The Music of Jo Hyeja — “Music” Finished, Sort Of

This entry is part 9 of 15 in the series Making "The Music of Jo Hyeja"

The last mention I made of this project was to note that we’d done some recording with the haegeum player from the band 잠비나이 for the soundtrack. Since then, I’ve been off and on constructing music tracks from samples — both of the haegeum, and of other sounds I collected over a 48 hour period: water going down a drainpipe, the hum of car engines, growling, and so on. As of right now, my work on the audio is done except for one step: the audio post-production work, which we’re scheduled to do on Friday at a studio. (I’ll have …

Continue Reading

The Score for The Music of Jo Hyeja OST: Composed, But Rough

This entry is part 8 of 15 in the series Making "The Music of Jo Hyeja"

I didn’t think music composition was a skill quite as loseable as, say, a foreign language, but today I got my comeuppance. While back in the old days I could have cranked out a whole minor piece in a day, I spent that much time just working out a few fragments for the score. (Okay, one reason is that I’m not all that great with the notation software and had a steep learning curve to climb; it’s really not intuitive in many ways, though I’m sure once you’re used to it it’s great.) One of the most frustrating parts of …

Continue Reading

Saxophonic Memories

The other day, I posted about memories of being teased because my name had been used for the alien in the TV Alf, whom I remembered as a sax player, like myself. My hunt for the saxophone version of the theme song led me to this website, where many examples of the “sax solo” that became a trend in 80s popular music are available for your listening pleasure (or pain, as the case may be). I now must say, it was not only because of that scene where a weirdly bejewelled Tim Capello plays saxophone in the vampire film Lost …

Continue Reading

Because the World Needs More Cheese…

… I’ve uploaded the uncut, massive single MP3 version (please right click and save the file, as it’s huge!) of the second-to-last musical performance I ever made in Saskatoon, back in 1998. My friend Mike invited me, my ex (the vocalist on the track), and two DJs I knew from high school (Phil Greer and Keenan Gauthier) to perform at what he was then calling “parties” (because, I think, “rave” was passé by then. We played a few gigs, and on the last one — just before I took off for Montreal in fall 1998 — Keenan got a buddy …

Continue Reading

Wanna CD?

See that new block in the sidebar? Yep, I’m flogging CDs for a now long-disbanded rock group. I figure, what the hell, someone might actually want a copy. Better than all that plastic and paper and time and music gone to waste. Not that anyone in the band has seen a red cent for it — though to be fair I don’t know if it ever earned back the studio costs, but then again we’ve never seen numbers either to the best of my knowledge — but there are still CDs of Dabang Band’s Product album available through YesAsia.com. (For …

Continue Reading