My Music
I have a well-equipped home music studio, which includes a big rack of software-based synthesizers. From time to time I rouse myself from my stupor long enough to compose some original music. Below are a few modest examples.
I believe you need to download Flash Player 9 (from Adobe.com) in order to utilize the little playback widgets. If you feel disinclined to do that, you can jet over to my own web page and access the mp3s there.
Here’s a piece called “Cooking with Gravity”. This was done in 2003 using nothing but Reason 2.5:
Or you could listen to “The Wayfarer”. This uses real cello, and is in a rather mellow, accessible vein:
After doing a couple of utilitarian arrangements in which the synthesizers are called on to support a cello melody, I decided to take a break and do a piece that I had no pre-ordained ideas about. Just start something and see where it goes. “Dark Passage” turned out to be more beat-oriented than most of my music:
“Peace in Palestine” was recorded entirely in Propellerhead Reason 3.0, although the finger cymbal loop was imported from another program:
“Reassured” is a pleasant, unassuming piece:
“On a Broad Highway to Nowhere” is somewhat darker:
“Falling Away” is a sort of passacaglia, a mournful piece on a ground bass, though in this case the bass turns a few corners along the way.
“Desolation Dance” is one of the last pieces I did (several years ago now) using my old rack of hardware synthesizers.
If you enjoy the music, I hope you’ll leave a comment on this page. Musicians who work in the studio seldom get feedback from listeners!
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About the Author
Jim Aikin is earnestly attempting to enjoy living on this planet, in spite of the obvious difficulties that buzz like gnats around the process.
He fiddles around with synthesizers and music software and then writes about them for a variety of magazines, including Keyboard, Electronic Musician, Mix, and Drum.
He is the author of two nonfiction books — Power Tools for Synthesizer Programming and Chords & Harmony, both of which are nominally in print from Hal Leonard, although you wouldn’t know it from the pathetic sales figures on the royalty statements.
His fantasy stories have appeared in Asimov’s Science Fiction, Fantasy & Science Fiction, and other magazines. Though he hasn’t been active as a fiction writer for more than 15 years, he has recently started sending out stories again, and has made new sales to both of the above fine publications in 2008. “Run! Run!” appeared in the Sept. ‘08 issue of F&SF and “An Elvish Sword of Great Antiquity” in the Jan. ‘09 issue. Another story, “Leaving the Station,” is in the December ‘09 issue of Asimov’s.
His two published novels (Walk the Moons Road and The Wall at the Edge of the World) are both out of print.
He teaches cello privately in Livermore and Pleasanton, California, and has performed with a number of local groups, including the Livermore Valley Opera, the Pleasanton Chamber Players, the Silicon Valley Symphony, the Pleasanton Playhouse, the Redwood Symphony, the Diablo Symphony, and the Livermore-Amador Symphony.
He has released five works of interactive fiction (text-based computer games, in other words) — “Not Just an Ordinary Ballerina,” “Lydia’s Heart,” “Mrs. Pepper’s Nasty Secret” (co-authored with Eric Eve), “April in Paris,” and most recently “A Flustered Duck.” The duck won first place in the annual Spring Thing competition for 2009.
His personal website is www.musicwords.net.
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Hi Jim–I did listen to and enjoy several of your pieces. Nice work! I’m definitely going to come back and check out all of your blog entries and go to your other site too.
I’m in the process of writing you a long email, particularly regarding the great “Csound beginner” debate.
Comment by Tim Scott | June 12, 2008 |
Really great pieces you’ve got here. I’ve got a friend who’s very talented with MIDI… I’m going to send him here to have a listen.
“Cooking with Gravity” reminds me a lot of my favorite band’s material 9ALan Parson’s Project)
Great stuff!!!
Comment by Ken Kiser | July 27, 2008 |
Hi Jim,
I found you via the O’Reilly site and am enjoying reading the articles and listening to the music.
Thanks!
Comment by Gary Lester | November 10, 2008 |
Jim,
Your music is wonderful. My two pieces that grab me at first listen are The Swan and Peace in Palistine. Awesome – all of them. I like what you wrote about acoustic playing and the physical engagement in making music. Great piece of writing, that unpublished chapter.
Lots of stuff on your web and blog. I’m not done reading, listening and looking around here by any stretch. Thanks for sharing your stuff.
Cindy
Comment by Cindy | June 12, 2009 |
hello, i quite enjoy your music, but i was also wondering if you could share with me where you got the little widgets, as i’d like to host some of my own. thank you.
Comment by Mandy | October 3, 2009 |
By now I don’t remember where I got them, but they’re a WordPress widget. Or maybe I got them from my friend David. The code looks like … well, I’ll munge it so you can read it. It would look sort of exactly like this, except replace anything in angle brackets with an actual thing. The word “audio” should be printed as shown:
(open square bracket)audio(space character)(url where the mp3 is stored)(close square bracket)
My mp3s are hosted on my own website. It’s possible WordPress has storage space for audio now … dunno.
Try it and let me know if it doesn’t work.
Comment by prophet-5 | October 3, 2009 |