The Rite of Spring

For those of you who don't know, today, May 29 is the 100th birthday of what is perhaps Igor Stravinsky's most famous work, The Rite of Spring! It apparently caused riots on its parisian opening (people hated it), but soon came to be recognized as one of the foremost developers of 20th century classical music.
I for one quite enjoy this piece (though it's not for everyone). For your convenience, here's a quite splendid animation of the piece:

Too bad there was no google doodle though. That would've been amazing.

Ambient Music

Lately, I've been listening to ambient music more frequently. I think I've developed a taste for it - at least the sort of slow moving, spacey kind. What interests me is the kind where it's essentially a set of chords which are drawn out over a long period of time. I don't mean slow like ASLSP; I just mean long enough that you can really think about what every chord sounds like.

Anyway, so I took this idea and turned it into my own piece of music. It's on my YouTube channel:

I don't want to brag here, but I really like listening to this song. But enough of that, I want to explain how it works:

The piece, in its written form, consists of 30 distinct chordal changes. What I did was I played each part, individually, on a synthesizer, extending each chord for as long as I felt sounded right. Since it is fifteen minutes long, this averages out to a change every thirty seconds.

Somehow, this kind of slow progression seems to hold my attention. Maybe it's because of the ringing reverberation between notes? I don't know. Anyway, what do you think?

Train

I've finally finished transcribing Train (from Einstein on the Beach) into MIDI. It sure took a while!
If you'd like it (it sounds great in Synthesia, I'll have you know), just send me an email at mactavish.alex@gmail.com.

Drum Test

I uploaded a new video to my YouTube channel. It's a sort of drum loop. Take a look:





Yeah. The end.

Uru Extra Music

If you have the soundtrack to Uru, you might be disappointed that it has very little of the full soundtrack in it. This means that there are two obvious ways to get the rest; either play the game, or fish through the resource files. Well, I've done some fishing, and now I've renamed them, put them in an order that makes sense, and put them on my Youtube channel!

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLB4CC318C1435738D&feature=plcp

Happy Birthday!

No, not to me, silly. To Philip Glass! It's his 75th birthday.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

Anyway, by some coincidence that is completely unrelated to the fact that it just so happens to be his birthday, his ninth symphony was released on iTunes today. I haven't actually heard it all yet (am am doing so now :) ) but it seems really good so far. Get it for yourself here.

In other news, I attended another music "concert" by... some guy. Anyway, it was sort of... well, he certainly doesn't do justice to philip glass or murray gold or anyone else I like. Anyway, at the end, he said, "I'm just going to give you something to think about. I've never done drugs, I don't smoke, and I eat healthy. And I'm 73.". And then he left. (can you guess where this "concert" might have been?) Anyway, I'm not sure what his point was. Was he implying that I shouldn't do drugs, I shouldn't smoke, I should eat healthy, and I should be seventy three? Or was he saying that if you don't want to do concerts at elementary schools, you should do drugs, you should smoke, you should eat unhealthy things, and most of all you should never be seventy-three! Or had a principal or someone like that instructed him to say that? If that's the case, then I think I have reason to worried.

Drug problems?

At an elementary school?

I mean, I can understand high school, but here?

I guess there are some pretty stupid people here who would gladly take drugs.

Also, it's 2012.

But still! I don't want to be at a school with drug problems! I don't want police to be questioning me about  whether or not I'm doing drugs! I'm innocent! Unless you count Vitamin C chewable thingies. But they are legal, they don't kill you, and some people seem to think they prevent illness. I'm not so sure! And I take 2 a day, max! I'm not a junkie! AAARGGH! Those aren't even drugs! MIG!!!!!!!

Anyway. I don't like drugs. And I believe this is the first time I've actually talked about myself in greater detail, but here is a convenient, consumable summary:

I'm in eighth grade. I am thirteen years old. And please don't try to "dumb down" for me just because I'm young, because chances are I'm smarter than you. No, just kidding. But really, I am smart. Anyway. The end. Blah! Happy january! I'm not looking forward to valentine's day!

More Uru

After installing Myst Online on Mac, I decided to extract the files using a program known as Riveal (warning: extremely glitchy!). This is a piece of software which, aside from OSX MO:UL (Myst Online: Uru Live), works quite well to extract the data files from all the games in the Myst Series, as well as BioShock and BioShock 2. Anyway, during my explorations in the extracted files, I came across an interesting song which I thought I'd attempt to post for no particular reason whatsoever. But, since I can't, I'll just tell you how to get it.
1. Get Myst Online.
2. Get Riveal.
3. Extract the MO:UL data.
4. In the folder "sfx", find a file known as "ahnySphere04-Amb01_Loop.
5. Open using a program which supports .ogg files (I'd reccomend using VLC.).

That's all for now.