Evolution of a song (Part 1: Arrangement)

The infinite possibilities: how to get to the right one?

1. This song came unusually easy to me. It was pouring. Bam, bam, I was on a bus, going to work and I had to open OneNote to write down lyrics. Didn't need to edit or make rhymes, all was in place already.
Bam, bam, I printed out the lyrics, walked to a piano and found harmony for the chorus. It had to be catchy and it was. From there in a few steps I got to the verse harmony and also the interlude. The last part remaining was the connection from chorus back into verse, which I sought for a while and it turned out to be just one extra chord.
With everything written down the song was ready and I can perform it, check out the live piano version featuring me and Chi at 0:00-1:10.

2. But this isn't the style of music that I usually write. Next turn - for the metal part: drums, guitars, bass.
Big support needed for the chorus, moderate for the verse, the interlude is expected to rock! So goes the rhythm. A little faster, but keeps main beats aligned with piano chords. Bam! Ba-da-bam-bam! Push-ta-zysh!
So I was ready to record at this point, so I dropped some random instruments in Ableton in place of real instruments at 1:10-2:27.

3. But this isn't my style and this is too boring, has no development. It is deadly for the number of verses, which I managed to bring down to five. This song needs variation. And this is where I got stuck. this is where the hard work had to be invested in. This is why I need to cooperate with someone: to unload the dirty work :)
At least it sounds more metal at 2:27-3:30.

4. ARRANGEMENT
Faster? Slower? More Melody? Drop an instrument! Silence... A breakdown? My brain's in breakdown.
I need a break...

I added a couple of simpler melodies to support the vocal line and used different combinations of instruments. I really like the new Guitar pro (7th) set of RSE (real sounding) instruments at 3:30-4:50.

5. Now it's only left to pick synth instruments, record vocals, add effects and post-processing and mix. Maybe I'll manage to record live guitar even? Not dreaming of live drums and bass...
Things finally coming together (sounds better with the voice in my head, but that's a story for another post) at 4:52-6:25.

These chunks are just examples. The song is now 7:30 long!
To be continued...

Throwing things in a perfect circle

How difficult do you think it can be to throw things in a circle?
Not as easy as you'd think or I'd like.
It took me 2-3 hours to figure the following tiny chunk of code. AND I have the background. Shit. Maybe I am just bad at what I'm doing, lol. Anyway, it felt like it was worth a short blog post.

var texts = array of things to throw around;

var count = texts.Length;

var circularUIRadius = how far to throw from the central point;

var depthUI = how close to the target object things should be;

//So here it starts - the target object position:
var targetCenter = Vector3.Lerp(this.transform.position, Camera.main.transform.position, depthUI);

//I want to get the direction vector from the target to the camera. What can be easier?

Vector3 facingCamera = (Camera.main.transform.position - targetCenter).normalized;

//Make sure things are happening as I think they are:

Debug.DrawRay(targetCenter, facingCamera, Color.blue, 5.0f, false);

//Here starts the fun - get the second vector to describe the plane, into which the circle of texts goes

//The first axis is Vector3.up, but this can still be improved totilt the plane up or down depending if the camera moves up or down. <TO BE DONE>

var directionPerpendicular = Vector3.Cross(facingCamera, Vector3.up).normalized; -// --> this didn't work! Quaternion.Euler(0, -90, 0) * direction;
Debug.DrawRay(targetCenter, directionPerpendicular, Color.yellow, 5.0f);

for (var i = 0; i < count; i++)
{
  // super advanced spatial geometry math from parametric-equation-of-a-circle-in-3d-space
  //Get the desired angle for the thing, we strive for equality and symmetry

  var angle = Math.PI * i * 2 / count;

  //Calculate the final location for the text
  var target = targetCenter + circularUIRadius * (float)Math.Cos(angle)*Vector3.up + circularUIRadius * (float)Math.Sin(angle)*directionPerpendicular; 

  texts[i].transform.position = target;

  //And the final touch - cherry, so to say...                    

  // rotate to camera - prevent text from being mirrored from lookat-in-opposite-direction
  texts[i].transform.LookAt(2*target - Camera.main.transform.position);

}

Result!

 

30 days 1 coursera course 1 game 5 songs

Conclusion: It is not difficult to find and explore new ideas, especially in a limited time period and the right goals.
Over time my relationship with inspiration was difficult.
The best time for music production was surprisingly, exams at the university. What would I not do to procrastinate and postpone studying questions.
After graduating it got impossible to do anything with music. Traveling, moving around the globe, getting out of bands and into totally new environments. Too distracting. I feel sad realizing that it were 4-5 years without composing and recording. Terrifying! The only activity I could stick to was singing, because it doesn't require equipment (almost).
I tried to get back to music 2 years ago, when I just moved back to Seattle, but there were too many other things: work and new house, so there was no energy for music.

The setup morphed into this:

After I have received the news that I am joining the Hololens team, I got all the energy I needed. Good timing with a gaming hackathon, where I was invited as a musician, so I started with producing an ambient soundtrack for a dark mood. I spent a couple evenings listening to American McGee's Alice and Baldur's Gate soundtrack, then I was done with ours the next evening. I also did all in-game sound effects, and even some voice acting in addition to coding and puzzle design. 

In parallel I took a Coursera course on Ableton, so I could use Ableton Live 9 30day trial most efficiently. It was hard to find time for all activities besides work, but it was exciting and challenging to follow the requirements for the next assignment. Here are the drafts:

My profile on Blend: InflunZa

After both the gaming hackathon and Ableton course deadlines arrived, I suddenly got some free time and with a week of the trial remaining and new knowledge from the course, I decided to remix the ambient track into a completed song. Still demo quality, but this is definitely faster than more than half a year for producing the previous song in free Zunewave Podium (note it was completely composed by the time I started).

How do you strike the balance between time, motivation and laziness? :)

Cheers, ~InflunZa

P.S. The game was published and is worth a separate post, so here's just the link (free)

Alrauni - 2011-2012

Alrauni:
folk-metal music band based in Moscow, Russia (2011-2012) performing in German language with a strong Russian accent.
Project page on MySpace

The name of the band was Feuerwind originally, as it is nowadays again.
But while I was in the project I was determined to make it memorable and unique (and famous also would be nice, but didn't happen unfortunately).
Together with other participants we convinced our leader to rebrand ourselves into Alrauni (from Alraune), which was the best single word, describing the project.
German? - check.
Folklore? - check.
Magical? - we tried.
Boobs and cute girls? - check.
Monsters? - if you stayed long enough to check...

We even created a band logo and printed T-shirts! I still have one:

We did not have sufficient funds to record a proper album, but I knew how to use a DAW, so we recorded 4 demos at home. Considering lack of music production education and experience, I think I did a good job:

The most difficult part was recording the acoustic krezh (a kind of gusli). This photo is from a concert, note where the mic is (yes, we knew about special mics for wooden acoustic instruments and got one eventually):

Finally we got my favorite song properly made at a real studio:


Concert video were never made properly, here are a couple, but are seriously terrible. Seriously, don't watch them. Skip!



Unfortunately, the life was happening at the same time and I was the first to leave the city of Moscow and then Russia in the summer of 2012, other members also quitted.
Now the project is still alive, led by Timo with new participants and instruments.
The project page doesn't have many notable updates: Fraulein Anni was recorded properly, though. Sounds very different now.

I enjoyed my time:

Founder:
Timo (Николай Спиридонов) - music, lyrics, bass, effects
Members:
Ольга Милованова - vocals, guitar
Анна Лемехова - violin
Мария Красненко - recorder
Юлия Мамченко - крезь
Илья Попов - accordeon
Ксения Долгорукова - cello
Сергей Латушкин - drums