By |

Following the release of my CD, “Aestas”, I suspect that most people expected me to continue churning out EDM tracks. While I haven’t excluded the possibility of future EDM singles – in fact it’s more of a probability – I have taken a wee break to do other stuff. That began with my Christmas single “Rainbow’s End” which was geared towards children. On Friday my latest release “Jukebox In My Head” sees me venture into the world of novelty music.

Where this track is concerned, I have to give a shout out to my wife, Roberta, who not only came up with the concept, but also wrote the original lyric and designed the art for the cover. Initially I only wrote the music but, as the track developed, the lyric changed quite a bit. It also gave me the opportunity to sing. I’m no Frank Sinatra but I reckon I can match Joe Dolce, Sheb Woolley and Napoleon XIV for vocal ability. “Who?”, you might ask; then check out their novelty hits “Shaddap You Face”, “The Purple People Eater” and “They’re Coming To Take Me Away, Ha-Haaa” and you will see what I mean.

The great thing about being an indie artist, whose life doesn’t depend on musical success, is that you can choose whichever direction you wish to take. I am currently working on a Bowie-style song about outer space, an orchestral piece which flirts with EDM, a show song which could be from a children’s musical, and a traditional Scottish melody which currently sounds like loads of others. We’ll see where these songs take me.

What actually excites me most is the creation of new sounds and the use of synthesizers. I particularly like the use of MIDI Polyphonic Expression (MPE) and have a ROLI Seaboard RISE 2 keyboard and a ROLI Lightpad Block and my synths include ROLI Equator 2, Native Instruments’ MASSIVE X (as part of Kontakt 8), and Arturia’s CS-80. I’m hoping that 2025 is the year when I stumble on an entirely new sound but guess that I am far from alone in this quest.

We shall see.

By |

First of all, Happy New Year to everyone who reads this.

So what can we expect in the music scene in 2025 and how does this affect my music? According to music pro and author, Bobby Owsinski, successful songs in 2024 were slower than before and contained a high rhyming density with multiple rhymes including internal rhyming, i.e. rhymes within single lines of lyric. AI is taking a foothold in music, as well as in everything else, but is expected to become more regulated in the coming year.

Having read Bobby’s book “The Musician’s Ai Handbook”, I developed my own strategy on the use of AI in music. Firstly, I feel that it’s best to totally avoid AI in areas which involve, or in time will involve, copyright. Examples of this include melody, lyrics and some aspects of performance such as vocals. This is both from a legal and moral viewpoint as you are ripping off the work of other people who may well seek litigation. I also firmly believe that you should stay in total control of your own work using AI only to offer you suggestions. I use a software tool called Scaler 2 to help me create chord sequences, which are not subject to copyright issues, and the Mastering Assistant in Ozone 11 to help me produce a final master of my recording. When I feel that these AI tools produce something I like, I try to investigate why it appears to be working with a view to learning from it. Some song pitches now state that they will not accept tracks involving any use of AI, although I think that in 2025 this is becoming increasingly hard to achieve. Even a singer/songwriter with only an acoustic guitar for accompaniment is probably using a microphone with AI noise reduction.

Of the other trends that Bobby raises, I feel that the song which will probably be my next release, “Jukebox in My Head”, scores highly on rhyming density but, at 120 bpm, cannot be reasonably described as slow – or fast for that matter. Personally, I don’t bother too much with trends, although I believe it’s good to be aware of them. I am more concerned with the fact that Roberta wrote the lyric for this song and, since she has not written any other lyrics, has not joined PRS. I am not sure how that affects any royalty payments but will endeavour to find out.

Lastly, I believe that I have purchased the software upgrades I need to progress, Cubase 14 Pro and Kontakt 8, and look forward to producing much more music in the coming year.

By |

Well, that’s the visuals done. I’ve just completed the promotional short videos or reels for each of the tracks on the “Aestas” album. While they are called reels on Facebook, Instagram and TikTok, they are called shorts on YouTube and canvases on Spotify. I’m not doing much on Twitter/X these days as I am not so keen on it as a promotional tool and all I seem to be getting are tweets from Elon Musk that annoy me. Anyway, the visuals on the other social media platforms took a long time and I feel that the main promotional drive for the album is finished and it is time to move on.

My single release in time for Christmas will be “Rainbow’s End”, a children’s song in complete contrast to the album which was predominantly EDM. It should be on Spotify, Amazon Music, Apple Music and the other music platforms by the end of November. Our AV sequence “Rainbow’s End”, which featured the song, won an award in 2018, so we already have a video for the song and creating reels from the video should be relatively easy.

I also need to get back to playing the piano and my MPE (MIDI Polyphonic Expression) keyboard (ROLI Seaboard RISE 2). Playing the MPE keyboard is quite a learning curve but it is great for composing using the associated software (Equator 2). That’s the fun part of all of this and something that I haven’t had time to do while creating and promoting the album. I am really looking forward to getting back to it.

So what does 2025 hold for me. I have three songs which I hope to release: “Jukebox in My Head” (written with Roberta), “Through the Darkness” and “Tempora Mutantur”. I just need to work a bit more to improve the production on these. Also, composing is an unpredictable skill, so who knows what can be achieved when I get back to it.