Yours portly had a pretty quite weekend before the resumption of the school year—classes started this past Monday—and while I keep feeling like I didn’t do anything, I was actually fairly productive in a number of small ways.

One of those was in regards to my composing.  While I didn’t write much new material—I was mostly editing some pieces I’d written last week—I did list several new (and old) pieces for sale via Noteflight.

When I compose for an album, I like to have some kind of organizing theme.  For example, Heptadic Structure is built upon the “gimmick” of writing every piece in 7/X time (7/4, 7/8, 7/16, etc.), in which each measure of music consists of seven beats.  White Boy Summer attempted to capture the moods of summer, especially the chill, relaxed vibe of the season.

Sometimes, though, I’m just jotting things down for my own amusement and seeing where my scribblings take me.  I don’t have perfect pitch, and while I know roughly what intervals sound like, when I write by hand away from a piano or my notation software, I can sometimes get very unusual results.  My instrumental music often has an angular, geometric quality to it because I’m composing in a theoretical vacuum, as it were.

Often a theme will emerge as I write these pieces and get a sense for their “feel” or mood.  I’ll be releasing Leftovers III this November—again, probably on Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving—so I always keep an eye (or an ear) on those pieces that don’t quite fit with the other planned albums.

At the moment, I’m working on another mathematically-themed instrumental album; at the moment, I have four works that I know will go on that album (including one called “π“).  I hope to release that in time for the return of Bandcamp Friday in September.

I will soon start composing pieces for Spooky Season III, which will be another Halloween-themed album.  I have not started on this collection yet—“other” works so far are too upbeat to fit the theme—but I am kicking around some ideas.  I might pull some ideas from “Akhenaten” to write a mummified piece or two.  So cursed!

For those that prefer my songwriting, I’m contemplating getting back into the studio at some point to record some of my works that I’ve never laid down properly.  “Tu Me Manques” was so well-received, I think it needs a proper studio recording.  That’s a matter of time and money, both of which are not always in abundant supply.  But if I do go to a studio and record some new tunes, I want to flesh them out much more than I did with my EP, Contest Winner EP.  I’m pleased with that release, but I want to dig deeper into the instrumentation, with some added bass, guitar, and drums to supplement the piano and vocals.  I have no estimate on when that might happen, but it’s something I am giving serious thought to doing.  It’s been nine years since I released Contest Winner EP (and it was recorded a full decade ago), and it’s time for some more of my songs to enjoy the studio treatment.

Thanks for letting me “think out loud” in this little blog post.  And thanks to everyone who has supported my music either by purchasing it on Bandcamp or by streaming it on services like Apple Music and YouTube.  Streaming pays very poorly, but every stream helps; 100 streams for a track on Apple Music goes a looooooong way.

Happy Wednesday!

—TPP