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
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
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!
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
"King Unas Lives" is the second track on my album, "Divan", which has songs created from ancient historical documents - in this case, hieroglyphics.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 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
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’
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
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, left). This canvas has a more atonal sound than the others, and includes effects like scratching and hissing, which give a more grunge-like … Continue reading “Swagger & Swing” – Track 4 on “Painting Music
A.I. Opera: It Started as just fun and ended up as real - and really nice. 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 process. In the visualizer … Continue reading Track 2 on “Painting Music”- “A.I. Opera”
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
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
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
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 an easy, user-friendly DAW with … Continue reading My first attempt at music production – Using 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
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?
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…
