say once it's done, so stay tuned, and thanks for listening.

EDIT : So, I got kind of inspired after writing this, and finished The Town Cave. It isn't perfect, but not much is. You can find it here or in this set.

Act I : Pastorale (For Realz)

noreply@blogger.com (Resist the Urge) — Tue, 03 May 2011 17:53:00 +0000

More conundrums. Tell me (or, I suppose, think silently to yourself), have you ever once been wowed by the home village music of an RPG? Of course not. Not after the epic prologue of the title screen- the awe of the opening cinematic, the wash of heroic ambition. Either the developers try to make the home village music epic, which is out of character for the setting, and it becomes an ironic amusement, or they keep the music representative of the setting and end up with some sort of trite pseudo-baroque rustic mess of plucked strings and flutes. In other words, I'm frustrated right now, with the development of this album, because I can't decide what sort of music my imaginary video game village should have.

So, yeah. I'm fairly pleased with my title screen music, which can be found here, and is pretty self explanatory. The scene opens on the player watching attentively; the opening credits roll, and then the player is treated to a non-stop extravaganza of breathtaking footage (torn directly from the game's groundbreaking graphics) of the intense action and drama that awaits him/her shortly. Then, the game proper starts.

In my vision of a typical JRPG, the story of the first Act is as follows: we (the players) are introduced to the hero in a rural setting- or, at least, a humble one -and we watch him/her run around meeting the gentle townsfolk and helping with menial tasks. Then, for whatever arcane reason, the hero must venture into the town cave, or the introductory dungeon, or what have you. It is somewhat creepy, and for the first time we encounter enemies- vicious creatures or villains whose only purpose in life is to kill you or die trying -of course, with precious loot on their corpses. The general atmosphere is more that of a teen comedy than that of a horror film, though, and the music for this part of the game usually has a campy "creepy" vibe to it. After the heroes emerge from the dungeon victorious, some strange, terrible twist is revealed and the peace of the home village is shattered. Sympathetic characters are murdered, the sacred shrine is desecrated, etc. Naturally, the hero is the only person in the world qualified to save the world from this hitherto unknown menace, and after a sad but poignant goodbye he/she treks into the terrifying real world. The womb-like nature of this tutorial village is shattered, essentially, and the hero must venture forth into the world to bring peace and order back home.

Anyway, those are the general atmospheric plans for the first Act of the album. If anyone's curious about what I'm working on right now, it's kind of hard to say. Sometimes, when I'm working on a song from the concept out, I end up starting a bunch of separate songs with different themes and atmospheres, all generally associated with concept I started with. So right now, I have seven drafts for the Home Town piece, although some of theose drafts might end up being the foundations for other songs in the first Act. I should have the next song ready soon, though, although soon could mean today or three weeks from now. It all depends. In the meantime, thanks for listening, and I hope you enjoy how this all turns out!

Act I : Pastorale

noreply@blogger.com (Resist the Urge) — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 00:25:00 +0000

First finished track of this act is here. Be sure to check my SoundCloud profile every once in a while for updates and new tracks!

Aside from deciding on what story elements constitute a "standard" JRPG, one of the bigger problems I've faced in planning this project is deciding where in the narrative of the series of albums the songs associated with gameplay mechanics should be placed. For example, a piece of music integral to the gameplay of an JRPG is the victory music played at the end of each successful battle. Since in a game it would be one of the most often played pieces of music, it becomes a curious challenge for a project like this. In practicality, the song that is chosen must be catchy, rewarding, and as nonirritating as possible. In a hypothetical game, like the one I am attempting to bring to life, where does such a song fit in the overall structure? Similar questions can be asked about the game-over music, the inventory screen music, the title screen music, etc, etc.

In this first Act of RPG, I wanted to highlight the exposition of the story, as well as the musical themes that will permeate the rest of the work. Taking a cue from the Legend of Zelda series, and many other games, I've embedded the central theme and key in the title screen music. In fact, throughout this Act quite a few repeated themes will make their first appearances. I'm pretty excited about this Act, because aside from the track I posted from Act II, I intend to work though this project more or less in order. That means that the decisions I make with this Act will heavily influence the tone and themes of later Acts, and that excites me! I mean, as much as I may posture, I really have next to no idea of what I'm really doing here, and I think that's awesome. I like to try new things, and for now, those things are:

Act I : Pastorale

1. Title Screen

2. Home Town

3. The Town Cave

4. Monsters attack

5. Victorious Heroes

6. True Horror Revealed

7. Tearful Goodbye

My general conception of a standard JRPG is admittedly heavily influenced by the Golden Sun series. It's curious, actually; I simultaneously want to represent, with my music, a generalized JRPG as well as my personal vision of a JRPG that I'd like to play. That means that when you, the listener, interpret my music, there's a good chance that you may not agree with what I define as "stereotypical" JRPG story elements; essentially what I want to offer you here is an extended disclaimer. I do not suppose that my concept of a stereotypical JRPG is the same as yours. I merely hope that my explanation of my music resonates with you somehow, even if not in a literal fashion.

Shit. Well, my post turned to rambling again. For that I apologize. Now, unfortunately, I am much too drunk and tired to make any more sense. Check back soon; I should have an actual explanation of the ideas behind the first Act posted in the near future. Until then, take care and listen on!

RPG No. 1 in D minor, "Japonais" : An Explanation, Part Two

noreply@blogger.com (Resist the Urge) — Mon, 04 Apr 2011 01:43:00 +0000

Part one is here. Or further down the page. Also here's the first track of the project that I've finished!

So, I ended up choosing an RPG as my first video game "symphony" (again, the term is used extremely loosely). My hope is that in the future I may have a series, RPGs No. 1 - 3, or something like that. I also am interested in doing something similar for other genres of games in the future, a la Platformer in G, Three Intermediate Puzzle Games, etc., but for now I'm concentrating on translating the core cliché experiences of an RPG into my musical style.

Incidentally, that is the explanation for the last part of the title, "Japonais;" since there are at least a few main sub-types of RPGs, it was necessary to choose one for this project. Again, trying to emulate my classical idols, I used the convention of naming my work with an informal title indicating its style, along the lines of Beethoven's 3rd, 6th, and 9th Symphonies (Eroica, Pastorale, and Choral, respectively) as well as countless others.I thought the application of this symphony-naming trope fit particularly nicely into my project concept, as well, because a Japanese (Japonais in the French) RPG is a completely different animal compared to Western RPGs, notably because of several common storytelling tropes that spring up in one but not the other, and vice versa.

I'm going to write a post explaining the basic story structure and my specific plans for each of the five acts in RPG No. 1, so if after this interminable lecture/mission statement you still want to know more about the project, check back soon! If not, expect the finished work sometime in the mid- to distant future. I've got some pretty well-formed ideas already, but by the time I've written all 28 planned tracks, it might be a long time from now. But I'll try to post most of my works in progress on my SoundCloud profile for your convenient perusal.

So, until the next installment, take care, and enjoy yourselves!

RPG No. 1 in D minor, "Japonais" : An Explanation, Part One

noreply@blogger.com (Resist the Urge) — Mon, 04 Apr 2011 00:45:00 +0000

I've been putting off writing a comprehensive plan for RPG No. 1 in D Minor for a while, and now I finally feel comfortable presenting the ideas and motivation behind the project. As is probably easily discernible from the title, RPG No. 1 is going to be a series of five mini-albums inspired by video game music.

Also with album art hacked together with MS Paint and the poor man's photoshop

"Inspired by" is probably the wrong phrase to use, though. The music won't necessarily follow the compositional forms of video game music or be made up of 15-second sound bites intended for looping. Instead, the piece as a whole will follow the general structure of a video game, from the music's perspective. The title holds another clue that might help explain this concept. Long before I started writing electronic music, I had aspirations of being a classical composer. One of the superficial reasons for this was my love for the titles of these works- not so much for the titles themselves, but what they indicated about the piece of music. An Etude has a considerably different form and focus than a Dance, and a Fugue's strict structure is inherent with the name. When I finally started planning my net project, I decided that I wanted to lend some of that type of structure to it. I did not, however, want to bind myself into these archaic constructs- partially because I knew that I'm probably not skilled enough to hold to them, but also because they aren't very applicable to my style of music. I thought to myself, what type of framing concept, loosely comparable to a Symphony, is applicable to electronic composers of this time? Naturally, most electronic musicians release album after album of club music, but I wanted to do something more connected than the modern answer to Dvořák's Slavonic Dances. Then I started doing something that I love dearly: playing a video game. Specifically, Dragon Quest IX, which is one of the best JRPGs I've played in a long time. It's interesting, both Western and Japanese RPGs tend to have fairly standard story structures, although there is a stark contrast between the two. The music also usually has to keep up with these predictable story elements, and so the soundtracks to these sorts of games tend to have a similar structure. Suddenly, I had found my project, possibly even a series of projects!

To be fair, this isn't exactly a groundbreaking concept. Video game composers themselves have been thinking along these lines ever since video games had music, and I should give credit to Alex Mauer, being an artist I love who does something very similar. His albums Blast and Blast II are hardcore 16-bit themes to a game that never existed, and you should definitely check him out if chiptune music is your thing.

The music for my project, however, is not going to be chiptune, or, as I said before, even structurally modeled after video game music. I'm going to use my style of Electronica to try to to bring to life my vision of an RPG that never existed.

FL Studio 10 Interlude!

noreply@blogger.com (Resist the Urge) — Sat, 02 Apr 2011 09:48:00 +0000

Wow, just in time for my new project! FL Studio 10 has just been released, and I'm very excited about the opportunities it will provide when it comes time for production. Now, I know that not everybody is exactly in love with FL Studio, but I've been using it for a pretty long time and it has the perfect mix of accessibility, flexibility, and power for my projects. Plus, it provides lifetime free updates, which is great for someone like me, who has little to no money. So, congratulations to Image-Line for getting the new version out; I'm really excited to try out the new features. And if there are any of you out there that want to mess around with FL Studio, head over to their homepage and download teh free demo. Everything works, it only suspends the ability to save project files. It's what I started on before I decided to unlock the full product, so go check it out, if you have aspirations of becoming an electronic music producer.

Anyway, I'll continue to post my plans for the new project as the weekend progresses. In the meantime, if you want to check out some old projects I found as well as some of the songs I wrote after I finished NASTYKAT, check out my SoundCloud and ReverbNation profiles. Of course, NASTYKAT is still up on ReverbNation, but remember that once I start posting songs from RPG No. 1 I'll probably take down the NASTYKAT album, so get the songs while you can!

Take care, guys.

noreply@blogger.com (Resist the Urge) — Thu, 31 Mar 2011 16:06:00 +0000

Wow, I've had a rough week. I'm going to try to get a couple of posts up explaining my new project this weekend, but in the meantime, I thought I'd give a brief overview of what I'm planning.

A lot of different things run through my head when I try to decide on a new project. I guess that sounds like I sit down for a good old fashioned brainstorming session, but that's not actually very close to the truth. To be charitable, let's call my thought process "fluid." Even while I write this post now, I'm running my computer split-screened with Battlestar Galactica running on one side, this on the other; I have a Chrome window open with three separate Cracked.com articles open while I have a game demo paused on my Xbox. Basically, I suck at staying focused on anything at once. Although this wreaks havoc on the more structured parts of my life, it's wonderful for my creative process. It puts me in a constant, directed barrage of ideas and information, and it helps me mold my ideas into something concrete.

But the ideas come from somewhere, and that somewhere is usually my desperate, sleepy brain right before I drift off into the arms of Morpheus. That's why I've gotten into the habit of grumpily shaking myself awake when I have an idea in order to write it down. I'm fittingly getting a little off topic here, so let me share with you a note I found hastily scrawled on the back of my math homework.

It's a pretty insubstantial idea by itself, but it was the seed that grew into RPG No. 1 in D minor.

An Explanation of the ideas and the structure of the project is soon to follow.

An Update of Sorts

noreply@blogger.com (Resist the Urge) — Tue, 22 Mar 2011 19:44:00 +0000

It turns out that I have a lot more work in front of me than I thought with my upcoming exams. As a result, I'm probably not going to be able to get into my plans for RPG No. 1 in-depth for the next week or so. I did want to mention, though, that I'm planning on doing a sort of community collab/U-DECIDE kind of deal with the project. I'm going to post my unfinished (or at least unpolished) tracks on my SoundCloud profile so that anybody who wants to can let me know what they think about it, or whatever. I'm not necessarily a proponent of changing art according to the community's reaction, but I find that it's important not to lose track of the audience's opinion of one's music. Otherwise, you just end up writing a bunch of self-gratifying drivel.

Big New Project (BNP)

noreply@blogger.com (Resist the Urge) — Sat, 12 Mar 2011 02:18:00 +0000

I've noticed that inspiration for me, when it comes to writing music, barely fits the word. Whenever I just sit around, waiting for some incredible idea from on high, I tend to be disappointed. So what I do instead is constantly form and evaluate plans for a Big New Project, or BNP. A BNP can be anything from a single new song with some special significance to a concept album that could CHANGE EVERYTHING EVER, but in order for it to be potentially successful project, it has to possess a couple of important characteristics. First, it has to be relatively achievable; I might, for example, plan to finishing a series of albums fleshing out some obscure theme I've been contemplating, but I won't bother trying to write a complex system of symphonies that would dwarf Wagner's Ring Cycle. Second, a BNP needs to stretch my abilities as a composer, if only a little bit. This can mean incorporating elements of genres that I hadn't tried before, or sticking to specific conventions that might not generally apply to my music, or doing anything else that forces me to try something new in my music. Finally, a BNP needs a solid plan that will only change slightly in execution. With NASTYKAT, for example, I wrote a skeleton script for an imaginary children's story and wrote chapter/song titles that I stuck to, with the idea being that I'd structure the atmosphere and themes of each song after the images and events that would occur in the associated chapter. It ended up being a source of great inspiration for me, even though I planned the "inspiration" out beforehand.

"Hm, I wonder what this asshole's getting at."

I usually stumble across a satisfactory BNP every 6 months or so, and believe me, those 6 months are usually pretty hellish. I'll usually try to write interesting miscellaneous songs, fail, get frustrated, remember to try to formulate a BNP, fail consistently, and then finally stumble across something that I can live with. Then, it's time to get to work.

Since I ultimately finished NASTYKAT last September, it probably shouldn't come as any surprise to me that after months of frustration I've finally decided on a project that I think people (including myself) will really enjoy. As hinted at by the image above, I'm embarking on a BNP under the title RPG No. 1 in D minor "Japonais," and I think it's going to be quite a bit of fun. In order to get my own plan on virtual paper, as well as to illustrate the concept of a BNP, my next few posts are going to detail the coarse outline of the project. Hopefully, it'll give anyone foolhardy enough to read this blog an insight into my tortuous, labyrinthine creative process, as well as give me a chance to flesh out my ideas for the project over the next couple of weeks while I finish up my exams for the semester. Until then, may you have a long life filled with crunchy tunes!

A Note to the Listeners of Resist the Urge's NASTYKAT (PART III) from the AUTHOR

noreply@blogger.com (Resist the Urge) — Thu, 23 Dec 2010 12:28:00 +0000

HERE are the essential QUANTA of MEDIA that describe my STATE of MIND during the CREATION of NASTYKAT.

PRIMARY BOOKS:

Goedel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid, by Douglas R. Hofstadter

This is a phenomenal book which demonstrates an incomparable theory on conciousness through art, music, language, A.I., mathematics, physics, biology, the fringe sciences, Zen Buddhism, philosophy, religion, and nearly any other conceivably related topic. The author is a computer science (with a focus on A.I.) professor at the Indiana University at Bloomington, and despite the fact that the book was originally published over 20 years ago, it holds a remarkable place in any present day discussion on morals, free will, the form of scientific and artistic inquiry, and, again, almost anything related you could imagine. I read the book over almost the exact period of time during which I composed this album, and so it naturally played an exquisite role in how I perceived my direction and goals with the album. I personally recommend the 20^th aniversary edition, as the preface by the author elucidates a lot of core concepts of the book and facilitates the book's reading before the fact.

A Clockwork Orange, by Anthony Burgess

Another incredibly revolutionary book, I reread this and rewatched the Stanley Kubrick interpretation of the story during the course of writing this album, and the disparity of emotions between reading the book and watching the film played a great role in how this album was constructed, specifically in the importance in interpreting the final chapters of a story and the bifurcation which results from differing interpretations. An additional series of films to watch in order to get this series of disconnected emotions is the Matrix Trilogy, but with the assumption that Neo never escapes from the entire Matrix, but instead only "wakes up" from one Matrix into another a la Inception's nested "dreams within dreams" concept.

SECONDARY BOOKS:

The following books played a considerably role in determining the framework within which I interpreted the primay books, as I read them much earlier. Of course, if you have read any of these books, chances are you have a similar frame of reference as I do, and therefore do not need to reread any books, but I encourage you to read any that you have not yet.

Candide, by Voltaire

Prey, by Michael Crichton

A Scanner Darkly, by Philip K. Dick

Flatland, by Edwin Abbott Abbott

Spaceland, by Dionys Burger

The Complete Robot, by Isaac Asimov (This is a collection of Isaac Asimov stories, and may be difficult to find, but is recommendable because it conveys a better sense of Asimov's themes in robot-related stories)

Physics of the Impossible, by Michio Kaku

Breakfast of Champions, by Kurt Vonnegut

The Study of Counterpoint, or Gradus ad Parnassum, by Johannes Fux

Welcome to the Monkey House, by Kurt Vonnegut (This is also a collection of short stories, but also gives one a distinctly Vonnegutian frame of reference when encountering new ideas)

MUSIC:

Music is a bit trickier than books. In my musical recommendations, I (in some cases, mistakenly) assume that at the very least each of you has a respect for most of the musical movements that have come and gone over the past couple millenia, and therefore won't try to recommend every artist I have ever listened to, and so I only can suggest the musicians I currently listen to with some regularity. Some disclaimers: I have no patience for the recent trend in Indie music which obsesses over a certain degree of what we shall call "shittiness." This refers to the choice to use outdated or simply out-advanced forms of recording and amplification whose goal it is to create a dissonant wash of white noise and distortion which unites an entire piece or body of work. I can't stand good music which is unrecognizeable as such or bad music which hides itself in this wash of fuzz in order to be accepted. I won't fall for it, and I hate that some people are so obsessed with this that they refuse to accept that some of the music they listen to is actually performed by bad musicians, written by ignorant composers, and produced by idiotically trendy recording engineers. I also have no tolerance for those who think their music is "groundbreaking." That quality is attributed only by audience, and never by the author. Reciprocally, I accept that the ultimate judgement is the test of time and the acceptance of the future masses, and so although I disdain certain forms of music, as everyone does, I understand that hindsight may indeed prove me wrong. I simply hope that it does not.

In any case, here is a list of musicians and musical groups with whom I am currently enamored and thus played an important part in the writing of NASTYKAT.

the Arctic Monkeys

Dan Deacon

Bassnectar

the Beatles

Boards of Canada

Brightblack Morning Light

the Flaming Lips

Flight of the Conchords

Gomez

Gorillaz

Jefferson Airplane

Pink Floyd

Ratatat

Royksopp

Rusko

Squarepusher

Tycho

I don't have the energy to explain why each of these groups speaks to me personally, but if you too can find an appreciation common to each of them, you can most likely follow in my framework.

P.S. Naturally, the comments I made earlier regarding music that I disdain could easily be turned around by others, in the form of questions about my own music. "Does he think his own music is groundbreaing?" "I heard fuzziness in some of his songs, is he a hypocrite?" It could go on and on, but let me provide a brief explanation. I sincerely love the act of writing music, and I specifically write music that I would enjoy listening to. The goal of this exercise (being this presentation of NASTYKAT) is mostly to get an honest appraisal of how acceptable my music is to a diverse audience with many different musical backgrounds and views. I might be a hypocrite. Most of us are. I'd also like to think that that is what is fun about music and art in general, in that there is a battle between audience and artist that is strangely entangled because most of the audience is composed of artists. No matter how you see it, though, it is quite good fun, and very serious business. So let's get down to it.

A Note to the Listeners of Resist the Urge's NASTYKAT (PART II) from the AUTHOR

noreply@blogger.com (Resist the Urge) — Sun, 03 Oct 2010 14:08:00 +0000

Now what will now follow is a sequntially appended description of the tracks from NASTYKAT. That may not be entirely accurate, depending on your individual definitions of "description." I will not describe my personal emotions regarding each track, and I will not necessarily describe the emotions each track is meant to elicit. To do either would be a practice in narciscism or futility, respectively. My personal impetus in completing this album was to construct the score to a ficticious story in the style of a children's book following the adventures of one NASTYKAT. Although my emotions at the inception of each track are clearly influential on the end product, they are "meaningless" within the frame of the overall story, as they only influence the structure and not the analysis of each track. Similarly, a product of my emotions involved with each track was the intention to produce analogous emotions within the listener. The best laid plans of composers, however, go often awry and the emotions produced within the audience must be acceptable, no matter how close or far they are from the composer's intentions.

Since this is inexorably the case, instead of a "standard" description (again, standard being a highly subjective word), I will give a setting and a scene congruent with each track, which, in this ficticious children's book NASTYKAT, would be represented by a few lines of simple exposition, description, and dialogue, as well as a few images conveying the emotions of the protagonist and the environment in which he finds himself. In this way I hope to influence the audience in the same way a children's book influences its audience; instead of forcing a frame of reference similar to the author's upon the audience, a children's book will often cause the inception of an entirely new frame of reference within the minds of the audience.

Of course, I know that I cannot help but map a part of my own frame of reference on the settings and scenes I will describe to you, and so for those of you who are interested in the author's frame of reference, I can offer a little insight, in the form of suggested reading and listening. Naturally, my current frame of mind (or reference) is nothing but a total sum of all of my worldly experiences, memories, and speculations. Though I am unable to convey that in any reasonable way to those of you interested, I can send you along my most recent path of personal inquiry through a collection of books and musicians. Those of you who would rather be influenced by the story of NASTYKAT as a child would (and in a way, I wish I could be), pay no attention to the following post.

A Note to the Listeners of Resist the Urge's NASTYKAT (PART I) from the AUTHOR

noreply@blogger.com (Resist the Urge) — Sun, 03 Oct 2010 14:04:00 +0000

O My Brothers, Dear Friends and Close Aquaintances,

I will be away from each of you for quite some time, as I'm sure you all know, and so it is important to me that we maintain some aspect of contact. Although I have initiated contact with some of you, and vice versa, already, I want to include all of you in a communal discussion of some sort or another in order to facilitate contact with each of you for the foreseeable future. I know that I made preliminary or more detailed plans to meet with most of you before I left, and I am quite sad that not all of these plans came to fruition, but believe me when I say that I wish that I could have met with all of you, for it is true. If I could have had as much time as I wanted to have before I left, though, I am sure that I would have stayed in Memphis with you all forever. Of course, that was not the case, and therefore I am writing this entreaty to all of you, begging some for your forgiveness and all for your attention, because I will not be in school nor any other form of structured contact with the local human beings for at least several more weeks, if not a month or more, and it pains me to have been in such limited contact with all of you for the past several months. O My Brothers, etc., listen as I say this:

One of my few joys is the production of Worldly Music, and though it may be lacking in your tastes or those of the Classical and Popular Establishments, I would greatly appreciate each of you to listen to and review, to your ability and fashion, my latest work, which goes under the relatively cryptic name of NASTYKAT. It is about half as cryptic as it seems. The music is an accompaniment to the adventures of one NASTYKAT, whose nature is not so different from yours or mine. In fact, one could characterize NASTYKAT as that part of each of you that wants what the heart wants, whether that is to spend a Saturday enjoying oneself and one's friends on a beautiful Hot Air Balloon ride, or to spend eighteen glorious hours playing the lately released installment or one's favorite game franchise, or to be held by one's love forevermore, or any other conceivable heaven. NASTYKAT is the realization of our hopes and fears and insecurities and confidences all wrapped into one, and NASTYKAT's adventures have a deeply personal relation to each of us.

Of course, O My Brothers, etc., my musical interpretation of NASTYKAT's adventures and personal development are exactly that; my own personal interpretation. I already know that not all of you will be able to relate to my interpreteation, and I look forward to reading your criticism; however, do not expect your criticism to change that which I have wrought, because the emotional and physical strain which this Work has caused me has depleted, in a way, my ability to change or reconsider any part of It. If one were to so characterize it, one could say that the NASTYKAT within me was satisfied, for the time being, by the poduction of this work, NASTYKAT (Disregard, or Interpret, this recursion as you deem necessary). Despite this, your criticism is precious to me, because it gives me an idea of how I might need to change my procedures and patterns of development to properly suit future changes in my NASTYKAT that might require me to develop along lines similar to your or any one's desires and NASTYKATs. So please do not hold your criticism for fear that it may damage me emotionally; even if it could, you would not have to experience the resultant effects such an event might have on my physique or mentality for at least the next year or perhaps even for the rest of our Worldly Lives.

I apologize, O My Brothers, etc., for exciting such a somber topic of conversation, but I felt it necessary to fully explain myself in order to request of you the following. Please, O My Brothers, etc., listen, if only as a favor to me, to my NASTYKAT, and allow me the chance to know your criticism and, if you deem it appropriate, your praise of my work so that I Might Know The Difference.

I hope that now some of you might be eager to start listening. The Truth Be Told, not every track of the album has been up-loaded to the nets, for it is an exceedingly large File. If there are enough people who want to experience their NASTYKAT enough to request it of me, I will post amongst this thread of conversation a link to a web-site from which the entirety of the NASTYKAT can be down-loaded. If no such desire exists amongst the many, I will continue to post the album track-by-track on my proxy, the reverbnation site. Let it be known, though, that this album was conceived of as a single labor, and therefore exists in a sufficient context only as a single track. This being the case, I sugget to those who wish to experience the true form of this album to either wait for each track to be up-loaded and then to paste these tracks together as a sort of musical Golem, or to petition your humble author for the complete version. I also would recommend to those so inclined to partake in some truly horrorshow technicolor before listening to the completed work in full and submitting a review to this thread of conversation for the benefit of your humble author.

Again I would like to iterate an apology to those of you with whom I have only maintained theoretical or less contact, and an entreaty to all of you to maintain whatever contact you can with me. I wold greatly appreciate contact with each of you, and I hope the reverse is also true. If it is not, simply say so in this thread of conversation and I will start a new one excluding you as a contact, and although I will be saddened at your rejection of my friendship, I will understand that a friendship is in it's ideal mutual, and that you have just as much a right to our friendship as I do. Barring this, I also hope to make clear that this thread of conversation is hardly restricted to conversations on my musical excursions, as I assume that topic is incredibly dull to most of the world. Therefore if there is anything that any of you would like to discuss with me and the rest of this community, feel free to do so. Then again, if there is something that any of you would like to discuss with me in privacy, feel free to message me outside of this thread of conversation. That being said, I would like to encourage all of you to try discussing things with me and the rest of this comunity of my Brothers, Friends, and Close Aquaintences, for although you do not necessarily know each other just quite yet, a secondary goal of the creation of this thread of conversation is to foster new relationships amongst yourselves. Feel free to post whatever you like, but in converse be aware of the fact that not necessarily everyone will approve of what you say, not necessarily even I.

Again, O My Brothers, be joyful, for now where contact was lost new information is exchanged, and where sparks have since flown and died new ones will be produced. I hope to hear from each of you, whether or not you hope to hear from me. Be calm and fruitful, O My Brothers, etc., and may you each live a long and happy life!

P.S. I will post an update and an explanation for each track as it is posted, even if you convince me to post a full version of the album in advance of the final track airing. As such, there is some unguided exploration in store for those of you fore-listeners. The only clue I will give you in that case is this one: Not every sound is that which it may seem. There are statements within music about music itself. Be dilligent, be introspective, and be creative. Hearing is not the only sense that can be triggered by sound.

I look forward to each and everyone of you contributions!

P.P.S. Each track will be available for download from the reverbnation website, but only to those who are fans of the facebook page. I think most of you are anyway, but if you aren't, now you you know why you can't download the tracks.

NEW FOR SOME and cool for me

noreply@blogger.com (Resist the Urge) — Fri, 07 May 2010 07:23:00 +0000

SO

I'm trying to get my musical shit together, and so, being the completist that I am, I had to get all of the bells and whistles ringing and whistling before I'd feel like I was actually accomplishing something. What does that mean for you? Nothing, unless you care about TOTALLY INTEGRATED WEB 2.0 SOCIAL NETWORKING MUSICAL INFORMATION. That's right, my music is now on FOUR WHOLE SITES, and is represented in words by at least six, all of which are functioning in near-perfect tandem to provide you with the SAME INFORMATION in every corner of your online universe.

Scared yet? You should be. Stay away from me and my poisonous ilk. Or don't, I guess I could use the company. Anyway, that's not the point. The point is, depending on how exactly you want to learn more about me and my music, you can stay on this blog, or visit ANY ONE of these fine, online establishments: facebook, myspace, unsigned.com, reverbnation, or even twitter for you twitchy/adrenaline-fueled types. Hell, if just going to the twitter site's too much, I HAVE YOU COVERED. There's a twitter feed on this blog!

WELP

I don't want to keep you jokers any longer, but just so you know, it's still tentative, but maybe I'll be playing a show with ALL HOWLERS and 3D ACID GLASSES at the dairy, but more on that story as it develops.

I'd say peace and then wrap this up, but I'd love to see rioting and malfeasance on the news that can be directly attributable to me, so FIGHT THE POWER, or whatever.

PZ OUT