City Mouse

The instrumentation (instruments used) of this piece is simple. Just strings and the odd percussion for accent, mainly chimes and bells. I must say the string sound used is one of my favourite string sounds on the Kurzweil when used for the right application. (Kurzweil sound module - um. outboard gear. um. the hardware that allows me to have different orchestral sounds...um. that black box with the blinking lights).

Sidebar: A bit about how the electronic form of music works. Everything is written in midi format, which stores the note played, the duration of the note, and the strength at which the note is pressed. It also stores pedal information - when it goes down, and for how long. Once you have the midi information down, you can assign whatever sounds you want to it. So, if I decided to make this whole piece done on the piano, or xylophone instead, it'd be relatively easy to change with just the click of a few buttons.

So the title City Mouse. It's about a little mouse in the city zooming around on a moped through different scenes in the city. The mouse is the animated kind, wearing aviator glasses and a vest, like Stuart Little (incidentally, one of my fav soundtracks by Alan Silvestri).

I know I said I'd log the time it takes to write something. This was one of those pieces where I wrote 90% of it in a day. And then the last 10% took a few days. It was an easy one to spin off. Usually the fast writing happens with inspiring instrumental sounds. Enjoy!

Clipper Street Christmas Open House

Over the weekend, my couz and I went to Clipper Street's annual open house event. You sign up for $5 and go around to different stations where you make mini-projects. It was a madhouse, and I must say... this will be the last one I sign up for. Story to follow, but first, here are the projects:

The first thing we made was this gift card holder. I think it's slightly ug.  Cuz it was just an envelope folded up. There was all this excess paper causing it to pop up. Maybe I was supposed to trim some of it out.

 

Next we made a card with these giant paper flowers. It's okaaay.... 

Following that, we made this mini-book using the "Bind-it-all" coil binder. It's aight.

Lastly, we made this ornament card...

... and this was the one that did us in. There was this super-annoying anal retentive girl leading the session. She talked really slow, and insisted that no one move ahead on any step, until everyone had completed. She gave a giant schpiel (talking painfully slow) about how everything was made from punches which were available for purchase downstairs, and she kept on reiterating how she had a single-file lineup going and wouldn't allow anyone else in the room while she was giving her session, insisting she was claustrophobic and did not want any unnecessary bodies people hovering around. OMG. Just shoot me. That experience was so painful, couzin and I did not even attempt the final project, which was with glitter nazi elderly lady. 

Anyway, those were the projects, and... I will never return to such an event again! Clipper St. Open House events are going downhill fast. 

And in other news, got a piece finished so will be posting the audio file soon. Unless I decide it needs changing... which is not uncommon... Stay tuned. 

Yellow Ranger Love Theme

Back from vacation, and missing Hawaii dearly. Back to dreary weather and rainy puddles. As my sis-in-law once put it... it's slipping back into your normal routine like "putting on an old sock."

I had actually meant to post this before I left, but I wasn't sure about it. In that, in order to write stuff that's good, you have to also write stuff that's no-so-good. All that no-so-good stuff has to get out as well. This is one of those "not-so-goods." But nonetheless, 'tis all a part of that creative process so, here is the posting. Substandard work by yours truly :)

A bit of background, as always. There is a counterpart to this song, called Yellow Ranger. It's on paper at the moment, but not orchestrated yet. It's a bit of a fun tune about a teenage boy in love with the Yellow Power Ranger. It's on the list of to-dos so I hope to get around to it. Anyway, this piece was created as the Love Theme for said boy and ranger. Imagine the two running in an open field of daisies in slow-mo. You get it. Enjoy.

UBC IT Christmas Cards

Every year at Christmas, UBC IT gives their staff a Christmas card (signed by the senior management team). Since I have been working there, and a part of the Christmas celebrations (about 3 years), they have given out Costco cards. Now, Costco cards are pretty cool. They were the 3D ones with hand embellished details. Pretty fancy stoof. However, I thought it would be an excellent idea if this year, Senior Management MADE the cards for all the employees (about 150 people). This way, the cards can also incorporate characters from our marketing campaign, and it shows a little more personal effort on the part of Senior Management (often viewed by employees as distant and apathetic - typical feeling in a lot of organizations).

Yesterday, I pitched the idea to the HR Manager and the Director of Support. They approved, and so the HR Manager will in turn will pitch it to our Associate Vice President and Executive Director later this week. Imagine getting a card from the Executive Director that was made by him personally, and on the back, it will say "Made By... " I suppose some employees could view that as a bit creepy, but it shows that they cared enough to put a bit more effort into it. And also do something a little FUN (dear God NO!)

Mind you, if this goes through, I won't just throw a bunch of Bazzil cardstock at them with some glue and a few papercutters. I am anticipating that the card pieces will have to be pre-cut and semi-fabricated to some extent. After all, these are complete non-crafters here. I don't think 150 cards will be that bad... I've got some people from my team roped in to helping me already...

As mentioned before the characters are from our marketing campaign. I just worked a little santa hat on them in Adobe Illustrator and color printed on cardstock. The paper is also just printed off the computer.

And yes, at my place of employement, I usually take initative to force something like this upon the mostly dry and no-fun IT folks. It's part of my duty as one of the few employees under 40.

A few more sample cards:






(Sidebar: Sorry this posting is late! I tried to post yesterday, but my inet was being sporadic. But I feel like I can't really complain to Telus because I get a pretty good deal on it...the student plan from Telus: $19.99 a month for High-speed Enhanced. Oh well. It's back up and running fine today.)