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Thrik

Making Music. Tunes by Idle Thumbsters

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Will post more ambient stuff as it comes, but this is probly a better representation of what I do & how I perform live: https://alexpieschel.bandcamp.com/album/waitin-around-ep

 

It's an EP I recorded with friends on a four-track cassette. Hope to expand to a full-length album by the end of this year!

 

Sorry, it took me a while to get around to checking this out; since it has lyrics and stuff I wanted to save it until a time when I could pay attention to it. I really like the low-fi recordings against the fairly raw synth patches. I am jealous of the ability to make proper music with a guitar whenever I hear it, since I still haven't figured out how to get anywhere near a finished performance with one. Ditto with integrating lyrics into music -- I took a rough attempt at it earlier this year but my anxiety around using my voice was too acute. Anyway, I like what you've got going on here, very chill and introspective. My favorite of the EP was probably Waitin' Around, which I guess is expected since it's the titular track. The reverby synth and backup vocals give a great feel, kind of like a prayer or dream heard through a radio.

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Sorry, it took me a while to get around to checking this out; since it has lyrics and stuff I wanted to save it until a time when I could pay attention to it. I really like the low-fi recordings against the fairly raw synth patches. I am jealous of the ability to make proper music with a guitar whenever I hear it, since I still haven't figured out how to get anywhere near a finished performance with one. Ditto with integrating lyrics into music -- I took a rough attempt at it earlier this year but my anxiety around using my voice was too acute. Anyway, I like what you've got going on here, very chill and introspective. My favorite of the EP was probably Waitin' Around, which I guess is expected since it's the titular track. The reverby synth and backup vocals give a great feel, kind of like a prayer or dream heard through a radio.

 

thanks so much! You're actually the first person I've heard to pick Waitin' Around as the favorite track! It's the only one I recorded by myself on my computer (my sister did the backing vocals). love your description

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Cross-post from here:

Quote

I kinda forgot about this, but a few days ago I made a recording of me singing lyrics in German about the new Twin Peaks book to a German folk melody. Well...

Here it is:

 

The singing sounds strained because I didn't transpose the chords low enough before I scribbled them all down. At least I developed better intuition for the next time...

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Somehow I've fallen into a gospel-organ hole ( a good thing). I've particularly been astonished by Cory Henry.
So my Youtube recommendations are starting to get pretty good. This one is beyond my current capability, but I think its probably going to be a useful step for me at some point.
 

 

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I recorded this at a point in time when I was utterly heartbroken and in a whirlwind of emotions, but also experienced a heightened state of consciousness, an ability to see things clearly and sharply which I haven't reached before or since (no drugs were involved, promise).
I recorded this specifically to let out all my emotions, but also to keep a record of them. I still think this and another improvisation from the same evening (which I may upload later) is the best thing I have made so far.

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Based on your description, it sounds like the processes of creating this piece is more important than my listening to it afterwards. Still, since you shared it I thought you might find my response interesting. While my ears hear the piano as passionate expression, they hear the vocals as being satirical or ironic. Based on your description, I don't think my perception is accurate but it makes me wonder what the auditory heuristics I've developed to grade the level of feeling emotion concurrently with the actual performance (in vocals). I suspect that when a singer is trained, the legit personhood in their voice is replaced with a hyper-real symbolic style that culturally represents personhood. A cyberpunky extrapolation of this (after all, it is Cyber Monday) would be that eventually algorithms will sound more like person-like than actual people. I guess it's already happened with widely distributed recorded media.

Realizing this, I find myself wanting to listen to more stuff like this so that my learned biases may dissipate and I can appreciate the pure shit.

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Interesting thoughts!

Kinda reminds me of how scenes by David Lynch that seem over the top and naive are often mistaken as being ironic instead of sincere (like Sarah Palmers breakdown in the pilot episode or the Just You number in the second episode of season two).

That my voice wasn't particularly well trained when I made the recording should be obvious. Additionally though I didn't care much for musicality in the moment, more for personal catharsis. I did want to make a record of my emotions in a musical form, that's why it's not just purely cries and screams, but also includes piano playing and some buildup before all the ugly stuff comes out.

I've uploaded now the other improvisation I think much of from the same evening. So now you have more stuff to listen that is like my previous upload. ;)

I think this one is the better one, calmer overall but also more extreme.

 

 

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It's interesting to have a comparison piece. The more I listen to these, the more I think this could be a genre in itself.

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On 11/28/2016 at 7:32 AM, Ozzie said:

I recorded this at a point in time when I was utterly heartbroken and in a whirlwind of emotions, but also experienced a heightened state of consciousness, an ability to see things clearly and sharply which I haven't reached before or since (no drugs were involved, promise).
I recorded this specifically to let out all my emotions, but also to keep a record of them. I still think this and another improvisation from the same evening (which I may upload later) is the best thing I have made so far.

this is pretty! i like the lyricless vocals. v heartfelt

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5 hours ago, Ozzie said:

Interesting thoughts!

Kinda reminds me of how scenes by David Lynch that seem over the top and naive are often mistaken as being ironic instead of sincere (like Sarah Palmers breakdown in the pilot episode or the Just You number in the second episode of season two).

That my voice wasn't particularly well trained when I made the recording should be obvious. Additionally though I didn't care much for musicality in the moment, more for personal catharsis. I did want to make a record of my emotions in a musical form, that's why it's not just purely cries and screams, but also includes piano playing and some buildup before all the ugly stuff comes out.

I've uploaded now the other improvisation I think much of from the same evening. So now you have more stuff to listen that is like my previous upload. ;)

I think this one is the better one, calmer overall but also more extreme.

 

 

i like this one too. i think this is a good strategy for making music in itself, but it could also be interesting to try to superimpose lyrics on a later draft of the song.

 

i think the david lynch stuff is often both (sincere and ironic). the Just You performance is a perfect example of this to me. James appears to the audience as sort of a laughable character, and the love triangle circumstances of the song are comic, as well. But his performance of the song is so saturated with melodrama as to be creepy. I feel both amused and creeped out by James' level of sincerity when I watch the video. 

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On 5.12.2016 at 6:29 PM, clyde said:

It's interesting to have a comparison piece. The more I listen to these, the more I think this could be a genre in itself.

 

Whoa, this surely is the greatest compliment I can imagine! Beats the previous greatest one I got, where someone told my that my performance made him fearful.

 

On 5.12.2016 at 10:46 PM, gamesthatexist said:

i like this one too. i think this is a good strategy for making music in itself, but it could also be interesting to try to superimpose lyrics on a later draft of the song.

 

i think the david lynch stuff is often both (sincere and ironic). the Just You performance is a perfect example of this to me. James appears to the audience as sort of a laughable character, and the love triangle circumstances of the song are comic, as well. But his performance of the song is so saturated with melodrama as to be creepy. I feel both amused and creeped out by James' level of sincerity when I watch the video. 

 

Very unlikely that there will ever be another draft of the song. It's an improvisation, it all happened in the moment, and the piece is so linked to the moment, I don't think I could reproduce it.

 

Hm, James is a character who is certainly laughable to me, but doesn't seem to be intended as such by the creators, at least that's how I perceive it. Wouldn't know the reasons. Though there certainly is also something amusing about the Just You and I scene, yes.

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Two days ago I performed together with my flatmate:

 

Featured are a power drill, a razor, a tuning fork, a contrabass bow, 5 chocolate santas, a tangerine, and a pot plant. I play e-organ and sing among other things, my flatmate plays bass among other things. What we make can be called music, among other things. ;) I guess it's kinda industrial/drone.

The piece was prepared specifically for the occassion.

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I spent 2016 trolling around bandcamp new releases (mostly on the "lo-fi" tag, which offers a satisfyingly diverse group of genres), and that was pretty much all the new 2016 music I listened to this year, outside of A Giant Dog. I made this mix of songs for people to enjoy or not. A lot of the music featured is experimental, amateurish, and rough around the edges, but maybe you'd still like it. All the songs here are from free releases, I didn't pay for any of it, so it's not piracy of any kind. Also I put some of my music I made this year for Idle Thumbs jams (music and game) in there.

 

 

2016 mix playlist.png

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This was a really helpful explanation of some of the more nuanced techniques in Western music.
 

 

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I uploaded a bunch of newish tracks semi randomly to my soundcloud that I have been neglecting for a long time.

I really like music creation (I use Reason 5) but it can also be pretty stressful. I don't know much of music theory so sometimes I feel like my lack of knowledge is really limiting my creative potential. Other sillier anxiety is that I love making simple hummable melodies and riffs so I often think 'This melody is so nice and simple it probably exists in a hundred tracks already!'.

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So I made this tune a while ago, and while I like most of it, I don't like using the bell as a substitute for what would be the vocal part (which I do because I know I have a very limited voice myself). Do any of ya'll run into this problem and if so, how do you address it? Optimally, I think I would a wind instrument of some sort because that feels closer to the expressiveness of a voice, but I don't own any so I can't really go that route.

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I can't believe that this thread lay dormant for so long! I had trouble finding it for that reason!

Anyway, I matured somewhat as a musician in the last few months, which basically means that I graduated from Audacity. I had some great times with this crazy piece of kit, but it was time to move on. *sigh* I'll miss you, Audacity. But you're a pain in the arse if you want to get serious about things.

Soooo, the following are the last two tracks I made with Audacity. I got back to multi-track recording in the first place because I bought an audio interface. As soon as I connected a mic to it the fire was kindled again!

 

First track starts of somewhat quiet, so yes, that's normal. Also, the mixing is non-existent, and there are other issues, but, you know, at some point you just gotta stop or get exhausted. A pain in the arse, like I said. Everyone liked the track whom I showed it to, but also had something to complain about.

 

 

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I felt a terrible mix of emotions and like I had to let them out by yelling a lot. Then I listened to the recent remix of Futile Devices by Sufjan Stevens and thought I could cover it, so I did, with some yelling involved.

 

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Only listened to the last two tracks so far, but the last one sticks with me, listened a few times to it already! Pretty and melancholic. ^^

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