I think every artist has a stash of unreleased, unfinished, or just embarrassingly strange work. I am no exception. The Garageband and Logic folders on my computer have well over 100 projects in them, but no more than half of those have been used in any official context. Today, I have dug through my archives and extracted some various pieces of music I’ve done in the past few years. These are by no means all of the files in the archive. I’ve just selected some of the best . . . or weirdest. I’ve separated the collection into a five major categories:

WORKS IN PROGRESS – These are projects I started but never got around to finishing, whether it was because I couldn’t think of what else to add or I just decided to move onto something else.

DOODLES – Visual artists like to doodle, which means to “scribble absentmindedly” according to Mac’s dictionary. I call songs like this Doodles because I create them by sitting down at the computer/guitar/piano and absentmindedly creating something random. Often, these end up quite silly and even embarrassing.

FAILED ATTEMPTS – If there is a game I want to be part of, I often write a song that I believe would fit well in the game. These are songs I wrote in an attempt to coax game developers to commission a song from me. I guess they didn’t like my work. Maybe you will?

BIRTHDAY SONGS – I love giving silly songs as gifts for family members’ birthdays.

DITTIES – The dictionary defines a ditty as a “short simple song.” This is a perfect description for these. They are very short, instrumental pieces (these actually fit in the “Works in Progress” category as well, since none of them are finished).





Don’t expect most of these to have the quality of the work on the main part of my page. These are unreleased for a reason. Don’t say I didn’t warn you. Without further ado, here are some selections from my secret archive (for highest amount of listening pleasure, please use headphones):

WORKS IN PROGRESS

This is actually pretty much done. I put it in WIP because I actually completely forgot about it. I must have recorded this one day awhile ago and just never opened the file again until today. I was actually surprised at how much I liked it with such a stupid title:

E Minor and C Major

I started this awhile back when I was just learning how to use Logic Studio. I was messing with Automation and figuring out how to change the volume over time. I ended up looping this sweeping volume change for every phrase of the song. Just not sure how to finish this one:

Crescendo of Epicness

When I first found the free YMCK Magical 8-Bit plugin (warning, page is in Japanese – somehow I was able to navigate my way around, even though I don’t speak a word of it), I was really excited with the sound. So I started this little chiptune as practice, to learn how to use the plugin:

Chiptune Jam

This is sort of a chiptunish idea I had. Instead of using basic synths, I took real drum and instrument samples and bit crushed and distorted the hell out of them until they sounded sorta 8-bit-like. And then I added some more modern synth sounds to the mix:

Bionic Hero

I like the beginning of this song but the title says it all. When the strings come in it is far too “overly epic.” Just ends up sounding like I’m trying too hard:

Overly Epic Piano and Strings

DOODLES

A few years ago, before I had an iPhone, I recorded the sound of my cell phone getting a text message. Once with the beep, and once just on vibrate. I took just these two samples and split them up, changed their pitch, and arranged them into this. You might want to turn it down a bit – this one can be a little harsh on the ears (if you want to see a video of how I made this, go here):

Cell Phone Symphony

This is probably the most embarrassing thing in this post. Please don’t judge my singing voice. I was not attempting to sing very well. This really was a total doodle. Just messing around with GarageBand in my room one night. Recordings in this include my voice, claps, random GarageBand instruments, and the edited and distorted sounds of me tapping a rhythm on my bed:

Anything

This past St. Patrick’s Day, I was talking to my dad on the phone. We were talking about how much we wished there really were leprechauns that gave you gold. Somehow, the conversation soon changed to wishing that “leprechauns fell from the sky and dropped gold that you could keep.” Don’t ask me how the conversation progressed to this point, but it did. I couldn’t get the image out of my mind, so I made this. The voices are all me with the pitch raised, and the sound effects are just from the stock library I have (NSFW language):

Leprechauns Falling

FAILED ATTEMPTS

I sent the next two song ideas (unfinished) to an IGF winning dev team. They considered me but ended up going with someone else:

Light in the Shade



Beams of Dark

Sent this one (also unfinished) to the developer of a fun iPhone game about monsters, but they didn’t think it really fit the style (I did):

Dashing Away

BIRTHDAY SONGS

Wrote this for my dad (birthday: April 3rd). Everything in this song is done with just my voice with a bunch of random plugins added (drums are beatbox-type recordings). The “guitar” solo was especially fun. There is one line in there about “King Arthur.” Just so you’re not confused, when my dad has an awesome, inspiring thought, he calls it a “King Arthur Thought.” Not really sure why, but details, shmetails:

April 3rd

Wrote this for my mom (February 6th). I had never used the vocoder synth on Logic and wanted to try it out. Lemme just tell you, it’s really fun playing a melody on the keyboard and hearing your spoken vocals sing it:

A Little Bit More Yourself

DITTIES

Name describes it all. Just a little idea I had.

A Very Short Piano Ditty

Same as before.

A Little Guitar Ditty

Return here soon. Sometime in the next few weeks, Super Stick Golf will be out and I’m going to release the full chiptune soundtrack to it!

Here’s a sample of the theme:

Stick Golf Theme Sample