August 11th, 2006 @ 1:57PM
New song's on the artist page (well, sort of new anyway), ending the drought since Monochrome. That's not to say it's going to usher in a brave new world of exciting new tracks going up, but let's wait and see.
October 25th, 2005 @ 1:29PM
OK, it's been well over a year since I updated this. A year. That's a flippin' long time. So, how are things going with the music?
Bottom line is, they're not. I still play bass quite a bit, I think I've got considerably better at it, but I haven't written a whole song since...well, since Monochrome, frankly. I've tried to at other times, but either it never really got off the ground, or I had something else to do - and in any case, now that things have been much busier at home I can never find a good, quiet place where I'll be undisturbed and can get on with actually recording something. There are things in the works, it's true. But they have been in the works for months at least, and to be honest I don't think they're going to see the light of day any time soon.
As for the things already on here, I like them. I really do. But they are all a product of a younger me, one who not only wasn't much of a musician but also didn't understand that music needs depth to survive. Everything on here has an extremely thin sound, which I can't simply pad out with reverb and other funky effects. I can't play enough instruments to cover this gap (this would be because I can't play anything except bass to anything more than complete novice standards), so really, I can't improve my work.
Everything needs doing over again, right from the bottom up. Everything needs to be done either by me after I've learnt to actually play all the instruments I tried to use last time, or after I've assembled a competent band and someone who can really sing.
And right now, I just don't have the time to do that. Maybe in the future I will. But for now, my music page is likely to remain just how it is. I would say "watch this space", but...
...there won't be anything else appearing on it any time in the foreseeable future.
October 3rd, 2004 @ 7:17PM
A small update today that is nevertheless quite a few firsts. This is my first song...
1) To feature me singing. You may realise why upon listening to it.
2) To be in the politico-rock genre. I had to release it today because otherwise it wouldn't get online before November.
3) To feature my new African bongo. Not an amazing sound, but there's something special about recording an instrument you chose in a far-off land.
4) To be produced entirely on a digital multitracker. Yay for new technology.
5) To be hyped to the grave because I'm really rather pleased with it.
--Zsig
July 20th, 2004 @ 3:08PM
Well, I'm back! It's certainly been a while, but I have now come back to a DMusic that appears to be really very much improved since I last saw it. I'm liking the navigation system, certainly.
Uganda (where I've just spent the last six months) was an absolutely brilliant place for me, and I have loved staying there so much that I'll have to get back to Africa at some point. It's also given me several new musical ideas, not to mention a rather fine little cowhide bongo drum, and I've today started work on my debut album. This may take a while to produce, but along with my latest addition to recording equipment (a Fostex digital multitracker) I reckon my music should be taking a turn for the more interesting soon.
It's great to be back.
January 12th, 2004 @ 3:11PM
This will probably be my last journal entry, at least for a while. This is because tomorrow I leave for several months' work in Uganda with a family of missionaries! I'm really excited about the trip (and I'm betting that when I return it will be with a lot of new musical ideas), but the problem is that it will severely restrict my access both to the internet and to my music-making equipment.
So, if you want to listen to my music and leave comments, you are of course free to do so. Just please don't expect me to reply to them any time soon, or have much time to listen to your work...I do care about it, but hi-tech resources are hard to come by in the Third World!
Au revoir DMusic...I'll see you when I get back...
December 9th, 2003 @ 7:00PM
Finally! Some new material! My newest track is very much an experimental work, which came about through my finding a very simple bluesy bass guitar riff. This, in turn, led to the idea (no, you don't want to know how my mind makes these mental leaps) of making a blues track played entirely on bass.
The finished track is a bit rough...it could do with some better timing, for instance, and is not exactly the most thrilling music to listen to. However, I'm still pleased to be able to do something different, something that I've never done before. That, to me, is what music is all about.
October 22nd, 2003 @ 6:26PM
And so, after a short break and an unfortunate episode with this site whereby the first version of this entry was accidentally deleted, I return with two new tracks. It appears to be Latin Update Day – not because the music is of a Latin nature, but because I couldn’t think of any really good original titles and ended up doing some cheesy translations into Latin. More on that later, as I go through the rather dull back stories of the two new tracks.
“Sin Pie, Dex Pie” started out when I was playing with a keyboard’s sound effects and decided (like you do) to build a track around two of the rhythmic effects, the footsteps and the heartbeat. This, in turn, suggested a spooky, sinister style, which is what I strove to achieve, although I think I overdid it a bit and ended up with cheesy Hammer-horror style music. Anyway, the working title was “Sinister” all the way through until I encoded to MP3, at which point a quick Google search turned up the fact that the Roman military command “Left foot, right foot” came out as “Sin pie, dex pie”. That should clear up any confusion as to why I entitled a song after baked goods.
“Tintinnabula”, on the other hand, began shortly after I’d listened to Mike Oldfield’s Tubular Bells. At first, it was a 45-second piece for four sets of bells, written very simply by doing about 8 bars and looping them, then layering the different parts. This wasn’t enough for a release by itself, so as I was casting about for music to do I came across this and added another 3 sections on the end. After a truly atrocious ending the first time I wrote it, the second attempt ended up much nicer, although it still felt a little forced. The name for this one is even simpler; the Latin for “bell” is “Tintinnabulum”. Those Romans had good words for everything.
I’m not entirely happy with either of these pieces…they sound a little scrappy or forced in some places, and I don’t think either is as good as GBZ, still by far my favourite of my own works. Still, with this update I have doubled my released solo work, so it can’t be a wholly bad thing. Enjoy, or at least don’t hate too much.
October 4th, 2003 @ 9:26AM
OK, my next track is now online. "The Good, The Bad & The ZsigE" is, as is fairly obvious, a reworking of Ennio Morricone's The Good, The Bad & The Ugly theme tune, although those who have watched any episodes of US crime drama Law & Order will also recognise the influence of Rob Dougan's superb theme music. I'm aware that I've now uploaded two tracks that are no more than reworkings of simple themes, but that's probably going to be it for now. I've got an original track in the works, which should go up before too long, as well as a finished track that I'm sitting on because it features me singing.
GBZ (as I call it to save space on filenames) is a departure for me because it's the first purely synthesised piece of music I've recorded. I could have played the bass part myself, but decided not to because it is just so much easier to sequence the whole thing for MIDI instead. It was quite a headache deciding how to classify it; I eventually plumped for Electronic because it was entirely synthesised, but it also sounds vaguely classical with the string ensembles. I think the intro is still a bit dodgy (I just couldn't get the timing right) but overall, I am happier by a long way with this than with anything else I have yet produced.
September 20th, 2003 @ 10:26AM
Blimey, I really ought to check out what different bits of this site do before I try them out. When I was trying to put this up, I ended up submitting a full News article. Hopefully it'll get deleted. Anyway, this is what I was going to say.
I've now got my first proper piece of music uploaded: "Doctor Where?" It's a reworking of the Doctor Who theme, at least at the beginning, with a slide guitar part and some quite nice synth effects. All done entirely by me, and mixed and edited. It's only the second piece of music I've recorded, so I don't know how it'll be received; the first piece might go up later if I get more confident about it.
Right, that's about it for now. I'm off to avoid working for a little longer.
