Weekly Thing Chris Schuette – Indiebear Music

Weekly Thing

April1st

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Album Re-Release

Posted in: games, geek, humor, Music, Weekly Thing

I have some exciting news to announce! Anyone who knows me knows that I am a huge fan of old-school 1980s video games. Therefore, I am thrilled to announce that I am re-releasing my solo piano CD, All You Know for a whole new audience!

I’ve received such incredible support for All You Know since its release. So many wonderful people have been kind enough to tell me how the gentle melodies and relaxed attitude have affected them, and I couldn’t be more grateful.

So now, I am releasing “All You Know – the 8-Bit Remix” for an audience who is hip to today’s sounds in 1980s video game music. Here is just a sampling of what you’ll hear:

Mario himself will jump for joy at the NEW sound of “Into My Own”

And YOU won’t have to worry about giant monkeys, flaming barrels or (eek!) Ghosts when you’re listening to the pixelated goodness of “For The Rest Of My Life”

Be sure to pre-order YOUR copy by sending check or money order to: 123 April Fools Lane, DigDug, USA (Sorry, tokens not accepted.)
March8th

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Palimpsest

Posted in: Music, Weekly Thing

Photo Credit: Howard Nelson/pilgrimstorome.org

When I finished score for “Finding Home” (more on that later!) I naively thought I would be able to record a variety of other projects with all that extra time I would have.

Well, it turns out that raising Isla, taking American Sign Language lessons, and a (thankfully) busy day job pretty much have dibs on any remaining free time. I’m not complaining, of course, but it does mean that I need to work smarter on other music projects.

For example, the piece I’m posting today is only 1:48m in length, but I carefully worked on the piano part to get the delay effect just right, I agonized over whether I really like the contrabass at the :15 mark (still not sure.) Long story short, it took a week to do this “quick little piece.” Admittedly, I did it for fun, in between my other activities, but I still need to work on streamlining my process.

OK, enough of that! I call this one “Palimpsest,” which refers to a surface, such as a manuscript page, or even a wall that has been scraped off and used again. Yep, that’s what I named it.
December3rd

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Clockmaker

Posted in: dogs, humor, Music, Weekly Thing

In case I haven’t made it abundantly clear, I am a musician, not a photographer. Oh sure, I can hold a camera and follow the basic “aim away from face” rule, but that’s about it. Most of the photos you see on my blog were taken by my wife Patty. She is a very gifted photographer and she frequently posts on her own blog at pattyanne.net and on her Flickr stream. I’m trying to become a better photographer just so she can be in more pictures with Isla.

Isla & Bear

Bear Hugs

As a result, most of my posts involve original music I’ve created for various clients, or just for fun. This piece is one of the latter. I’ve been switching over my recording software from Digital Performer to Apple’s Logic Pro, so I put together this simple piece of music entitled “Clockmaker” as a way of trying out the software. My goal was to complete it in four hours, but it ended up taking twice as long. Oh well.

I’d love to hear what you think.
October28th

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A Little Halloween Music

Posted in: Movies/ TV, pop culture, Weekly Thing

Ever since I was a little boy growing up in the brown-tinted era known as the 1970s, one of my guilty pleasures has been scary movies. I clearly remember sitting in front of our (color!) TV in the shag carpeted, wood paneled family room watching a show featuring clips from all sorts old classic scary movies, including Psycho, Halloween and The Omen. Obviously, I HAD to see these movies.

You thought I was kidding about the Family Room?

I’ve written about this before, but excellent blogs including Final Girl and Kindertrauma have helped to bring back some great memories…memories of watching TV; kinda sad now that I think about it.

I also remember seeing the commercial for 1979′s Phantasm. I didn’t see the film until years later, but just watching the trailer freaked me out. (What’s that flying silver ball with the spikes? Who’s the creepy old tall dude?? Holy crap, that kid is supposed to be safe in bed, but these jawa-looking things start attacking him!!) OK, it looks kinda tame now, but hey, I was 8!

(Man, film trailers back then mentioned the film title A LOT)

Since it’s almost Halloween, I put together a piece of music reminiscent of the scary film music at the time. Specifically, I was thinking of the minimal scores John Carpenter wrote for most of his own movies. A lot of the films were done on a tight budget, so the themes often used synthesizers rather than full orchestras. I don’t currently have a full orchestra hanging around my studio, so please enjoy the synthy goodness!
December7th

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iPad Music

Posted in: Music, Weekly Thing

I’ve recently been playing with some of the music Apps for the iPad. I stress the words “playing with,” because at this point, a lot of the music Apps are little more than toys, but hey, who doesn’t like toys?

This is a little 2-minute piece I recorded on the iPad using an app called iMS-20. It’s based on the classic Korg MS-20 synth, but the app throws in a step sequencer and drums as well, so a person can construct entire songs worthy of blogging about. It was fun to play around with a virtual synth on a device I can (and will) easily misplace.

This piece is called “Cartoon Physics” and it’s just a fun thing I whipped together at the coffee shop over a couple of days. That’s right, I did something besides mooch free Wi-Fi like Moochie McMoocherson.
June28th

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Guy Spy

Posted in: Music, Weekly Thing

In between my specific fatherly duties and my general paternalistic attitude, I hand-crafted a new piece of music for my own personal enjoyment (or “funsies” as the hipsters like to say.)

I set out to create something that sounded kinda late-50s retro cool, but not “pretty” like Populuxe, which I recorded a while back. I decided to make this one sound like an old TV detective show, or an early James Bond film. So I started with high-quality sampled instruments, then proceeded to “dirty ‘em up” with various effects. Overall, I’m happy with how it turned out. As a final touch, I added some vinyl record effects to give it a sprinkling of dust.

It’s called “Guy Spy” and it runs 1:00m. Dig it.
June20th

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First-Person Father’s Day

Posted in: Music, parenting, Weekly Thing

Today is my first Father’s Day as a new Dad. Still feels weird to type that. It will be kind of a “hands-on” Father’s Day, with a lot of diaper-changing, feeding and staring. Isla is several years away from giving away artwork in the medium of elbow macaroni and construction paper, so we’re just going to hang out and enjoy the day. Patty framed several of the new family photos for me, so they are now in a prominent location in my studio. I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Speaking of my studio, I managed to record a quick little piece this morning. I was working with some of my orchestral samples and I whipped up a little 3-part tune with Piano, Cello and Viola. The whole thing took a little over an hour and it runs 1:43m. Since I didn’t want to waste valuable Father-Daughter-Wifey time, I simply named it “Trio.”

Happy Father’s Day!
January4th

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Weekly Thing #33: Eight Bits

Posted in: geek, humor, Music, Weekly Thing

I really geeked out this week. I was playing around with a phaser effect on the Rhodes keyboard, and I found a way to change the pitch in steps rather than in a smooth arc. I then locked the steps to the tempo of the song and voila! “Weird sounding Rhodes.” The rest of the song is almost insultingly simple. I used a Jupiter synth patch and simulated Mellotron flutes (yes, the same ones from Strawberry Fields Forever.) with a basic drum pattern. I call it “Eight Bits,” since it reminds me of an old video game. I hope you like it!
December28th

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Weekly Thing #32: Walking Small

Posted in: dogs, humor, Music, Weekly Thing

As a musician, I often hear voices in my head…I mean, “songs;” I often hear songs in my head. I came up with this week’s piece while watching my dog, Bear kinda lumbering and snooping around the house. I swear sometimes that dog has his own soundtrack. It’s a really short musical cue at 44 seconds, but hey, I said what I wanted to say. Enjoy!
December27th

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Weekly Thing #31: Battle of the Frontiers

Posted in: humor, Music, Weekly Thing

I know what you’re thinking: “Hey, he named this week’s piece after a battle from the early days of World War I in 1914!” Well, yes; yes, I did. Don’t ask me why (oh, for the love of God,please don’t ask me why!)

I actually came up with the drums first and filled in the rest of it while enjoying blueberry pie and coffee; that’s just how the creative mind works. With any luck, the Christmas spirit will hit me soon and I’ll stop writing these darker pieces for awhile. Hey, it could happen!