Novembeat 2017
October has Inktober, where artists are challenged to draw one ink drawing every day throughout the month.
November, therefore, has Novembeat, making one short song every day.
This is the second such album I have done, and I feel that it is some of the best music I’ve ever made. It also follows the emotional arc of the month, due to some rather unexpected setbacks.
Think of it as a musical diary spanning one month in a not so great year.
Tracks
- Tape Lead Info
- Gabbagab Info
- Dead Cabbage Info
- A Better Day Info
- Ronald Jenkees Info
- Pawn Shop Bunny Info
- Glowsticks Info
- Meenimoonimo Info
- Sleepy Kitty Info
- Dream Sequence Info
- Can’t Be Real Info
- Void Info
- Still Around Info
- Running in Place Info
- Tweet Info
- Elfin Grove Info
- Same As Before Info
- Take Two Info
- Section B Info
- Gobetween Info
- Chirp Info
- Downtime Info
- Emotionally Fragile Info
- INTERNET!!! Info
- The Cleaning Song Info
- Jaunt Info
- Get Go Info
- Darkness Info
- Undertow Info
- Deep Info
About Tape Lead
Just a little introduction to the album.
About Gabbagab
Just a little tune that popped into my head that morning.
Gabbagab: Lyrics
Ga ga dabba gagabagada baga Da ba baga dadabagada bada Ba ba bada bagagabada baga Ya ba bada yabadabada baga Ba ba baga dababadaba bada Bum ba bada bagagabada bada
Bum bum bum, ba Bum bum bum, ba Bum bum bum, ba Bum bum bum, ba Dum ba bum, ba Dum ba bum, ba Dum bum bum, ba Dum bum bum
About Dead Cabbage
Inspired by the name of the previous track, I decided to go on a spelling spree.
The notes of the musical scale can spell words.
Not very many, though.
Dead Cabbage: Lyrics
dead cabbage dead cabbage dead-ead, dea bae d dead (dead) cabbage dead-ead, ea bae d dead cabbage dead cabbage dead
About A Better Day
This day didn’t go so well, so I was looking forward to a better one.
About Ronald Jenkees
I decided to make some disorganized fun.
About Pawn Shop Bunny
This is a song about a pawn shop bunny
going around as if it’s made of money
trying to buy some milk and honey
but it doesn’t quite care.
About Glowsticks
Shout out to the Cupcake Royale in Capitol Hill, Seattle, WA, and the restroom cooling fan that was making this really cool grinding noise.
(It has since been fixed.)
About Meenimoonimo
It was cold out and my leg was hurting and I had a cat sleeping on my lap, so I decided to have some fun with a sonic soundscape that captured the feelings of winter cuddles.
About Sleepy Kitty
My leg was hurting even more and my other cat wanted to get in on the action, so she wrote a song with me.
About Dream Sequence
I had trouble sleeping due to the increasing pain, and this music wafted into my consciousness.
About Can’t Be Real
My leg was still hurting. Really, really bad. And I was starting to have a pain in my shoulder as well. The pain was getting to be unbearable. So I wrote this track that captured the agony I was in.
About Void
I woke up barely able to breathe, and went to the hospital.
It was an embolism, from a DVT in my leg that threw off a clot.
I composed this track from a hospital bed, using GarageBand on my phone.
About Still Around
The pain from the previous four days turned out to be due to a clot in my leg that was growing rapidly, and part of it broke off and went to my lungs, giving me a pulmonary embolism. Because of the clot I had to cease taking my HRT and start taking blood thinners. I was told I may not be able to get back on HRT ever again.
I was happy to still be alive but not looking forward to the impending hormonal crisis.
But I am still around, and defiantly making music.
About Running in Place
I was feeling aimless from my recent health issues, and felt like nothing was going anywhere and nothing was worth doing anymore.
About Tweet
I was spending way, way too much time reading Twitter instead of doing anything productive. The senseless repetitive noise of everything around me was more than I could take.
About Elfin Grove
The first song I wrote on this day was not very good, but then I was noodling around and came up with this better song. It made me think of a wood elf in a forest grove or something.
About Same As Before
Without HRT I was losing track of time and my mental state, and every day was running into each other. I wanted to be kind to myself after my near-death experience but I also wanted to be productive. And everything felt the same as everything else.
About Take Two
I started composing a tango song but it just wasn’t coming out very well. So I scrapped it and worked on a second take for the day.
About Section B
A little scrap I had lying around, which was begging for a fuller orchestration.
About Gobetween
It seems like every album of mine these days needs at least one semi-algorithmically-generated weird-time-signature experimentation.
And Werner just wouldn’t shut the heck up while I made it so I decided to record him meowing.
Oh and there’s scissors for percussion.
About Chirp
Met up with some friends at a coffee shop, took up way too much table space while I composed this attempt at making something Lemon Jelly-esque.
About Downtime
The lack of hormones was really starting to get to me. Constantly tired, constantly struggling to wake up in the morning, but this music project kept me going.
About Emotionally Fragile
At this point I was just completely falling apart, due to basically going through menopause and feeling worthless, useless, and futureless.
I had been without hormones for a week and a half and my emotions were all over the place. Everything would set me off and I would cry and I was not in a good spot. So I wrote this thing to capture my feelings.
About INTERNET!!!
I attempted to self-medicate my ongoing depression with some THC.
I may have used a little too much.
INTERNET!!!: Lyrics
Hello, the Internet Hello, the Internet Hello, the Internet Hello, the Internet Hello, the Internet Hello, the Internet (Internet) Hello, the Internet (Internet) Hello, the INternet (INternet) Hello, the Internet (Internet) Hello, the Internet (Internet?) Hello, the Internet (Internet!) Hello, the Internet (Internet…) Hello
About The Cleaning Song
I didn’t have the energy to clean my home but I made a piano-and-cello tune to help me clean myself, at least.
Pachelbel’s Canon is the bane of every cellist’s existence.
About Jaunt
I took a little trip down to my platonic cuddle-buddy’s home and I composed this while lying on his lap. It was nice.
About Get Go
Back in the early days of Song Fight! there was an occasional contributor who entered under the name Mouth Reliant. I felt like doing a tribute to his style for some reason.
About Darkness
The dark days were getting to me.
The depression was getting to me.
On Black Friday weekend I upgraded to KOMPLETE 11 and decided to play around with some of its presets.
This came out.
About Undertow
feeling like drowning, no escape
About Deep
I really liked Stranger Things, or at least its soundtrack.