jamuary 8, 2025

One of my favorite pieces of music is Michael Giacchino’s “Life and Death,” which he wrote for the TV show LOST 20-odd years ago. It’s a simple, haunting piece that builds over time, but is anchored by a really simple piano motif. Whole-note chords, a melody that fills in the space… it’s one of my personal init patches whenever I sit down at a keyboard or try out a new sound.

Today, I didn’t play the piece, but programmed a version of it into Fugue Machine, which controlled a Decent Sampler instrument. I let one playhead move through the chords as expected, but then introduced additional playheads to take it in new directions:

It was a fun little experiment, to see what happens to a familiar piece when you drop it on its head, turn it over, mess with it a little bit. But my favorite part was when I dropped the first playhead entirely — as well as the second playhead, which lagged behind the first but still moved from left to right — and pushed some of the effects that undergirded the more traditional melody and harmony.

About 2:40, the bottom of the piece falls out and the whole thing sounds like something different entirely. But the DNA is still there. All these wonderful moments fragmented and turned inside out. I’m gonna have to resample that part.

// tags: making music jamuary

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jamuary 7, 2025 - one week in I have made a little bit of music every day for the past seven days in service of Jamuary. This is the first time I have attempted to take on the

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jamuary 9, 2025 I wrote this on lines today, which is where I’m sharing all my jamuary stuff: Tried some new tools today: Velvet Machine, for cool reverb-y stuff,