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!