My Music

Life goes on. As I retool the Oblong Blog to be more about music and music technology, I need to revamp this page, which frankly hadn’t been touched in about ten years. My music blog, at synthage.wordpress.com, is probably going to go away soon, but not until I’ve culled the useful or provocative stuff from its moldering archive.

The first place to go to hear my misguided attempts at composition would be my bandcamp page. There you’ll find five CDs (well, at least the covers for five “CDs”) that you can stream for free or buy as digital downloads. The oldest collection, Light’s Broken Speech Revived, dates back about 30 years, but Open House and Reimagine are recent.

But wait — there’s more! Below is a big bunch of streaming music links you can tiptoe through or wallow in without leaving this very page. It’s all synthesizers, as usual, and most of it was done strictly with Reason.

First up, how about “Frandango”:

 

Next, “Storefront Maharishi”:

 

And then, “‘Tis an Irish Conga Line”:

 

In a more mellow mood, “Gently”:

 

And here’s “The Dove.” The main melodic motif was inspired by the call of an actual dove who was outside my bedroom window one morning….

 

Next up, “Skippin'”:

 

Because what goes around comes around, here’s “What Goes Around”:

 

Another laid-back (not to say “new age,” which we NEVER say) tune, “November Fireside”:

 

Here’s “Ominous Quadruped”:

 

And “Absence of Intent”:

 

“Tarragon”:

 

And when we tip the basket over and shake it, out fall “Conspicuous Developments”:

 

“Sparkle Plenty”:

 

And the mellifluous strains of “Nightingale”:

 

“Inevitable”:

 

The ’80s easy-listening fusion vibe kind of snuck up on me while I was working on “Floogle”:

 

Here’s “Autumn Mist”:

 

“Camel Ride to the Tomb” is an older track that I resurrected:

 

And how about some “Square-Dancing Puppies”?

9 Responses to My Music

  1. Tim Scott says:

    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.

  2. Ken Kiser says:

    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!!!

  3. Gary Lester says:

    Hi Jim,
    I found you via the O’Reilly site and am enjoying reading the articles and listening to the music.
    Thanks!

  4. Cindy says:

    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

  5. Mandy says:

    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.

    • prophet-5 says:

      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.

  6. Landosonic says:

    I am just listening to your stuff. It seems that your tools are capable of doing some nice things. But you, Jim, the composer, matter most. Well done !
    Greetings from Landosonic ( http://www.soundclick.com/landosonic )

  7. A says:

    Hi

    “These days, I do practically everything in software”

    what sort of software are you using?

    Thanks!

    • midiguru says:

      Oh, all sorts of stuff. FL Studio and Cubase, sometimes Reason. u-he Zebra 2 and ACE, Spectrasonics Omnisphere and Stylus RMX, NI Battery 3 and FM8, Rob Papen Predator, AAS Lounge Lizard 3, the list goes on.

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