New Age Tune

When I sit down to tickle the ivories, so to speak, of my Yamaha MOX synthesizer I usually call up a piano voice in order to exercise my clumsy fingers and get into the proper mood. The other day, I played a few chords using the Ballad Key piano layer voice and found a chord sequence that had a sweet kind of New Age ring to it. I recorded it and added a step-recorded arpeggio using the Airy Nylon voice. It sounded really pretty. I was onto something. I recorded a simple drum pattern on top of all, and found a gentle lead synth voice (Soft RnB) to play a melody alongside it. It's a bit dull but fits the mood perfectly. Later, I added a Kitaro-ish bridge melody using a Bouzuki voice to lead to the finale of the tune. After I had assembled the instrumentation and recorded all the noises, I built the actual song using the MOX's pattern chain function. In essence, I run section A endlessly and then simply mute and unmute the various voice tracks whenever I think it's appropriate. Easy.

While listening to the finished piece for the first time, images appeared in my imagination, and I hadn't even had a single drink. The pictures that matched those in my head most closely were some that I had seen on the photo-blog by Hanspeter "Happy-Hapsi" Schär. He's a hobby/freelance photographer with professional equipment and stellar talent. He took a series of images of the young Emme river in the Emmen valley, the latter better known by its German name of cheesy fame Emmental. They were perfect to carry the mood of the song, so I had to have them for the music video. After I'd asked for – and obtained – permission to use a few of them in a video, I ...  well ... used a few of them in a video. What did you expect? The result can be watched below.

It is a bit faster than the usual New Age tunes that people listen to in order to reach higher levels of spirituality, and the drum pattern doesn't help either. But it's a rather quiet piece nonetheless. And the stunning pictures in the video should provide ample justification for anyone to suffer through the song.

Two New Instrumental Compositions

I have just uploaded two new instrumental compositions on the YoshiMusix YouTube channel. They are both "old" pieces that I carried around in my head for a very long time and needed to get out. Both tunes are sort of movie sound tracks without the movie (it only plays in your head).

The Chase

The Chase is based on a motif that I had carried in my head for at least 20 years. It is a bit like the notes that accompanies a character in a movie: soft when the mood is somber, fast and hard when he's in distress, for example racing towards his destiny. The Chase is in the second category.

The drum pattern drives the pace: There's no messing about, you need to run! A synthesizer bass line supports the pace and the mood of the song. The motif is carried in the chorus of the tune in tree stages by two trumpet ensembles playing an octave apart: At first it is announced, second it is questioned (or is it?), and finally it is delivered. In between the choruses a distorted guitar improvises a moody if not imploring solo that gets harder each round.

I'm quite happy with the result, both with respect of my performance and how it matches up with the tune in my head. I can let it go now.

Por qué no te callas

It is one of those tunes that occasionally spring up in my mind for no reason whatsoever. When I hear it (in real or previously in my head) I imagine someone riding a motorcycle through the Spanish countryside -- sun in the sky, wind in his hair (no helmet, obviously), no deadlines looming....

The tune starts with an acoustic guitar playing a sweet little melody, accompanied by an electric piano. The melody is then carried over by a trombone (trumpet, actually), and then finally resumed by the guitar. In an earlier incarnation, the percussion was lighter, but I think the more modern, heavier and faster drum pattern goes very well with the tune.

This piece got its name ("why don't you shut up?" in Spanish) at the very last minute, when I remembered the incident during the 2007 Ibero-American Summit in Santiago, when King Juan Carlos I of Spain had to silence Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez because he kept interrupting Prime Minister of Spain José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero's speech. The tune is a happy little composition that has absolutely nothing to do with the Chávez-incident, perhaps apart from its title suggesting a response, should anyone interfere with your listening to it.