Open Source Music Project

This is really a great melody. Although I tried to keep this clean with simple instrumentation it ended up getting a little complicated.

There is a bass line track in there I played manually and another one generated by the automated accompaniment track in my Technics Digital Piano. When I took out the accompaniment track and replaced it with just the drum track it sounded flat so I put it back two separate base guitar tracks and all.

It is intended to be a romantic ballad, and I think it sort of has an anthem feel to it. Hope you enjoy it too!

I am sure there will be a post detailing this further – but all my personal and professional web sites are in one master directory inside my Rackspace server account. Several weeks ago the sites were hacked by a program called a SQL Injection Trojan – which is a sort of attack dog on the internet searching for weaknesses in websites. At the time there was just such a weakness in the WordPress content management platform, the software I mainly use to build web sites. While that issue has now been corrected I found myself re-building all of my websites about a month ago. Then it happened again two weeks ago – only this time an old forum software platform was the culprit and the results were just as catastrophic.

Today I am finishing up the re-launch of the Open Source Music Project site with a cleaner and corrected set of files. Some of the songs here had been originally listed in such a way as to allow iTunes to randomly select which track was the final mix – other tracks were uploaded to the server but for various reasons never posted. Dotin Dah falls into that category. It is up tempo and features a lot of the Sax voice from my keyboard. enjoy!

From November 2008 this song was at least inspired in part by the song “Mornin’ “by Al Jarreau. It has a sort of atmospheric opening which reminded me of bird song and it breaks into a kind of Jazz Swing arrangement. I am not sure why I never got this posted to the Open Source Music Project site – but I have been listening to this track for a long while.

I hope you enjoy it!

Years ago when I lived in Central Florida I would love to stand on Main Street USA in the Magic Kingdom and listen to the  Main Street Electrical Parade.  I was always fascinated by the way the music was presented.  I believe there was a master recording of individual tracks that would be sent to each individual float.  So float one would be playing track one, float two would be playing track two and so on.  It all blended in the open air.

This recording is from October 2008, and I’m not sure why it never got posted.  As I rebuild my sites in response to being hacked off the internet I wanted to include it here.  The first part of the song – especially the “moog” sound at the begining was inspired by those warm nights in Orlando standing on Main Street.

 

The song Child of the Universe goes back a long way, this is a 2009 version I really like.  The chord progression has remained the same since I first played it 35 years ago on the streets of Manhattan. Back then I played it on a 12-string Epiphone with my guitar case open and a sign that read “Please Help”.

The original lyrics were really goofy except for the one phrase “Child of the Universe”. I later wrote some very meaningful lyrics and always loved the song. A lot of my later music dips into the same chord progression, but this version tries to capture the original essence of warm summer days in Florida with my six-string in hand. I really don’t sing much anymore, but if I did, this song would always remain.

This was one that came very quickly – in fact essentially this is a live performance with not much editing at all. If you want to download the individual tracks below you’ll see what I mean. The main track was created using an arpeggio effect on a string guitar voice on my keyboard – mainly because I had intended to record using my (real) guitar but the battery was gone.

So here is 34 fingers.. or should that be here ARE 34 fingers? either way I hope you enjoy listening!

Pronounced ˆdike-man, the Dyckman Valley is where I grew up in New York City. It is the oldest inhabited part of the island, originally the home of the Weekquaeskeek Indians.  They are the ones who “sold” Manhattan Island to Dutch governor Peter Minuit In 1626.

I happened to be mixing the tracks to this song when a documentary called “Super City: New York” was playing on The History Channel.  What caught my attention was a shot with an archeologist taken in Inwood Hill Park. He was standing in a place I had been many times as a boy. The neighborhood kids called them “the Indian caves”. Well it turns out they actually were. It was the winter home of the Weekquaeskeek Indians.  Really.

I don’t know how I connected the musical theme with that vision – but there you have it. Enjoy

It seems like it gets longer and longer in between uploading new cuts. I don’t know if it is because I am getting too picky or what! I have kind of mixed feelings about this song, called “New All Along part I and II”. It is inspired from the old Bob Dylan song “All Along The Watch Tower”  in that it has a similar chord progression.

In this song the melody line is different and especially different in the second part.  I really like the way this came out except for one thing: No matter how I mixed it the first half sounds so different from the second half that it’s pretty much a different song.

After dozens of master mixes I finally gave up and made it obviously two songs – hence the  “New All Along parts I and II” title. Pretty clever huh?

I would really welcome your mix on this. The original unedited cuts are contained in zip files (links below) because iTunes (or the WordPress plug-in called Podpress) apparently sees posted mp3 files somewhat randomly. In fact I will go back and re-post the earlier stuff in that format to clean up the podcast tracks. As always you are free to use under the Creative Commons License. Translation – use it any way you want for free but give me credit as the song writer and performer.

Oh – and I would really appreciate it if you just let me know you used it – send me a link!

Long Ago and Far Away is the second version of the same song in the podcast series – although they surprisingly have little to do with one another beside the chord progression.

While watching a 2009 top ten American Idol show the comment was made about Smokey Robinson doing five hundred some-odd different mixes of a song only to use the second track he mixed… well this mix did not happen for me like that. This was the umpteenth time I’ve recorded it, and this was mix eight or nine. Still not perfect – but I really like the way it turned out.

As always the individual tracks are available below and I would welcome your comments.

iTunes has added the opensource music project as a regular podcast! If you would like to subscribe through iTunes click here – and thanks!