"You are my lucky star. You... Lucky, lucky, lucky, lucky, lucky." - Ripley

Just caught this on my local classical station while driving home, and thoroughly enjoyed this! It's been done before but this is a new project. The Moog system 55 Modular synthezier was first introduced back in 1964, and this recording takes us back to the original of synthesized sounds, so this could now be considered a period instrument interestingly enough.

Reminds me of Tron and A Clockwork Orange! Considering that composer Wendy Carlos composed music for both original Tron and Clockwork, makes sense right? Check it: 

Very Fun stuff, and here's more information about the new Moog project:

http://www.moogmusic.com/news/bach-moog-realization-electronics-synthesizer

 I wanted to post a video of what I did to learn it by heart so as to remove any doubt on whether I Midi ripped the piece:

To get familiar with a piece of music, memorizing it and playing it on the piano really helps.

Here's the track that came out of wanting to play it on the piano:

It's not that difficult of a piece to learn by ear either, but it certainly is a bit strenuous on the wrists.

"Some of you never think of dying, and yet you should. You say you may live long. You may and you may not. If there were a great number of loaves upon this table, and you were to eat one every day; if you were told that one of those loaves had poison in it, I think you would begin every one with great caution; and knowing that one of them would be your death, you would take each up with silent dread. Now you have so many days, and in one of those days, there is the poison of death. I do not know which one. It may be tomorrow, it may not be until many a day has gone. But I think you ought to handle all your days with holy jealousy." - Charles Spurgeon

I think about it often about what it is to come of my death and what words few people that know me would use to define me after I'm gone. How would one know what it is about me unless I revealed it? That my identity is in Christ, and my desire that anyone would know about me is "Christ and Christ crucified."  But the manner of which that is lived and preached should also be noted: I think about the pastor in sheep's clothing who admits to punch a kid with arrogance for the message he thinks he knows. This is what I'm up against in people's perception on Christianity, and it even discourages me to mention so.  If I were to tell you I was Christian, would you honestly say that you can look at me without a bunch of preconceived notions you have about me.  Some of it is just, and regardless I will not hesitate to tell you that you would be right when it comes to the people where their purpose is driven by hate. Christianity, as it means to belong to Christ, is meant to be preached with tears; not prideful boasting, nor with a lack of care for the people listening. I love many of you here, and if I were to go, know that I consider myself least among you and my desire is to merely serve. I'm before you naked, and am vulnerable to appear to you as a fool for your sake.  I would be dishonest, and filled with a heart lacking of any integrity if I didn't tell you what I am about.

GOSPEL OF JESUS CHRIST

GOD (LOVING CREATOR OF ALL EXISTANCE):

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. (Genesis 1:1)

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” (Genesis 1:1, 27, 28)

The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. (Isaiah 40:28 ESV)

GOD'S LAW:

1. I am the Lord your God, “You shall have no other gods before me. 

2. You shall not make for yourself a carved image

3. You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain

4. Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. 

5. Honor your father and your mother

6. You shall not murder. 

7. You shall not commit adultery.

8. You shall not steal. 

9. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. 

10. You shall not covet

(Exodus 20:2-4, 7, 8, 12-17)

REBELLION (GOD'S LAW BROKEN):

The Lord looks down from heaven on the children of man, to see if there are any who understand, who seek after God. They have all turned aside; together they have become corrupt; there is none who does good, not even one. (Psalm 14:2, 3 ESV)

for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, (Romans 3:23 ESV)

Now we know that whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God. For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin. (Romans 3:19, 20 ESV)

Yet if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin. For I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, “You shall not covet.” (Romans 7:7 ESV)

For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become accountable for all of it. (James 2:10 ESV)

SIN LEADS TO DEATH:

For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 6:23 ESV)

And you were dead in the trespasses and sins (Ephesians 2:1 ESV)

GOOD NEWS:

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. (John 3:16-18 ESV)

JESUS SAVES US FROM GOD'S WRATH:

but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. (Romans 5:8, 9 ESV)

the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin. (1 John 1:7 ESV)

JESUS' DEATH & RESURRECTION:

Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, (Luke 24:46 ESV)

For to this end Christ died and lived again, that he might be Lord both of the dead and of the living. (Romans 14:9 ESV)

For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep. (1 Thessalonians 4:14 ESV)

For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, (1 Corinthians 15:3, 4 ESV)

REPENT & BELIEVE (FAITH)

“The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.” (Mark 1:15 ESV)

and that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. (Luke 24:47 ESV)

Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. (Acts 2:38 ESV)

Repent therefore, and turn back, that your sins may be blotted out, (Acts 3:19 ESV)

God exalted him at his right hand as Leader and Savior, to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins. (Acts 5:31 ESV)

The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent, (Acts 17:30 ESV)

For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death. (2 Corinthians 7:10 ESV)

For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. (Ephesians 2:8, 9 ESV)

And they said, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household.” (Acts 16:16, 31 ESV)

because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. (Romans 10:9 ESV)

testifying both to Jews and to Greeks of repentance toward God and of faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. (Acts 20:21 ESV)

GREAT COMMISSION:

Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, (Matthew 28:19 ESV)

And he said to them, “Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation. (Mark 16:15 ESV)

But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” (Acts 1:8 ESV)

DO NOT BE ASHAMED OF THIS GOSPEL:

For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. (Romans 1:16 ESV)

For the past month, I saved some of my favorites from the contest.

There's some great music to be heard. Enjoy:

Trailer Musicesque

Ambient Suspense

Uses the new Adagio library

Nice Choir work

Nice buildup in the beginning

Love this atmosphere 

Ooooooo

BAZANTAR 

This one reminds me of a great artist here

An interesting piano idea

Drumstep

A Twisted Man

Dark Ambient

Post-Rock

8dio Adagietto

Love Love this piece!

Perhaps the most gorgeous piece in the contest--the simplicity

I like the violas in this one

Great String work

Wo-- my money is on this one to win

Cage Bundle

Pretty Cool

Straight up Classical

A subtle build-up

Fun Drums

Lullaby--Horror

Some electronic

...with this piece I’m working on for the NGADM.

But I can’t trust that.  I remember Chopin’s wise words:

“When one does a thing, it appears good, otherwise one would not write it. Only later comes reflection, and one discards or accepts the thing. Time is the best censor, and patience a most excellent teacher.”

But I only have a few days, so oh well. 

I don’t take drugs except for the occasional headache and allergies, but I have to compare music to a drug for a moment here.  The more you listen to a particular track, song, etc. one builds a tolerance to it.  The emotional effect never becomes quite the same when you first hear it, and that is perhaps one of the reasons why we can never run out of music.  It becomes an incessant desire to continue searching for that emotional fix through music. And boy aren’t I excited when I find a piece of music that can satisfy. But I am aware, unfortunately, of the fleetingness of it.  I can never stay there.  

A sign for great music comes in how long that effect takes hold of you after that first listen.  Can you continue coming to it and hearing something new so that emotion/interest is sustained?

So what I do before the mastering process, I listen to my own music while I work on it over and over and over and over and over again—often times without break so that emotional high can wear off and I can then listen subjectively to it with bigger ears.  This allows me to add depth to a piece of music as well, because I can’t stay on the initial thing of the piece that kept me interested in the first place.  Consequently I burn out, and the music I have uploaded here on Newgrounds have become quite boring to me. But it’s not about me anyways. For music’s sake I can only trust that someone will enjoy them.  

Currently I have a wedding gig to prepare for for a friend. So I've been just anxious to getting back to composing, but it has to wait.  Meanwhile, if one would like to make the time, I would like to explain a little why I've always enjoyed the music of Philip Glass.  Reading some of the debates about his music were always a joy to read, and I remember handing sheet music over to a certain scholar of music only to come back the following week for them to admittedly say, "I just don't get it."

To understand Philip Glass’s music, we must go back to the start of his studies under Ravi Shankar in 1964 where his revelation came of his music:

    I was hired to be Ravi Shankar’s assistant on a film.  I didn’t know anything about Indian music...And I had to notate his music and I had to do it on the spot with 16 musicians waiting for the parts... I was writing down the music and I would play it back and he said, ‘No. The accents are wrong.’ And he kept saying, ‘All the beats are the same.’ ... I realized that if I looked at them in a certain way I could see that everything added up to 16.  Every phrase is 16.  Let me have a bar line... [at the beginning and end]... I got rid of all the other bar lines.  And then I played it for him, and he said, ‘Yes. That’s right.’  It was a moment when I understood what I was interested in.  I saw this was a door into another world of music.  I knew there was a music there to be written that had to do with combining two different languages–an intersection of Eastern and Western music that could become extremely productive. (Glass: A Portrait of Philip in Twelve Parts)

What Philip Glass was talking about was the difference between Western and Eastern music in rhythmic structure:

    In Western music we divide time.  In Indian music, you take small units, or ‘beats,’ and string them together to make up larger time values... Indian music was organized in large rhythmic cycles.  The interaction of melodic invention– or improvisation– with the rhythmic cycle provides the tension in Indian music, much as that between melody and harmony provides it in Western music. (Philip Glass, Pages 17-18)

After studying in Paris, Philip moved back to New York in 1967, and he put together an ensemble.  Within nine years of his return, he was at the Metropolitan Opera with Einstein on the Beach (Glass: A Portrait...).  The opera brought Glass immediate fame, and it preceded for him to be a successful career in theatre, film, and dance music (Edward Stickland).  Einstein on the Beach was the epitome of additive process and cyclic structures.  These two techniques allowed Philip Glass to shift the accents in his music:

    Additive process involves the expansion and contraction of tiny musical modules; a grouping of five notes might be played several times, followed by a group of six notes, similarly repeated, then by seven notes, and so on.  Thus a simple figure  can maintain the same general melodic configuration while taking on a very different rhythmic shape... Rhythmic cycles [is] the simultaneous repetition of two  or more different rhythmic patterns, which, depending on the length of the  pattern, will eventually arrive together back at the starting points, making for one complete cycle. (Tim Page)   

With this piece of work, Philip Glass would begin to gain the recognition from a distinct characteristic in his music that couldn’t be mistaken to have been written by anyone else.  With amusement Philip Glass said, “the result was I had the ability to write music that was so radical that I could be mistaken for an idiot.  And I was often.  I still am to this day” (Glass: A Portrait...). 

Works Cited

Edward Strickland. "Glass, Philip." Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online. 1 May 2012

Glass: A Portrait of Philip in Twelve Parts. Dir. Scott Hicks. Koch Lorber, 2007. DVD.

Philip Glass. Music by Philip Glass. 1987. New York, USA: Da Capo Press, 1995. Print 

Tim Page. "Einstein on the Beach." The New Grove Dictionary of Opera. Ed. Stanley Sadie. Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online. 1 May. 2012 

Okay well, after all that explaining on how his music came about, does that really help to explain why so many people, including myself, enjoy listening to this repetitive and bland style of writing? Of course it goes much deeper than that, but for now I can only give a personal analysis of one of his pieces.

Upon listening to Mad Rush–– the music of Philip Glass knows a fleeting life.  This is the theme which underlies his writing.  The music tries to slow the perception of time to make it feel as if it will never end, but the tone is conscious of its pathetic attempt as it is aware that time does eventually come to a halt.  And so it lives only in the moment.  It does not elaborate in melody, but rather plays with time through rhythm.  There is no sense of a progression towards a single climax.  It only progresses toward the silence of the end, and so it savors every moment as it fights for continuance.  This is the music that one would hear as their life flashes before their eyes!  Every moment replayed and seen only through a couple of minutes-- it is a supra-consciousness.  In lasting only minutes, I experience eternity.  It is music that dreams of being forever.

Can anybody guess what that common characteristic is that links all music together?  That one trait that is in every song?

I've been weighing composition for quite some time, and I'm just on my way in learning how to transfer that knowledge via the computer. I want to use this account primarily as an outlet to the results that come out of that, and to perhaps gain insight, encouragement, or criticism from others that are far more talented and knowledgeable than I am.

There are a lot of great artists here, and I know it is often natural for people to be intimidated or feel competitive in their craft, but as I quote Joshua Homme, "the thing is to put out music for music's sake."

And regarding on just one side of how I approach composition:
"Everyone will tell you I am not a musician. That is correct.
From the very beginning of my career I class myself a phonometrographer. My work is completely phonometrical... Science is the dominating factor.
Besides, I enjoy measuring a sound much more than hearing it. With my phonometer in my hand, I work happily and with confidence.
What haven't I weighed or measured? I've done all Beethoven, all Verdi, etc. It's fascinating.
The first time I used a phonoscope, I examined a B flat of medium size. I can assure you that I have never seen anything so revolting. I called in my man to show it to him.
On my phono-scales a common or garden F sharp registered 93 kilos. It came out of a fat tenor whom I also weighed.
Do you know how to clean sounds? It's a filthy business. Stretching them out is cleaner; indexing them is a meticulous task and needs good eyesight. Here, we are in the realm of pyrophony." - Erik Satie