Two homemade melodies

avatar

IMG_20220504_123925.jpg

My new hobby - composing little melodies, and analysing them afterwards. Originally it was because I wanted to learn more about musical analysis and the only way I could come up with was trying something out and then see what I had done afterwards.

But it is fun in itself writing little tunes. As for now it is just melody and chords - the videos are the ones I made to remember what I had done. I am writing them down using Musescore soon. Not sure what I am going to use them for, but I have published three little pieces on my website. Maybe these can be made into something or I can just publish the score.

Felicia’s stone song

This one already has a name and sound like a classic Scandinavian jazztune. C minor 5/4 - My eldest daughter loved stones when she was 2-3 years old and wanted to be a stone collector when she grew up… now it seems she will study data science instead. But I got to think of her in the wild winds of the West Sea with her pockets so full of stones that she hardly could walk.

Melody 1

And this one hasn't got a name yet and is just called melody 1 for the time being :) A minor 4/4



0
0
0.000
18 comments
avatar

I think they are both beautiful. Felicia's has a haunting effect for me, I never have heard Scandinavian jazz before so I wouldn't know there. The melody is complex and I focused on that, not the chords at all.

Melody 1 is lovely, and I love the chord progression.

0
0
0.000
avatar

Thanks! Somehow you always get most happy when people kindly recognize something good in your amateurish efforts :) I wrote a post now where you can see the table and hear some Scandinavian jazz.

The Felicia song is modal in nature, and it isn't really chords I play, but two tone intervals. I sat down to find what the actual chords are and it is a bit blurry and subtle. The mood shifts between relative minor and major chords but often it doesn't sound wrong when you get the sequence wrong which very much points at a modal composition.

The complexity of the melody probably comes from the 5/4 time signature, and that it has this circular structure where it only returns to the tonic when you hear the first bar of the next section. So to end it I had to add an extra bar where you can play the full C-minor chord.

0
0
0.000
avatar

Dang! This is my first glimpse of your musicality! I had no idea.

Thanks for the explanation. This tune sounds very exotic to me, vaguely reminiscent of klezmer tunes, which also can be modal in form, switching often between relative major and minor.

I'm deep into listening to those tracks you provided in your above mentioned post.

0
0
0.000
avatar

Music always played a disproportionately large role in my artistic life, even though I never did create any music professionally. It has served both as a direct reference and as a parallel in which I have been able to mirror my pictorial art. I have always had many musicians and composers as friends and the discussions has influenced me a lot.

As Katharsisdrill I have published a few musical pieces , because when I came up with the idea of making an outlet for the art I wouldn't be able to use under my own name one of the founding concepts was that no quality scruples should stand in the way of me creating. Originally I simply thought of it as a wastebasket - and that suddenly gave me a lot of freedom from the whole *brand' thing. Now it has become a brand of its own I guess, but with a lot more creational freedom. It has become a place where I work in less "fine" genres, but I plan to also let that go when I get a project that goes fine art. Doesn't really care about all that any more :)

So maybe I will produce a black metal album or do some Katharsisdrill string quartets :)

0
0
0.000
avatar

Is there anything you can't do?! Next you'll tell me you play the upright bass...

Why can't you use your own name?

That second paragraph is interesting. So by abandoning the idea that art has to be of "quality," determined by outside understandings of worth not your own, your art was elevated? Is that what you mean?

0
0
0.000
avatar

I never played much string instruments actually :) A little bit of guitar and electric bass, but I am very envious of people who do. Especially violin, viola and cello. My eldest daughter plays the violin.

As for the whole concept of the project it sort of evolved from the original trash can idea, and I had to realise that my perfectionism never would let me do really bad things (I even removed things I already published because I didn't like them after a while). To stop having an internal censorship (and it did start as an internal thing) didn't really make things bad - on the contrary actually. It was probably just me throwing the burden of my ego away. The whole "brand" thing. And it was also nice to use a pseudonym, probably for the same reason. It was like starting anew, and I always had a dream of running away (not from my family and friends, but from society).

I never felt that the distinction between fine arts and less fine art was of any interest, so it wasn't the elevation of art that played a role. I enjoy a lot of things that are not sophisticated or decent or sensible or productive. Like everyone else. Some things have a liveliness to them, even quiet things, and that sort of thing attracts me - can be anything from silly Black Sabbath Lyric, pornography, punk music, anything really.

0
0
0.000
avatar

Nice tunes. You definitely have something worth developing there. I love the old piano and a little peak into your world.

!PIZZA !LUV

0
0
0.000
avatar

Thanks :) I am not sure how I will use these melodies - But if nothing else I just found an hour to write down the score, and I might just publish them as Katharsisdrill works.

The piano haven't been tuned for ages and it has a whobbly sound and is a bit soft in the machanics, but at least it is not completely out of tune. My parents have a (baby) grand piano which my mother wants me to inherit, but they still use it so until then I just play this old thing.

0
0
0.000
avatar

It's been a long time since I lived in a house with a real piano, but I was never really a player. One of my musician friends repairs and sells them, but doesn't play (he does banjo and guitar). He says the market is pretty dead these days. Mind you he did sell one to Hugh Laurie a while back. A baby grand needs a fair bit of space and could be loud. Is noise an issue where you live?

0
0
0.000
avatar

I think that the convenience of the digital piano, the fact that you can use headphones and not have any real vibrations has made the mechanical piano less popular. Living in a flat I always was in doubt how much i bothered others, but I never had any complaints and I do talk with my neighbours (sub-neighbours... underlings!? Don't know the word for those living beneath you. We have the whole floor for ourself.

0
0
0.000
avatar

I can get away with some noise here, but it's best when the family are out. No close neighbours.

0
0
0.000
avatar

My wife never asked for us to stop making noises if it was music. She's really an angel in that regard...

0
0
0.000
avatar

Mine doesn't like it when she's watching TV.

0
0
0.000
avatar

Yes, well ... :) I sort of get this picture of you in the corner with this enormous Marshall stack, completely into some bluesy rock'n'roll while the sound of the telly is all the way up.

0
0
0.000
avatar

I did consider buying a big Marshall many years ago, but I really didn't need it. I would still like one of their amplifiers some day. I do have my own music room, but it is not that well acoustically isolated.

0
0
0.000
avatar

Yes, next year this house will be 100 years old and it is definitely not sound isolated either. When we lived in a smaller flat in the same building we had some of the people living next door inside because we were moving up to a larger flat, and the eldest daughter wanted to take over our small one. It was a really lovely family from the Philippines. So when the came in they immediately saw the piano and said, oh! it is you playing! I waited for some real embarrassment, but then they said that they had really enjoyed music in the house... Sometimes people are much nicer than you deserve.

0
0
0.000