I had a bit of staff paper and some time Saturday afternoon, so I jotted down another little piece. I wanted to do something in the chorale-vein I’ve been mining lately, but also change it up a bit. The result is today’s piece, “Clusters.”
I imported the WAV of the finished product into Audacity, where I applied a “Medium Room” reverb filter; a “Wide Synth Pad” chorus effect (one of my favorites); and a “Vintage” master effect.
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Yesterday morning I had a little bit of free time and a little bit of staff paper, so I jotted out a little chorale. I decided to write one in the bass clef, which I don’t usually do, and while I followed some of my own “rules” for these chorales, I also took quite a few liberties with them.
I imported the WAV of the finished product into Audacity, where I applied a “Medium Room” reverb filter; a “Wide Synth Pad” chorus effect (one of my favorites); and a “Firm Bass” master effect. The result is this enigmatic, low-end-heavy chorale.
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Koi Dance is out now on all streaming platforms and at https://tjcookmusic.bandcamp.com. It’s 90% off (!) with promo code koipond. That promo code is also good for everything on the site, so my full discography is under $10.
A couple of my blogger buddies very kind wrote little blurbs about Koi Dance, so I thought I’d share them today:
Legendary blogger Roman of Opium Tales has also graciously agreed to review the album, so stay tuned!
Happy Sunday!
—TPP
Sunday morning I jotted down another chorale—I’ve been on a chorale kick lately—and decided to experiment with 9/4 time. I really just wanted to see how composing for longer measures might affect the final product. I did find that my “grammar” changed a bit while composing in this unorthodox time signature, with more subdivisions of three popping up.
I exported the WAV from Noteflight and imported it into Audacity. There I applied a “Large Room” reverb filter; a “Wide Synth Pad” chorus effect; and a “Lush High-Ends” master effect.
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Koi Dance is out now on all streaming platforms and at https://tjcookmusic.bandcamp.com. It’s 90% off (!) with promo code koipond. That means it’s $1 for twelve tracks of great music (that promo code is also good for everything on the site).
As such, I’m featuring some posts related to Koi Dance (and the title track, “Koi Dance”):
Happy Sunday!
—TPP
Today’s piece, “Drink the Rum,” is a track with an unusual provenance. Dr. Wife and I were on a tour in Belize City on Wednesday, 15 July 2026. The tour guide, Omar, took out a bent cheese grater and a spoon to demonstrate how Belizeans make music out of anything. He played a rhythm on his grater and sang “Drink the rum!”
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Yours portly is squeezing in a quick, post-cruise Lazy Sunday with some recent posts featuring reedy chorales:
Enjoy!
—TPP
Yours portly has been in a chorale mood, to the point that I was asking CoPilot about churches that actively commission original sacred pieces (it’s information was fairly dated, unfortunately, as the few leads it offered were from some years ago). I love playing around with little mathematical harmony problems, and seeing where long, sustained notes will take me.
When putting together last week’s piece, one of the proposed instrumentations I pitched to readers on various platforms was soprano saxophone, English horn, and oboe—a highly unorthodox blending of higher reeds. I ended up going with a more traditional woodwind trio of flute, oboe, and bassoon, but I wanted to try that other instrumentation for this week’s effort. I was pleased with the outcome.
The piece itself began as some jotting after Dr. Wife and I had our pre-breakfast Bible reading time together. I wanted to play around with writing a chorale in 6/4—something a bit different, which would also give me some more flexibility in moving the voices.
The process for mastering/mixing this piece was virtually the same as last week’s piece. I imported the WAV from Noteflight into Audacity and applied a “Small Dark Room” reverb effect; an “Wide Synth Pad” chorus effect; and a “Tape” master effect. The granular effects are probably slightly different, as I tend to tweak the chorus and master effects slightly, but listeners will recognize a similar soundscape as the one I shared a week ago.
I then took the audio and pictures of the score and track artwork and imported them all into iMovie. From there, I imported the resulting video into YouTube Create, where I added my favorite filter, “Vaporwave.” I got this one churned out quickly, as we were packing for our cruise (I took advantage of a Dr. Wife nap to hammer it out).
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Dr. Wife and I had some errands to run last week, and while she was tending to a few things I jotted down today’s piece. I will sometimes keep little bits of staff paper open in my music journals for short musical sketches, and I had three glorious staves waiting for an opportune moment to do some hasty composing.
The result is this set of three chorales. I posted polls on Substack and Telegram asking for feedback about the instrumentation, but results were limited. I initially arranged it for a string trio—violin, viola, and cello—but changed to a woodwind trio of flute, oboe, and bassoon. I think that captured the sound I wanted better.
I imported the WAV from Noteflight into Audacity and applied a “Small Bright Room” reverb effect; an “Wide Synth Pad” chorus effect; and a “Tape” master effect. I then took the audio and pictures of the score and track artwork and imported them all into iMovie. From there, I imported the resulting video into YouTube Create, where I added my favorite filter, “Vaporwave,” and added one bit of text that reads “<–“(C# Locrian)” to indicate that the “A major” section in the handwritten score is, actually, in that highly unusual key signature.
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Want to play sax like me? Check out my updated guide on getting started with a budget sax!
Yours portly has been noodling away on his alto saxophone and putting together some experimental recordings, which I’ll eventually compile and release as Säx II: Noodling. These aren’t great masterworks, but I’ve enjoyed putting them together, especially taking a more DIY and improvisational approach to composing and creating music.
Of course, in case you missed it a few Sundays back, here’s what I’m referencing in the the title for today’s post:
With that silliness out of the way, here’s three posts about recent sax recordings:
Happy Sunday—and Happy Listening!
—TPP
