The day job and personal life have been really busy lately, so it’s been harder to focus on new music. In an effort to try and keep myself on track, I loaded up some project management software and created tentative schedules for all my projects.

One of those is the Mysterious Unions album, and I’ve finished the fifth track for it. It’s called “Steady Drivin’,” based on the rolling arpeggio carried throughout. The three-chord arpeggio that begins the piece, which could be considered the verse, was the bit I happened upon that inspired the rest of the song. I then came up with two other chord progressions to make up the chorus, with each section adding a totally different drum beat on top. Then there’s a brass synth lead over it all.

Listen to the song

Hopefully I can keep driving steady on this album. I’ve planned on a total of twelve tracks, so, five down, seven to go.

Today I’m uploading another downtempo track called, “Ring My Bell,” intended for the Mysterious Unions album. It was created in Ableton Live using the built-in instruments, played on a MIDI keyboard. It started when I discovered the bell sound and came up with the three-note riffs. Then it was just a matter of layering other instruments on top. There are two drum rhythms, a synth sound, an organ, and a distorted electric guitar sound as the lead.

Listen to the song

Today I uploaded another track called, “Organ Grinder,” for the downtempo album, “Mysterious Unions.” It was created using Ableton Live, with me playing Live’s built-in instruments via my MIDI keyboard.

The initial creative spark came when I happened upon the gritty organ sound that forms the backbone of the song. I picked a tempo between the other completed tracks – “Yo, Yo, Mama” and “Carpet Ride” – because I want the album to do a slow rise in tempo across the tracks. After I got the organ and drum tracks set up, the rest was just a matter of experimenting with instruments and adding in whatever ones I got excited about.

Listen to the song

I’ve written before that I’m not sure whether to have the album tempo rise from start to finish, or rise and then fall again. I’m beginning to lean more towards the latter. I think moving from a more relaxing sound to a more active sound, then back to relaxing will fit better with the union concept I have in mind.

I uploaded another downtempo track entitled, “Carpet Ride.” It was created in Ableton Live using the built-in instruments and a MIDI keyboard. To me, it has a Middle Eastern sound. It’s also a quicker tempo than “Yo, Yo, Mama,” and will probably be the fastest track on the “Mysterious Unions” album, so track order will change as I upload more pieces. I’m debating arranging them from slow to fast, or a slow-fast-slow ramp. The inspiration behind the album is background music for couples, so the main consideration is how the order of the tempos will best facilitate that.

Listen to the song

I’ve also made more site changes. Instead of one downloads page with all the music on it, I’ve created an album listing, which then branches off to individual album pages. It’s there that the covers are displayed, with Flash players to sample the tracks, and links for downloading the mp3s or reading notes on the tracks.

And because I was posting notes about songs in both this blog and on my site’s “Song Info” page, I decided to do away with the info page and just focus on the blog entries.

I designed covers for the rock and downtempo albums and uploaded them to the downloads page. I’d initially thought to do a colorful abstract painting for the rock cover, with some sort of love and fulfillment imagery in keeping with the title track, “What We Were Missing.” But as I brainstormed in Photoshop, I took a liking to the idea of rusty metal, and that evolved into the worn, industrial image of the final design. It’s probably a better fit with harder music, such as my “Let’s Blow Your Mind” or “I’m Comin’ In,” and I may end up with a different title track or cover design. But for now I’m satisfied with the current version.

For the downtempo album, I first came up with the title of “Mysterious Unions,” and began thinking about how I’d convey that. I’d done a pair of paintings with opposite themes of fire and ice, male and female, in red and blue, respectively, and those were brought to my attention as possible cover art, with the two images combined into one. I started working in Photoshop with just red and blue watercolor-looking sections, which were intended to be the background for masculine and feminine graphics. But then I continued working with Photoshop filters and color adjustments and came up with an abstract design that seemed to me like watery fire and fit the idea perfectly.

I hadn’t been sure what I’d do with the electronica and instrumentals that didn’t fit on these two albums. I started thinking about the electronica and the art I’d just done – how I could create something that seemed digital and bore some relation to the covers I’d already done. The rock cover’s logo worked into rusty metal became the logo worked into a circuit-like image, and the downtempo cover contributed the title font and logo with glow. That led me to set these songs up as their own album.

The fate of the guitar/keyboard instrumentals remains to be seen. The better ones may end up as part of the rock album, or I may set them aside for a full album of instrumentals.

So many ideas; so little time.