Feedback Appreciated
I'd love your feedback on this piece. It's almost ready.
Two More Shorts
I'm designing men's clothing now. It's been my secret passion .... kidding. Here are two more 12-measure pieces from my efforts to write more frequently.
Twelve Measure Limit
Once-again I'm trying to write more frequently, but this time I'm focusing on short cadences.
Dial-Up
A brief walk through some old marching pecussion websites from the dial-up internet days.
Consistency of Style
I'm finding it hard to stay true to the original feel of a piece when I work on more than one at a time.
A Short and Sweet Special
Be the first to record your bassline playing my Short and Sweet bass cadence and get 50% off one of my current pieces. Or I'll compose something custom at a reduced rate.
Bluesmoke
Purchasing the Blue Smoke 2006 DVD was so worth it. Especially for the recording session. While watching this time, I really focused on the arrangement between sections, in an effort to tease out additional tips for improving my compositions.
Ugh
My visitor from the east brought disease, so I've hardly made any progress for the past week and a half. Really wish sick-time delirium meant increased creativity, but it doesn't.
Progress on Cavies
Week one of writing five measures per week was a success.
Storm Percussion/Guard Invitational
Went to SPI at Skyview High in Vancouver, WA on Saturday.
Five a Week
In order to improve my composition skills more regularly, I'm imposing a "five measures a week" requirement upon myself.
First Indoor Show
Tomorrow I'll be seeing my first in-person indoor marching percussion show.
Rudimentality
Rudimental percussion blog gets badass with it's DCI Drumlines of the Decade feature.
Blue Devils DVDs
My Blue Devils DVDs have arrived!
Santa Clara Vanguard DVDs
My first order has arrived!
DVDs
Sometimes you can only restrain yourself from spending money for a short amount of time. Last night I gave in and bought some marching percussion DVDs...
Cavies
Cavies is a cadence I wrote in high school, inspired by an excerpt from the 1993 Cavaliers show...
Cymbals
Cymbals don't have to be the runts of the drumline. Some schools might not have the luxury of music with great cymbal parts, but the least a cymbal line can do is take itself seriously and come up with killer visuals. Here are a few videos for inspiration.
My Tools
I've been at work on my toolset again, and I might as well take the time to describe it in detail.
Short and Sweet
My bass cadence is now called Short and Sweet. Yes, it's an obvious name. Sixteen measures is short for a cadence, but I needed to call it something other than "Bass Cadence 2001".
Tenor Clip
I love this clip, and just had to share. It really makes me wish I could have played snare and tenors at the same time in high school. Gar, the limitations of reality.
Space Elevator and Timidity
The second cadence I have listed on the homepage has been updated. Oh, and I decided to call it "Space Elevator". It might be finished, but I'm going to listen to it again in a few days and see how I feel. In the meantime, please listen to the preview ...
Measure Six
This week has been a good week for writing cadences. A few days ago I finally got past measure six which I've been stuck at for two months.
Avoiding Writer's Block
This weekend I got a chance to talk with a few people about writer's block and I think I have two new approaches. They both involve focusing on the big picture of what you're doing rather than getting bogged down by details.
High level view of how I compose
I usually start writing for basses first. My main strategy is simply to imagine a melody.
Another Preview
It's a work in progress, but here's a preview of another triplet cadence. Let me know what you think.
How to Write Crap
It's time for some reflection on writing style because I'm having difficulty composing.
Cadence Preview
It's been more than 3 weeks since I mentioned my 3/4 time signature cadence, and unfortunately it's barely limping along. The cadence that's faring slightly better is my 4/4 cadence that also has a triplet feel. I posted an audio preview of it on the Snare Science forums, and then realized I should post it here as well. So here it is.
A Hint of 3/4
I'm having a fucking blast working through some of my back-of-the-napkin compositions. Inspiration for rhythms and melodies is great, even when it comes at strange times, but finally being able to hear those ideas played by (samples of) actual drums is priceless. Now the task is to mold those ideas into something drumlines want to play.
Something to Show
I have great news. You can now hear audio of a bass cadence I wrote in 2001. This means my soundfont setup works, and I'm ecstatic. My setup isn't 100% complete, but the rest of it can wait. I'm proud to say I finally have a composition up on the site. Please take a moment to listen and leave a comment.
And the Tech Continues
It wasn't my intent to have so many posts about customizing lilypond. Eventually I'll get my tools to a usable state and talking about cadence composition itself will take precedence. Until then, it's about the only relevant information to be shared, and I apologize for this.
I'm Still Here
The new school year is fast approaching, and I continue to see visitors looking for drumline sheet music. I'm curious to see when those visitor numbers will die off. Maybe they'll dwindle a few months into the school year, after drumlines have solidified their reportoire. Remembering back to my high school years, I do recall a few years where we started learning new pieces of music mid-season, so maybe they won't die off completely. Sometimes it's nice to learn something new after you've had a few months to polish things.
Soundfont Snafus
I wanted to wait until after our move to purchase a drumline soundfont (or at least a set of samples so I can create my own soundfont). Once we made it to Portland I got a bit impatient and purchased the Digital Drumtech Percussion and Pit soundfonts for $29.99 (they're still running the special). I saw that it was for Windows, but I figured it was a zip file containing samples or an SF2 file. I was wrong. It comes in an exe that does a registry tweak to permit loading their large soundfont. And no refunds. Oh well. It was only $30 and maybe some day I'll run the installation on a windows machine and see what I can use from my purchase.
We Made It
We've safely arrived in the Northwest (Portland, specifically), and we now have an apartment. One of the first things we did was read through the local papers and publications to see what's going on. This Thursday (now two days away) is an event called Drums of Fire, in Eugene, OR. It's so good to know there are Drum Corps events up here. However, Eugene is almost 2 hours away from Portland, and I'm really not anxious to get back into the car for that long of a drive after having driven cross-country last week. So I'll have to pass. It's going to feature the Oregon Crusaders, as well as Santa Clara Vanguard, Blue Knights, Troopers and the Cascades. I wish I felt up to going.
From Cars to Cadences
I'm on the cusp of a big cross-country move, so I haven't had the time nor funds to finalize my music composition setup yet. Needless to say, I'm anxious to purchase a set of drum samples, put together my soundfont, and get composing.
Traffic and an Update
This endeavor has come together in reverse order. The website was finished first because that's the easiest thing for me to get done (I'm employed as a web programmer, so I'm used to it). My traffic has risen from 0 visitors to an average of 2 per day. There are at least a few people searching for "high school drumline cadences", which makes me happy.
Let the Composition Begin
This post is somewhat technical. It describes the setup that I plan to use for composing high school drumline sheet music. See here for some back story. The process is further complicated by the fact that I use Linux (Kubuntu) as my primary operating system, which means I had to investigate the world of open source audio software to see what I needed, and make sense of all the jargon. Ultimately, I'm using a combination of Denemo, Lilypond, Swami, and FluidSynth. The common thread between them is MIDI.
Welcome.