I’m digging back into an old music journal with another piece I penned sometime in 2022, “Uninspired Étude in E major“—so-called because it’s not particularly inspired! It’s a bit of an exercise in playing arpeggios in E major, with a few little surprises. It’s highly derivative of Haydn’s work.
My YouTube channel keeps getting better and better (I think), and I don’t want you, my dear and devoted readers, to miss out on the fun.
This week’s installment of YouTube Roundup features another piece of original music; a quick tour of my dusty kitchen windowsill; and a very long video about building one of France’s greatest monuments (after a fashion).
Near the end of 2023, I closed out my latest music journal. That got me flipping through some older journals, and I stumbled upon a couple of pieces I’d never arranged in Noteflight.
One of them was “Snowfall,” which I wrote sometime in 2022. It’s based around an Eb whole tone scale, giving it a mysterious, mystical sound.
Shockingly, I haven’t done an installment of YouTube Roundup since August 2023. Since then, I’ve uploaded a ton of content, so it’s time to catch up on some videos.
I’ve selected three videos for this YouTube Roundup, all of a different type. There’s a piece of music; a toy construction video; and something completely frivolous and fun:
Before we get to the videos, though, you should definitely subscribe to my YouTube channel. I know for many readers, “subscribe” is a dirty word—God forbid we support our favorite content creators!—but trust me, it’s totally free to subscribe to my YouTube channel.
Not every musical piece is destined for greatness. Nor is every piece designed to be beautiful. Such is this case with this week’s piece, “FRANTIC!!“
Here we are again—another Bandcamp Friday. There’s never been a better time to buy my music.
I released a new EP on Black Friday (24 November 2023), Leftovers. It’s a short EP of four tracks leftover from my recent composing projects, including an epic-length, eight-minute-plus track from the never-completed Electrock III called “Futura (Magnum Opus III).” Here’s the delicious album cover:
Tangy!
The first Friday of a bunch of months in 2023—February, March, April, May, August, September, October, November, and December—will feature this pro-indie music observance, a day on which Bandcamp waives its usual 15% commission on sales.
In other words, when you buy my music, almost 100% of it goes to me, instead of almost 85%.
Currently, my entire discography of thirteen releases is $23.39, a savings of 50%, which is not bad for thirteen releases. That’s $1.80 per release—not too shabby! To purchase the full discography, click on any release, and you’ll see the option to purchase all of them.
You can also listen to a ton of my tunes on YouTube (and it’s free to subscribe!).
My first book, The One-Minute Mysteries of Inspector Gerard: The Ultimate Flatfoot, is $10 in paperback, and just $5 on Kindle.
My second and newest book, Arizonan Sojourn, South Carolinian Dreams: And Other Adventures, is $20 in paperback and $10 on Kindle.
Finally, after I finish Offensive Poems: With Pictures, my planned third book, I’ll be uploading those doodles to Society6 as well. I have high hopes (perhaps naïvely) for this book, but we shall see. The doodles are some of my best work—and in glorious color—and without notebook paper lines!
Thanks again for your support!
Happy Friday!
—TPP
It’s been a prolific year for short-form electronic composing for yours portly. I’ve released three albums and/or EPs in the past three months: Spooky Season, Spooky Season II: Rise of the Cryptids, and Leftovers. They’re all available on Bandcamp, but also on Apple Music, Spotify, YouTube, etc.
Happy Sunday!
—TPP
Other Lazy Sunday Installments:
My latest release, the EP Leftovers, is out today! You can pick it up on my Bandcamp page for $5, or you can stream it on Apple Music, Spotify, YouTube, and pretty much every other streaming service out there.
My favorite track on the release is “Futura (Magnum Opus III)“; it’s the longest electronic instrumental piece I’ve ever composed, and it’s languished on a hard drive for ten years. Now it’s finally seeing the light of day.
The other three tracks are pieces I composed and/or arranged while working on Spooky Season and Spooky Season II: Rise of the Cryptids, but which didn’t fit the themes of those albums—thus this EP’s title!. They include “Augmented Fifthality” (an experiment in augmented fifths); “Carousel” (a bouncy bit of classical composing); and “Chorale for a Sleepy Wednesday Afternoon” (a laid-back little instrumental chorale).
I’d be honored if you gave these Leftovers a listen.
I haven’t been able to compose quite as much lately as I’d like, but I had fun with a little 5/4 composition that I wrote on 8 November 2023. It’s called “Orange Roll,” mainly because I wrote it with an orange gel pen, and I had fun playing around with the harmonies and variations on it.
Now that school is back in session, yours portly isn’t making it out to open mic night much, so I’m doing what I do best: mining the rich veins of my old, neglected works.
This week I’d like to share “Minuet for a New Moon,” which I composed on 9 February 2022 as part of Péchés d’âge moyen, the highly unpopular collection of lo-fi solo piano pieces I released largely as part of an inside Internet joke.
The Portly Politico 