Orphic Endeavors blog

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ICON album free playlist on Rhapsody

This link lets you play my album ICON for free through the Rhapsody service. You don’t have to be a customer of Rhapsody. They offer 25 free listens a month.

I apologize for not coming around here and writing things much lately.  I did recently finish a new tune, though it’s not much to speak of.  It’s called “Wake Up” and is another synthy tune.  We’ve been dealing with lots of autism related stuff here at home and music had simply been put aside for a while so I’m trying to get it all going again now.  I’m working on some new things and putting thoughts together for a possible new album…  I’m feeling mighty discouraged after the complete failures of both the other two albums, particularly “Abandoned Hospital”, so you might find some changes in my music as I try to find myself and some solid footing again.  I doubt there will be a Christmas tune this year as Christmas will be dry and empty this year.  My husband was out of work for over a month due to a work related injury that was denied workers comp for some reason so I can’t say I’ll be in the Christmas spirit much this year.  The “haves” keep taking food out of the mouths of us “have-nots”.  Anyway, though, here’s “Wake Up”…  I made it to remind myself I can still do this after all this time has passed.  It’s not much, but it did make me go back and listen at least and remember what I can do.

Wake Up 

New track…  “What Do You Want”.  Used synths.  Very noisy on purpose.  This is another Sci-Fi inspired tune…  Something is trying to get you over the radio.  They keep trying and trying but they never answer your question even as you run from one end of the ship to the other as their ship slowly drifts past…

Download now:  What Do You Want?

If you like it please let me know…   Thanks…

“The Big Bad Wolf”

I am a Doctor Who fan.  I have been since I was a little kid and Tom Baker was on there.  In 2006 the Sci-Fi Channel aired the first of the new generation of Doctor Who series.  It was the series starring Christopher Eccleston.  Being the loyal person I am, I will always consider Tom Baker to be the best Doctor, but Christopher Eccleston was definitely and without any doubt, my second favorite. Unfortunately, Eccleston left the show after only one blissfully fantastic season and his final two episodes left us stunned and hurting.  Throughout his season, the underlying recurring theme was the phrase “Bad Wolf” and the final two episodes centered around that theme.

I finished this song the night I saw the final episode.  “The Big Bad Wolf” seemed like a appropriate title.  It actually really reminds me of the tv show “Law and Order” which I used to watch fifteen or so years ago.  It feels like a theme song for a courtroom drama show.

Anyway, I used Finale to create this one.  While I don’t typically write songs because of tv shows, or even really watch much tv at all besides Mythbusters, Adult Swim and maybe X-Play, Doctor Who was a part of my childhood memories.  Maybe that’s really why I  created this tune…

Do you like it?  Hate it?  Leave a comment, tell me why.  Thanks.

I thought it might be fun to show what tunes have been getting the highest number of downloads each month here on Orphic Endeavors dot com. Keeping a record will help me a lot…

So, here’s the total number of downloads as of May 30th, 2007. (I’ll add in May 31st tomorrow if I think about it.)

All mp3s on bpgisme.com collectively, including Cliff’s bands’ Higher Math and Johnny Go totaled 2371.

The Orphic Endeavors downloaded tunes alone totaled approximately 1400.

The Muse received the most number of downloads this month (229), while Lullaby (181), The Big Bad Wolf (149), Astral Rain (Comets Across the Sky) (141) and Madness (135) followed.

Also, 121 Windows Media videos were downloaded, and 206 Real Media ones were, including the music video for Drive which was downloaded a total of 54 times and another older version of the Drive video was downloaded 45 times. (The main attraction for Real Media files was Cliff’s “Waiting for Something” music video. He did all the music but had a guest guitar player and vocalist and I did the video editing for that one… ) The Windows Media files’ top downloaded file was actually my brother Nathan’s “band” PLAASTIK’s video for “Funk”. It was downloaded 60 times. The next top downloaded one was Orphic Endeavors’ Gravity, downloaded 9 times, followed by Soar which was downloaded 7 times.

For comparison, in April 2007 there were a total of 1732 mp3 downloads, with the top downloaded tune also being The Muse (248).

Interesting. Well, to me at least.

I finally made a MySpace page. I resisted it for so long, but honestly it’s been pretty easy to set up and use thus far. I put four tunes up… One from “ICON”, one from “Abandoned Hospital” and two singles. I’ll probably try to rotate the singles regularly, but the ICON and AH tracks will stay the same for a while. Anyway, please take a look and all:

http://www.myspace.com/orphicendeavors

I just added the video for “Evening Song” but it’s still being processed.

Anyway, they even have a new store you can set up to sell tunes on… I’m thinking of giving that a try since it’s free.

I don’t really understand how the “friend” thing works, but I’ll do a little looking into that later.

I made the mistake of signing up as just a person first, but then I found the musician link and asked them to delete the page I started for just me. It’s still there right now, but it’ll be gone by tomorrow or the next day. We’ll see how it goes. If any of you guys use that place, stop by and check it out. Thanks.

In other news, Abandoned Hospital is finally on Emusic! Yay!!!! Check it out here:

Abandoned Hospital on Emusic

I’ve been trying hard to update my LastFM page but it just totally refuses to work. In fact, people have to vote on my artist image in order for me to be able to change it? That’s just weird. And I’ve submitted Abandoned Hospital like a dozen times but it’s still not showing up. (If you go to the image page at LastFm you’ll see where I didn’t know my new artist image was uploading and I kept submitting it over and over… Oh well…)

Okay, well, I’ve got more work to do so I’m outta here for now…

Thanks for downloading and listening!

-Bonnie

“Soar”

(Made sometime mid 2003 - On “Sinister Sight/Left Handed Vision” for sale for two years through CafePress. - Now free to to download.)

This one began as a video first.

soar
516k version
dialup version
100k version

I’m not sure exactly when I made it. I’ll have to do some looking back in my files to find that out. All I can say for certain is that it was sometime mid 2003. Cliff had been directing his short film, “Waiting for Something”, and I got to play with one of the cameras one day. This was back when we had to drive Max in the car every afternoon for a little while to calm him down. (Back when gas was under $2. Think about that for a minute.) I liked this one quite a lot. I used pretty much every program and trick I had at the time. No loops, no samples, all my own recordings, and some virtual synths which I had just discovered. There’s some Anvil studio being used in there, some Modplug, some Cool Edit effects, etc.

Again, this is one of my sleepier tunes. It’s very calm and low. I was trying to follow the path of the pelicans in the video with the music. I think, when you watch the video you can see what I was trying to accomplish.

This one always did fairly well at the various places I posted it for public download, but it didn’t get the best reviews. Again, I got the “it’s too distorted to hear the melody” argument. I think people like that miss the point. When I do a melody in the method they mean, I do “Mitsumushi” or “The Big Bad Wolf”, very deliberate composed pieces. When I do my more natural music, it’s always the sounds and moods rather than the composing itself. You are supposed to be listening to the overall feeling and emotion of the tune rather than the actual notes themselves. In fact, some of my tunes actually have no “music” at all as defined by these folks. Hopefully, if you are here reading my ramblings and listen regularly to what I do you already know it’s all about the feeling and what goes on in the back of your mind while you listen to one of my tunes that counts, not the preciseness of the notes or the loudness of the melody.

Anyway, I hope you’ll listen to “Soar” (or watch the video) and take a minute to tell me what you think. Like it? Hate it? Why? Thanks…

“Lullaby”

(Created May 2006 - Not on cd - Free to download.)

“Lullaby” is one of those I put together out of pieces I didn’t use for a different tune, “Cookie’s Dreaming”. I know that sounds funny, but if you listen to the two tunes side by side you can actually hear some of the same themes and sounds. It’s one of the ones I played and recorded using my wonderful new (at the time) midi controller, the Evolution MK-461C. I have very little success with beats, but I built one in Tu2 and used it in here fairly successfully. This is one of those that is getting downloaded like crazy right now straight from this website. I was working on the “Gravity” video while I made this tune and there’s nothing more boring or sleepy than waiting for frames to render in Povray which is exactly where “Lullaby” got it’s title.

Like this one? Hate this one? Please let me know. Thanks.

Mountain

(Made in April, 2005 - Never released on CD - Free to download everywhere it’s listed.)

I am a huge fan of Samurai and martial arts films and sometimes I try too hard to duplicate something I hear in one of those movies. That’s the case with “Mountain”. It was a test to see what I could come up with that sounded fairly cinematic but was still doable with the wimpy equipment and software I was using at the time. From here I got better software and my midi keyboard and everything and ended up creating other tunes along the same lines, “Mitsumushi”, “Wind and Rain”, and “Uma-Jirushi”, etc.

I always liked this one, but I never really finished it. It could probably do with a revival in Finale. Maybe I could make it nice and long and very big.

This one has always done well everywhere it’s been available for download. Probably some of that is due to it’s short length, but I know some folks liked the “cinematicness” of it.

Do you like the tune? Hate the tune? Have a suggestion? Let me know. Please leave a comment.