Sometimes I wonder what people who don't obsess about music every day do with all their time...   I've spent an inordinate amount of time on this track, primarily for my own amusement.   I do hope you enjoy it as well!   

Download Track Nineteen: Vertical Bird 

Just for the benefit of anybody that may be new to this page, you're about to listen (I hope)  to music that I wrote and recorded at home.  On this track, I played guitar, bass, electronic drums, and keyboards.   Although some of my other tracks include programming, this one is just old-fashioned playing (and some minor editing)!   

Although people tell me all the time that my music sounds like "movie music," I rarely think of it that way myself.    However, I do think the first couple of minutes of this track would make a great opening for a film...  Any takers?    Maybe it could be a film where the cast of the X-Files gets into a fight out in the desert with the members of Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin....  Eventually, a giant Robert  Fripp robot takes them all out with laser cannons...   After that, it gets a bit self-indulgent!  But like I said, I do this stuff to keep myself happy.

"Vertical Bird" was born out of an attempt to get a really big drum kit sound that I could play with my HandSonic.     I play the HandSonic like a drum kit by using a foot pedal for the kick drum, then using the two pads in the front as snare and hi hat.  The other two larger pads I use as toms, and the cymbals are assigned to each of the other smaller pads.  Although many other people (non-drummers) play this thing by quietly twiddling on it with their fingers, I hit it hard like a drum, and I have the pad sensitivity adjusted accordingly.  By using MIDI, I can trigger many, many different available drum sounds on my computer.       Since I had recently upgraded to a new version of Cakewalk Sonar, I had a new version of their "Session Drummer" software.   The drum kit sound I started with is supposed to be a "John Bonham" sound.    I modified it quite a lot by using separate outputs for each drum sound, and then applying different effects to each one.  All of this work an enormous sound, and very fun to play.

So, I recorded about ten minutes of me playing the drum kit I'd created, with no clue what I would do with it.   This is usually a good way to kickstart a creative recording for me.  The next thing I put down was the pulsing electronic sound that runs through most of the track.   Instead of using an arpeggiator to do this, I played a few bars on the keyboard, and looped it.   I don't actually remember which synth I used.  I ran the original synth sound through some guitar effects (distortion, chorus, etc), and manually adjusted the "wah" effect throughout.   

The primary guitar part is very typical of me.   It's like the mutant offspring of "Tectonics" and "What the Crows Know."  If you've been listening to my stuff for a while, you already know that I'm a little too fond of Phrygian mode (even if you don't know what that is).   Whatever I played was not premeditated, I just kept playing until I stumbled upon this idea.  I'm using Guitar Rig 4 for all my guitar sounds now.   I played all of this stuff really, really loud, because I had a few days off work, and nobody else was around!   The huge, epic nature of the piece also demanded the big power chords.  You can't argue with that.   I resisted the urge to windmill my arm around while playing them.

I came up with the synth melodies by improvising them on keyboards, based on the guitar part.  I played around with a whole lot of different analogue synth sounds (modeled with a variety of synth plug-ins on my computer) and settled on two that worked.   I created the primary synth sound from scratch using a Cakewalk plugin called z3ta+.    I like any synth that gives me a whole lot of sliders to experiment with!    All of the string sounds were created using Dimension Pro.   I wasn't necessarily striving for realism.

You probably wouldn't know, but I changed my whole style of playing bass relatively recently.  I played bass in a band for a handful of gigs last year.  During that time, I decided to finally get around to playing bass with my fingers (no pick) after vehemently rejecting this idea for many years prior.   After discovering a fuller sound, and greater control of dynamics, I decided to give my bass pick a rest indefinitely.  I didn't need to do a lot with the bass on this track as it was already so full sounding.   I tried to create texture and leave a lot of space.  
 
There are a variety of other sounds and effects that show up.  I could wear myself out just writing about them!   Anyway, I'm quite pleased with this piece at the moment.   I would would welcome your comments or feedback!