"Hold On" is our latest release. It is a Heart Song, expressing deeply-felt love with a sweet melody, subtle harmonies, and sweeping rhythms. It is about the pain of not being able to say the name of the person you love, having to keep your love a secret and, for whatever reason, not declaring it. … Continue reading A heart song that will stay with you – “Hold On”
Remembrance Day, on Nov. 11, is more than just a statutory holiday for many people, including me. On this day, I remember my brother, Evert, who died in 1994, and my first boyfriend, Ignatius (Natie) Greeff, both of whom were in the Army during the South Africa Border War and the People's War or War … Continue reading A Song for Remembrance Day 2025
Two more tracks from our latest album, Bound with Gold, have been released - the title track, "Bound with Gold", and "Blue Sunday". The five-track album is due out by the end of October 2025. BOUND WITH GOLD This song was inspired by kintsugi – Japanese: 金繕い. Kintsugi is the Japanese art and philosophy of … Continue reading Bound With Gold – Two tracks, similar bluesy moods
The year so far has been crazy busy. We've been producing new music and now is the time to start releasing the tracks on our latest album, one by one. Each song is special, so each one deserves its moment of glory before it becomes an item on the playlist of the album. The album … Continue reading Just out – new track “Hello Moon”
"Just Breathe" is the result of a collaboration between myself and the artist Telay Os (one of the artist names of Luke Garfield, a.k.a. Doxkyn). He wrote a perfectly delicious instrumental featuring his signature blend of synths and an 80s feel, and I instantly got some lyrics in my head when I heard it. The … Continue reading The Sound of Synths – Just Breathe
I released "You Should Know" three weeks ago to finish off the project. As a sunk cost, I did not think I could do anything more to it to optimize it. Already, I had spent too many hours and too much money on getting it to the mixed stage. The budget was exhausted and so … Continue reading More than unlikely – “You Should Know”
Whenever I'm stuck in a rut and don't know what to write about, or whether I should write a song about something, I remember what Nick Cave wrote in his Red Hand Files. He was responding to the controversy about ChatGPT, but his words define what it is to be an artist, and what it … Continue reading What to write a song about?
The colours of cold - the definitive song Now out is my EP called "The Colours of Cold". The title track with the same name is a love song to snow, and to my significant other. I'm not in the habit of writing love songs - I've only ever written two. And straight-up romance and … Continue reading Love, love, and love…
At the start of 2024, I decided that this was the year that I'd give music production my best shot. I decided to throw everything I had at it, and really try to do it right. The results were these: From Jan. to Dec. 2024, I composed and wrote lyrics for 77 songs, in-between managing … Continue reading How was my 2024? (a bit mad, a bit glad, a lot scared)
North Americans are just plain silly about having a good time. Give them a holiday, or an event to commemorate, and off they go, to dress up, eat, drink, and party. Hey, they say, gimme any excuse and I'll prove that the Ancient Romans of c. 100 AD had the right idea with their tactic of … Continue reading Thinking about death, life and everything – Reaperman
I take trouble over my music videos. For each song, I produce five different kinds - since each platform on which it will appear has different format specs: 1) full-length visualizer video - purely abstract patterns; 2) full-length lyric video; 3) Spotify Canvas; 4) Instagram Reel; 5) full-length music video, depicting the narrative in the … Continue reading Eye-candy, blood, sweat and tears
My (our) song "All the Lines" is one of those that started out as just my personal point of view. But, as my co-writer points out to me all the time (!!), this, below, is the formula for producing a song: A PERSONAL POINT OF VIEW ➕ A RELATABLE VISION & NARRATIVE 🟰 A SONG … Continue reading A matter of delineation – There’s lines and there’s lines
personal in Every way Songwriting involves two things that I had never given much thought to: Firstly, it is a very personal thing, which, if the song is not good, or if you are not successful, makes you feel very much like a personal failure. This is not a failure of your co-writers, or producers, … Continue reading The quiet despair (and hope) of a songwriter
I've found out that artists can have more than one artist's name and avatar. In today's digital creative environment where many artists do not perform live, or appear as themselves in their music videos, they are identified by a name and an image. I thought I knew "who" the people that I associate with are. … Continue reading How to create a perfect meta-human
Looks like the artists who I follow hang out on Instagam. Lots of slick, pretty reels and photos. I thought I might as well join in. Here's my very short list of posts about my latest releases. https://www.instagram.com/mmbijman/
My latest EP is called "Perfect You", the same as the title track. The album was written as a collaboration, and so any kudos for it is not only due to me. My collaborator prefers to remain anonymous, so when people listen to the tracks and go; "Where did THAT come from?", the answer is … Continue reading Perfection is in the mind of the beholder
I just found this out: - according to TuneCore, which distributes my music, the best performing song of them all is "Hirajōshi and Sky". Well, all I can say is, I'm baffled. Of the 9 albums I've released so far, containing 79 songs, this is the one? It is an Electronica instrumental of less than … Continue reading Just baffling, really…
I've always thought that if someone shows that they don't like cats (well, all animals, but particularly cats) then I probably won't like them. I have a suspicion that they have a nasty streak in them, because what's not to like about a cat? Even if you're allergic to them? Nothing. Cats are delightful. So … Continue reading A song about a cat – since very few people don’t like cats
So, ladies and gentlemen; this is the state of A.I. for the purposes of visualizing music: Now, you can generate video of a computer-generated figure "lipsynching" to your song. And believe you me, it looks as real as damnit, as my Papa used to say. The particular platform that I am subscribed to is Runway … Continue reading If you can’t be filmed, a meta-human will stand in for you!
(Or, the Long & The Short of It) Radio edits: - a song between 2 min. 50 seconds, and 3 min. 20 seconds long. Well, that's the ballpark - say, get it down to 3 minutes in total. There is a hardline discipline to cutting your favourite composition down to something that short, with an … Continue reading The Long Listen
I'm old-school in that I like to have my art in a physical form. I like my paintings on canvas, framed, I like my poetry published in a printed book, and I like my music reproduced on vinyl. So, I had a selection of tracks from my album, "Divan", cut on a 12 inch vinyl … Continue reading Pretty in vinyl
On my new album, "Ticket to Mars", the fourth track is "The Great Wall". The Great Wall This song is about people separated by a wall - metaphorical or literal - and desperate to be together. They are bound to Earth as much as they are bound to places far from each other. So many … Continue reading Borders, separation, longing
Following the title track with the same name of my new album, "Ticket to Mars", I've released three more songs, starting with "Hello". Cōdae · Hello Mixing and mastering by Luke Garfield, Banana Llama Studios. Lead vocals by Ben Alexander. Hello - first contact The interesting thing about the alien in the lyrics, is that … Continue reading How DO you greet an alien from outer space?
Following the title track with the same name of my new album, "Ticket to Mars", I've released the next three songs: "Hello", "Head in the Stars", and "The Great Wall". All three are about the contrast between being stuck here on Earth, and travelling beyond the stars, perhaps even meeting an alien from another planet. … Continue reading Songs about meeting aliens, space travel and being stuck on Earth
"Ticket to Mars", the title track on my album of the same name, has just been released. The songs on the album are about space travel, astronauts, rockets, encounters with aliens, exploring space to find new planets, and - conversely - the conundrum of being stuck on Earth. https://soundcloud.com/codaes-music/ticket-to-mars?utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing Ticket to Mars (Radio Edit) Lead … Continue reading Just released: “Ticket to Mars”
https://wp.me/p2dW69-7T1 This is a blog post I wrote on my literature site, Seven Circumstances, about why artists produce art.
I uploaded a song, Die On That Hill, to SoundCloud, and it's gone bonkers - 3,250 streams in 4 days (up to today, Feb. 5, 2024). This is unexpected and has never happened before. I mean that, as a complete unknown, just doing my own thing, I have had mostly zero streams per song. When … Continue reading Don’t ask me how this happened…
Here's the story about why and how we have physical reactions to music. I found out long ago, that because of the way your brain processes visual information, for instance what you read, you can literally feel – like a mirror – what the writer describes. (If they describe it well enough, of course.) It’s the way … Continue reading So THAT’S why it tickles your toes!
I've released the latest song on my album, "Howl", and it's called "Dreams May Come". I wrote it because I have had these incredibly real-feeling dreams of people who died many years ago - my brother, and my father. In my dreams, of course, they are not sick, or old, but in their prime. My … Continue reading Dreams so real, you think the people who you’re dreaming of aren’t dead
How do you know a song is finished? How do you know it’s good?LELE, DRESDEN, GERMANYI don't know.Nick Cave, The Red Hand Files, No. 266, Dec, 25, 2023 Nick Cave writes the most wonderful responses to questions that he gets on The Red Hand Files. People ask him anything from the ridiculous to the sublime, … Continue reading Excuse me, is there a flute in your throat or are you just a very good singer?
The lyrics of this song, on my album "Howl", are pretty self-explanatory. It's on my album, "Howl", and it's about being introverted, keeping to yourself, and opting out and saying "no" when you don't want to get involved. It's about staying sane in a very crazy, noisy world. It expresses how I often feel. I think … Continue reading Thinking like an introvert: “Present Company Excluded”
This beat-box and rap-style track on my album "Howl", was inspired by the aria “Ah! je ris de me voir” (meaning, “I laugh to see myself”), Marguerite's aria from Charles Gounod’s opera, “Faust “ (1859). This aria is also known as “The Jewel Song”. The opera is loosely based on Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s tragic … Continue reading No amount of bling is going to get you love – “Margarita’s Jewel Song”
"Howl", the title track on my new album, also called "Howl", was released on SoundCloud today. Ben Alexander is the vocalist and Luke Garfield is the mix engineer. The songs on "Howl" are about anger, frustration, confusion, and sadness, and feature instruments that have a harsh, howling sound, for instance, bagpipes. The songs express how … Continue reading “Howl” – new song is out today
I would like to say something about the problem with singing. I had always thought that singing was a fun thing to do, something you did when you were happy, like, you know, in a Disney musical, or when Maria runs over the hills in The Sound of Music. I thought it was something everyone … Continue reading The problem with singing
On my latest album "Divan" is a track about the Ancient Greek goddess of the moon, Selene. Like the moon waxes and wanes, the same melody is repeated in the movements of the sonata, a little different every time. The modern-style sonata is 15 minutes long, and I did not write it to be sung … Continue reading For your listening pleasure: “Selene” – A (modern) Sonata
This year, in stead of sending Christmas cards and all that, I wrote a Christmas song that expresses all my thoughts and wishes this season. I wrote it specifically with our friends and family in mind, but I reckon there are many couples like us who live in one country but have roots in another … Continue reading A Christmas song instead of Christmas cards
There are many clips of dancers on the internet that you can buy or get for free. Often the issue is not the price - it's the dancers, and their performance. If you spend hours and hours, as I do, in iMovie, Final Cut Pro, or Da Vinci, for instance, editing those clips down to … Continue reading A fun trio or a perfect couple – Who do you pick for your dance clips
On Perfect Wings is the English lyrics version of the songs that I wrote about Psalm 139 for my album Divan. The version with Latin lyrics is Invenies Me Mane Caelo, which is a like a Gregorian chant, at least in terms of the scale used, and the instruments. The English lyric version, produced during … Continue reading English lyrics from Psalm 139 – “On Perfect Wings”
https://vimeo.com/870132148 HD Lyric Video "Invenies Me Mane Caelo" is the latest track from my album "Divan" to be released on SoundCloud. It is unusual in that the lyrics are in Latin. Latin Lyrics and English Translation Verse 1Domine cognovisti me.Tu scis omnia dico quae.Intellexisti cogitationes.Domine, probasti me. Verse 2Quia non est in lingua meaverbum quod … Continue reading “Invenies Me Mane Caelo (On the Wings of Morning)” – A hymn in Latin
The lyrics of all the songs on my album "Divan" were inspired by ancient historical documents. This one, "The King's Ballad", is my modern take on the Tudor Era ballad, “Pastime with Good Company” (a.k.a. “The Kynges Balade”), which was written by King Henry VIII of England in about 1513. His lyrics express his royal … Continue reading Updating King Henry VIII’s directive on having a good time – “The King’s Ballad”
In the Artgrid clips that I got, Michael Vestergaard Jensen, a.k.a. "Michael Jacket", dances in a suit, wearing a hat pulled low and rakishly, so all you can see of his face is a snaggle-toothed grin. His handle on Instagram is "Michael Jacket" because his speciality is dancing in the styles made famous by Michael … Continue reading Feet so fast you think the clip’s been speeded up
Cōdae · Lady Murasaki (Biwa to Kyoto) Released today: "Lady Murasaki (Biwa to Kyoto)" Who were the world's first novelists? In Japan, the first person to write a work of fiction in the form of a novel was Lady Murasaki Shikibu, who lived in the 11th century AD/CE and wrote the famous work of Japanese … Continue reading Loneliness and sadness in Ancient Japan – “Lady Murasaki”
The lyrics of all the songs on my album "Divan" were inspired by ancient historical documents. The lyrics for "Havn" date back to 1100 AD/CE. The first line, in Medieval Dutch, is: "Hebban olla vogala nestas?", which means "Do all birds have nests?". The name of the song, "Havn", means "haven" or "harbour" - like … Continue reading A little Medieval love song – “Havn”
"King Unas Lives" is the second track on my album, "Divan", which has songs created from ancient historical documents - in this case, hieroglyphics. King Unas is also known as Ounas, Wenis, and Wenas. He was the ninth and last ruler of the Fifth Dynasty of Egypt during the Old Kingdom, and reigned for 15 … Continue reading King Unas lives – Only in inscriptions
This weekend, I released the first track from my new album, "Divan". The word "divan" means "a collection of poems". I called it this because the ten tracks on the album were inspired by very old - ancient - texts, many of them in the forms of verses or poems, that date from about the … Continue reading A song from the “Poetic Edda” – “The Last Poem of Guthrun”
Donnie Jr. Duncan is one of those dancers whose performance you can analyze by microseconds and still not find one thing wrong. He is smooth, incredibly so. He has muscles in places where most people don't even have places. He leaps and twirls and slides as if gravity does not affect him. And then there … Continue reading He’s not a machine, he’s merely perfect
This post is long overdue, but it took some Sherlock-Holmes-level Internet searching to ascertain the facts about what I want to say. So now, belatedly, I can tell you, factually, what I've found about about the dancers in the video clips that I have bought from Artgrid or got for free from Pexels. If, like … Continue reading Dancing lightly on the edge of time
Timbuktu was added to the album Thermós, after the album was complete. After I thought it was done, I asked myself, what would be the result if I combined something like simple Gregorian chanting in Dorian or Lydian scale, with modern beats? I had pictured in my mind, the driest, hottest, dustiest, sandiest, most monochrome … Continue reading A bit of an experiment – “Timbuktu”
Having just finished the major job of publishing my album "Time Shift", I realized that I had spent a lot of time on trying to get the songs right - what ever "right" means. After a while, the thought occurred to me that it's one problem to get the production and post-production right. It's quite … Continue reading What is worth saying in music?
As a child, my Dad tried his best to teach me to play the piano, and since I was stubborn and lazy, I cheated and taught myself to play by ear. I never did get the hang of reading notation and using proper technique when playing. I can barely pick out a tune on a … Continue reading “Yellow bird, up high in the banana tree…”
Enter the Lion (track 6 on my album Time Shift) started as a snatch of notes I played on the piano. When it was done, I wondered what to call it. Only when the name popped into my head, I realized that what I had been thinking about all along, was a pride of lions … Continue reading When you add the meaning afterwards – “Enter the Lion”
Hypnotic, the 7th track on my album, Time Shift, is a song about skiing. When I lived in South Africa, we went skiing in Austria once a year, since that’s what the Dutch do during their Winter holidays. There’s very little snowfall in South Africa - there used to be a single ski resort run … Continue reading Was that me being a dork in a bar? Yes. But I was freezing…
I've been reading Seth Godin's Marketing micro-posts for years. Every so often he writes something in very few words that is absolutely true. I've reposted a particularly good one below. I need not say any more. This man knows what he's talking about. When I read it, I thought to myself, well, that's the way … Continue reading Seth Godin explains “The Reality of Chasing Pop”
The word "shag" in the name of this song refers to the dance called the Carolina Shag, which is a relaxed partner dance, often done to "beach music" - whatever that is... I named this song for it, because that's the feeling of the song - it's got a steady beat for dancing to, and … Continue reading A little light music -“Soft Shoe Shag”
No. 4 on Time Shift - Africa-style Trip-Hop "The Veld" is a song that expresses my nostalgia for the veld (or veldt) of South Africa - the wide open, wild landscapes of the interior of the country. There are many types of veld: the bushveld, the highveld, the lowveld, and so on, and my favourite, … Continue reading My version of ‘The Rain in Africa’
Track 3 on "Time Shift" The lyrics of this track are self-explanatory, even for someone who has never been on a mine site. When I wrote it, the lyrics were the easy parts. Expressing the ideas in music was a different challenge altogether. This is how I did it: I expressed the feeling of going … Continue reading “The Trembling Ground” – The sound of seismicity
To celebrate SpaceX’s breath-taking firing test yesterday, Feb. 9, 2023, of the gigantic Starship Super Heavy booster rocket (230 feet, 69 meters tall), with 31of 33 first-stage booster engines lighting up in a volcano of flame and smoke, here is my track and music video called “Space Crackle”. A Space Crackle to celebrate the Super … Continue reading To celebrate SpaceX’s massive engine firing test – here’s “Space Crackle”
Track 2 on Time Shift Sound Engineer Luke Garfield, who mixed and mastered The Ocean in E, called it "sonically luxurious". I think that's the nicest thing anyone has ever said about a song I've produced. I want to frame it and put it on my wall. He had to avoid the piece sounding chintzy … Continue reading “The Ocean in E” – Sonically luxurious
I've just published the first track on my new album, "Time Shift". The album is the result of a little walk down memory lane in 2022, particularly just before Christmas, remembering the standout things in my former life in South Africa: the local music scene, the wildlife, the wide-open spaces, the sounds that you only … Continue reading First track on “Time Shift” album: “Groove was in the House”
My ears are tired of writing music. They are ringing, buzzing, echoing, twanging and refusing to process any more auditory signals. I often think that Sound Engineers have the most amazing hearing - and the most amazing auditory signal processing cortexes in their brains. It's something you're born with, but still, to be able to … Continue reading My ears are tired
"Busted Piano" gets tweaked One of the features in iMovie that I hadn't known about until recently, is that you can set the speed of a clip by percentages, faster or slower. This means that you can much more precisely match the movements of the people in the clips, to the beat and tempo of … Continue reading How to visualize an A.I. piano performance for “Busted Piano”
The closing track on Painting Music is Outro. So Outro is the outro. Sorry for that pun. Couldn't resist. I was stuck for a name, much like Deadmau5 said he sometimes is, and then he resorts to calling his tracks things like Some Chords and Lack of a Better Name. Outro is the track in … Continue reading Away and back again – “Outro” on “Painting Music”
After a long debate with myself about where and how to place the lyrical videos I've made of my music, I finally settled on Vimeo. It's not free - but I did not feel comfortable with the sometimes questionable advertising, and being lumped together with all sorts of weird stuff on YouTube. Vimeo is a … Continue reading I chose Vimeo for my videos
This lyrical video was enjoyable to make, because it was not as hard to synchronize as others had been (since it is an easy 4/4 beat at 110 bpm), and because there were a lot of options for depicting the themes of the song. When you get down to it, how do you express two … Continue reading What exactly is “Exquisite”? – Lyrical video of “Exquisite Machine”
Track 8 of 9 on the album "Painting Music" took major effort. It was the most difficult track on this album and the one of which I'm proudest. I started it on Sept 9, 2022 and finished it on Oct. 6, 2022 - 4 weeks of working on it every day, all day. Doing this … Continue reading The most difficult and the best result – “Exquisite Machine”
If, like me, you are self-taught, the theory and structure of music are sometimes quite difficult to understand. I know what I want something to sound like, and I know what sort of melodies and which keys, tempos and rhythms give which feelings. But often I don't know how I got there, or what to … Continue reading I’ve Discovered E chords! (And they make me happy!)
À propos my post about music videos, I was sitting with my mouth hanging open when I saw the official video for German band Rammstein's latest release, Adieu, the last track on their album Zeit (Time). It was released on Nov. 24, 2022 and has had, to date, more than 9.8 million views. There's high … Continue reading This you’ve got to see: Music video of RAMMSTEIN’s “Adieu”
This track, just released on SoundCloud, is Track 7 of 9 on the album Painting Music. It's a new mix of one of the songs on the album. The song started with two types of sound recordings: the first was made on the “Sky” canvas of Google's experimental “Paint with Music” platform, which is in … Continue reading Becoming more machine-like: Hirajōshi and Air – Chris Perry Style
Busted Piano is the result of playing around on the Plink platform, and in the video you can see the visualization used on the platform - a moving line, waveform of little blobs. I chose a particularly whiny, mechanical sounding synth for an instrument on Plink. To my ears, it sounded like a badly maintained … Continue reading Track 6 on “Painting Music” – “Busted Piano”
How to visualize your music I am not in the league of Taylor Swift (eh, obviously), with a team of professional choreographers, dancers, musicians, cinematographers, designers, etc. etc., who can - as she puts it - "tell the stories" of her songs through video. Her music videos, like those of other best-selling musicians, are works … Continue reading Now for the videos
Track 5 on album "Painting Music" Appleblossom Blink is a somber melody with some sweet chords. It's an original instrumental created from sounds generated on the web audio generation platforms Google Arts & Culture Paint with Music and Plink by DinahMoe. The composition is in the Japanese Hirajōshi scale, and features the melancholy shakuhachi flute … Continue reading “Appleblossom Blink” – A bit of East & West to a trip-hop beat
Track 5 on "Painting Music" - How it was made The melody for Appleblossom Blink started as experiments on “Plink” and “Paint with Music – Paper”, both web audio sound generation platforms. While the "Paper" version of the sounds on "Paint with Musics" are pleasant, the range is quite limited. I therefore created another few … Continue reading Techno with a twist – The making of “Appleblossom Blink”
In his conversations with fans, The Red Hand Files, Nick Cave recently responded to someone who is angry because he found out that a public figure who he despises is a fan of a particular musician, same as he is. His questions are about who owns music - to whom does it belong? I found … Continue reading To whom does music belong?
The melody of Swagger & Swing started as notes on the fourth option on the “Paint with Music” platform, the “Street” canvas, which looks like a granite wall or pavement (shown below). This canvas has a more atonal sound than the others, and includes effects like scratching and hissing, which give a more grunge-like effect. I … Continue reading “Swagger & Swing” – Track 4 on “Painting Music
Track 3 on "Painting Music" Water Music This track has nothing to do with the 1717 Water Music Suites by George Frideric Handel, though when I chose the name I might have dredged up a memory of it, since it is one of my favourite classical music compositions. I could not resist having some fun … Continue reading “Water Music” – Waves, whale sounds and melancholy wind
A.I. Opera: It Started as just fun and ended up as real - and really nice. Cōdae · A.I. Opera Dealing with very short audio clips like these ones, forced me to keep things focused and tight, and did not leave much room for getting fancy. The parameters impose their own discipline in the creative … Continue reading Track 2 on “Painting Music”- “A.I. Opera”
The tracks on my latest album, Painting Music, are the results of me experimenting on online platforms that produce both sounds and visuals from a user’s input. One of these is “Blob Opera”. All the platforms are experimental, meaning that as users use the platform and upload their creations, the database is expanded and the … Continue reading Singing opera with Blobs
Cōdae · Hirajoshi and Sky All the songs in this collection contain small clips or samples of machine-generated musical notes. I used online platforms that produce both sounds and visuals from a user’s input, the main one being “Paint with Music” (which is why the album has this name) which uses Google Magenta’s DDSP (Differentiable … Continue reading Track 1 on “Painting Music”: “Hirajōshi and Sky”
I make music in ways that interest me, and in ways that I can get my head around - bad grammar, but what it means in practice is that with every song I produce I make a bunch of mistakes, and learn something about myself or about music, or about the creative process. And then … Continue reading My New album “Painting Music” has dropped
Everyone has to start somewhere, when you create things. Something cannot come from nothing. I have learned this rather late in my life. You have to DO something: take a step, make a move, decide something, in order to create that thing you have in your mind. Or that thing that's been bothering you and … Continue reading From hesitant beginnings to happiness
Sometimes, you can work at a composition until you have tried every trick and technique you know of, and it still doesn't sound right. Something went wrong with the programming. Recently, Lex Fridman (computer scientist, artificial intelligence researcher, and research scientist at MIT) interviewed world famous, pioneering programmer and developer. John Carmack. Carmack said something … Continue reading When the only way forward is to can it – A new “Sunrise”
The documentary about Nick Cave and his albums Ghosteen and CARNAGE, This Much I Know To Be True (2022), is now available on MUBI, I just had to watch it. It was beautiful, memorable and thought-provoking. I don't often get so enthusiastic about something that I jump straight to the conclusion and just say - … Continue reading Superb: “This Much I know To be True”
About the Outro on Armin2016 Thinking up a name for a new song is as tricky as trying to name a band or an album. Just like with a book you've written, you have to find something that explains its essence, also contains words that fits it into the genre or category, and at the … Continue reading For lack of a better title, just call it “Outro”
When Morning Comes, on the album Armin2016, is a short, rhythmic track with a real hook of a chorus in which the key changes from minor to major. That’s followed by a throbbing drop and and outro of pulsating synths. It’s simple but full of energy – a song with which to greet the day, … Continue reading How long is a piece of…song?
It has been said about upright pianos that they turn into “1200-pound heirloom paperweights”, unless they are kept in tune and are played regularly. Otherwise they are simply large, heavy, awkwardly shaped pieces of furniture, not good as bookcases, nor any good as seating, often a home for mice, and sounding worse than an out-of-tune … Continue reading A story about pianos, diamonds and goats
People tell me that you can get inspiration from anywhere - in your imagination, from what you know, from what's around you, or people. David Byrne (he of Talking Heads) writes in the opening lines of his book How Music Works, that, actually, the music we create does not necessarily come from some internal source … Continue reading Contending with the challenge of creating music in context
Limbo (2020) is an award-winning film that recently played on Mubi. It's one of those gems that I discovered on Mubi, which has its fair share of unwatchable weird stuff. But it has also had a couple of masterpieces that I would never have discovered had it not been on the channel. I would not … Continue reading The sad sound of an oud – Limbo, a film by Ben Sharrock
PSY (real name Park Jae-sang, Korean: 박재상) released his album PSY 9th on April 29, 2022, and I hurried up and got the album a.s.a.p., because I like PSY. I like everything about PSY, his voice, dance moves, compositions, and especially his sly and subversive lyrics. At first listen, his songs are slick and high-quality … Continue reading Fusing genres and languages into hits – PSY 9th album
22 Rainy Days is the result of, well...rain, falling rain, lots of it, for 22 days non-stop to be precise, as it was this past winter. (When it rains where I live in Canada, it really rains. It’s not for nothing that they call this region a “temperate rainforest”.) I also have to say that … Continue reading A driving beat- like rain dripping down
Track 3 on the album Armin2016, is now out, called - appropriately - Armin and Me. Cōdae · Armin And Me The song cover for Armin and Me (above) was made with psychedelic AI-generated graphics and shows the sea, sail boats and tulips. Clichéd perhaps, but the art is a nod to Armin van Buuren’s … Continue reading It’s all about Armin
Carlos Santana makes a very important point in his masterclass course: “Look at any poem by anyone that you love and, then, try... putting notes to it.” "When writing a melody for guitar, Carlos uses a technique he calls playing a poem, wherein he reads a piece of poetry (it can be any kind) and … Continue reading “Run to Me” – Playing the poem, like Carlos Santana says
Songs are not always on a 4/4 beat. That's what I've found out. I had religiously stuck to the 4/4 time signature setting in Logic Pro, until one day I decided to write a waltz and - tarnation! - it didn't work. Waltzes are actually quite tricky to write, especially if you want to write … Continue reading Don’t forget 3/4 time!
Everyone has to start somewhere, with something, when they start making music. Me too. When I began fiddling around with this, I had no idea what would happen down the line. I just had a ...feeling...that I could make something. So, one day, I played around on GarageBand, which is possibly the most user-friendly bit … Continue reading The first recording – “Look at the Sky” with a bit of Bach
Are you stumped for inspiration? That's just human, but because you are human, you have a ready-made box full of inspiration in your head. How to access it and what to do with it is the question. I recently completed a collection of compositions that share the theme of heat. It's called Thermós, and, until … Continue reading Inspiration can come from weird and wonderful places
The Daily Mail reported recently that a Cambridge academic thinks that learning Latin will be more interesting and relevant if learners used Latin translations of Taylor Swift's songs, in stead of the classic texts, like the ones about the Trojan War. The commentator, Tom Utley, did not think that any of Taylor Swift's lyrics were … Continue reading Why and how would you translate Taylor Swift’s Lyrics into Latin?
PopUp! One test of Trance music is whether it will get you dancing. So, I wrote something short, sharp and popping to do just that. Does it make me want to get up and dance? Yep. Sure does. It's called PopUp! because that's the vocalizing sounds like. The vocalizing is "chanter en yaourt" - or singing … Continue reading Things go pop!
Update - March 29, 2023 A year later, to the day, that I wrote the post below, I published my Tropical Trance track, Yellow Bird. It took that long to get away from the original stimulus for the song. I lost count of how many hours I spent writing it - but I deleted the … Continue reading Have you dealt with The Hobgoblin of Fidelity?
Well now, wanna get up and dance? I took the online Masterclass of Trance Guru, Armin van Buuren, called Armin van Buuren Teaches Dance Music. I admit, until then, Dance, Trance and the mindless head-bopping, weaving and shaking that happens with clubbing had just totally passed me by. UNTIL...! Yes, until he explained, very logically, … Continue reading And then there was Trance
Since, like many creative types, I am an introvert, I have had to figure out for myself that I wanted to publish my music, and then - of course - I had explain to myself why I wanted to publish my music. Everyone at some point does. I had to justify it because two things … Continue reading What drives an introvert to share their creations?
Musician Chilly Gonzales (born Jason Charles Beck) hates bananas. I'm not that fond of bananas myself. It's that sticky, doughy texture. Our mutual dislike of bananas is a trivial idiosyncrasy, the same as with probably millions of people. However, there are other important things about which I feel the same way as he does, which … Continue reading What is your unguilty musical pleasure?
A week ago I got this track, Metal Nebula, back from the sound studio and I was chuffed! It is one of the very first songs I had composed, and it lay around unloved for months, until I gave it a last shot. And it was finally finished. It started as a melody that I … Continue reading The mojo’s got to be working
This is the first post on this blog, which will tell the stories behind each of my songs and compositions. Allow me to introduce myself: My artist's name, Cōdae, sounds mysterious and the kind of hipster-ish, right? And the look of this site, as well as my page on SoundCloud, is mod and slick, right? … Continue reading Now that you’re here…
