I have an instrumental piece to share. More of a soundscape than a song. For fun, I also made a short YouTube video to play. Headphones help.
More coming soon!
MIDIMike
Posts Tagged ‘#korgnautilus’
No Thing
Posted: July 5, 2025 in My TunesTags: #electronicinstrumental, #korgnautilus, #localbands, #michaelskennedy, #MIDI keyboard, #midimike, #midimike.com, #music, #musician, #musicvideo, #original songs, #original video, #personal, #songwriter, #syncopps, #synthesizer
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No Thing
Posted: July 4, 2025 in My TunesTags: #electronicmusic, #gold8, #keyboardplayers, #korgnautilus, #michaelskennedy, #Midi, #MIDI keyboard, #midicontroller, #midimike, #midimike.com, #music, #musician, #songwriter, #Soundengineer, #soundtrack, #studio, #studioengineer, #StudioOne+, #tannoy
I thought I would share this little piece with you. I am just experimenting with new sounds to see what I come up with. There is no real structure or drum tracks to speak of. Just a bunch of cool textures and visions of other worlds. Or, maybe it is this one in the future?
MIDIMike
‘It Only Takes One’
Posted: February 15, 2025 in MUSIC, My TunesTags: #guitarist, #keyboard, #keyboardplayers, #korgnautilus, #lyrics, #michaelskennedy, #Midi, #midicontroller, #midimike, #midimike.com, #music, #musician, #original songs, #poetry, #Presonus, #song, #songwriter, #studioOne, #themerchants, #themerchantsofdeath, #universalaudio, #vocalist
I recently added vocals to the instrumental “It Only Takes One‘. This is just a fun song in my opinion. It has a toe-tapping beat with a fast pace to it. I like the simple chord changes and the way it just sticks in your head after you have heard it a few times.
I sent this to my band mates from ‘The Merchants’. We may have a real version at some point in the future. This version is just me and my toys lol.
I have been preoccupied lately with family and life style challenges, though I have still managed to be productive. It is just difficult for me to put things together in a post. Hopefully in the future I will catch you all up, and visit my amazing followers again. I hope you are all having a great New Year.
MIDIMike
Music for ‘It Only Takes One’
Posted: January 24, 2025 in My TunesTags: #audio, #guitar, #guitarist, #korgnautilus, #lyrics, #Martinguitars, #michaelskennedy, #Midi, #midicontroller, #midimike, #midimike.com, #music, #musician, #ovationguitars, #personal, #poetry, #recordingstudio, #singersongwriter, #songwriter, #studio, #Studio1+, #studioengineer
I posted lyrics earlier for this new song and I have a mix of the music ready for “It Only Takes One“
I am working on the vocals now and will have some ‘filler’ tracks to add at some point. I used drum loops (edited and a bit tortured at times!) for the rhythm tracks. I play all the guitar tracks and added a MIDI bass guitar part from my keyboards ……. until the band can make it in for a session.
But for now, here is the instrumental version.
Happy New Year!
Favorite hobby or pastime…….
Posted: October 6, 2024 in Question of the WeekTags: #audio, #band, #bands, #bass, #bass guitar, #cdbaby, #concert, #coverband, #creative, #DAW, #digital, #drummer, #drums, #equipment, #Euphoria, #folk, #foodchainoflove, #forthosewhowait, #guitar, #harmonies, #Instrument, #Instrumental, #itunes, #jamkazam, #keyboard, #keyboardplayers, #korgnautilus, #Liveband, Chakrasrock, Cincinnati bands, Crash Landing, dailyprompt, dailyprompt-2083, jjaR
What is your favorite hobby or pastime?
Recording musicians and other projects live or in my studio. I have always had a regular job, so this actually was a hobby for me as MIDIMike. I often recorded a band or solo artist for free because they were really good.
Music for “The Feast”
Posted: January 5, 2024 in My TunesTags: #korgnautilus, #lyrics, #Martinguitars, #michaelskennedy, #midicontroller, #mididrums, #midimike, #midimike.com, #music, #musician, #personal, #poetry, #Presonus, #songwriter, #vocalist
This was an unsusual song-writing project for me. I was experimenting with some guitar chords and came up with an interesting progression. I often start a song by messing around with the keyboards or guitar and work out an arrrangement as a scratch framework for drums and other instrumentation. Then I record just the basic raw instrument with all of it’s flaws, but keeping as much of the ‘vibe’ as I can.
From this track I figure out the tempo I am using and get an idea of the arrangement. With ‘The Feast’, I started with a really slow tempo at first. This allowed time for the chords to open up to harmonies and musical tension. Then I usually archive the original track, and start building the song. After I worked out the arangement and had the basic rhythm tracks finished, I started playing with a melody line for my lyrics.
Often, I will just sing as I walk throughout the house and do regular chores when no one’s around. For ‘The Feast’, I had some ideas but nothing stuck. I decided to use the keyboards and a flute sound to noodle around with the melody line. Later I decided it didn’t work and changed the sound to an acoustic bass guitar part and it seemed to fit!
But when I added all the MIDI tracks, guitar and vocals, it seemed pretty dull. Yes, it had melodic texture, but did not have the feel I was looking for. As an experiment, I changed the tempo to make it much faster and this is the version below:
The lyrics were a bit difficult to fit into the much shorter spaces, but I got used to it soon enough and it seemed to work well enough for rock and roll. So I had to re-recorded all the tracks after the tempo change. Not the most efficient way to record a song, but as I always say – ‘any port in a storm’!
I had my 70th birthday last week. I am not sure how many more songs there are waiting inside me. I just get fascinated by almost every aspect of writing, recording and producing music. There are enough people on the planet now that there is a fairly large audience for almost any style of music. The recording software of today is MIND BLOWING compared to when I first started recording when I was 15 years old.
It is too bad that the music industry intentionally crushes novel styles and creative talent while pushing the same vanilla – overproduced – cookie-cutter garbage that is easy to sell (when there aren’t many options available). It is like going to the grocery stores now and seeing fewer and fewer products that are not the ‘store brand’. You can’t buy your favorite bread there anymore (because it is not AS profitable for them to sell), so you settle for what is there.
Don’t settle.
Music for “The Wrong Thing”
Posted: September 1, 2023 in MUSIC, music technology, My Tunes, PoetryTags: #guitar, #korgnautilus, #lyrics, #Martinguitars, #michaelskennedy, #midicontroller, #mididrums, #midimike, #midimike.com, #mixingboard, #music, #musician, #personal, #singersongwriter, #songwriter, #Studio1+, #studioengineer, #vocalist, #vocals
I put lyrics I posted earlier to a new piece I am working on. This song also originated as a mathematical idea. Based on rhythm or patterns this time. Specifically: drumming my fingers on the top of a dinner table. Percussion is so deep in my history it is hard to separate it from the real world. So I tap out a rhythm that is slightly difficult until I get it consistent. This drum pattern is short and repeated with slight variations over time. As you might imagine from listening to music, even drums are ‘tuned’ for specific songs or projects.
Each tom in the drum kit is tuned to a specific pitch (the good drum techs will match the tuning to the current song/project/session). Now transfer those notes to a piano staff and you can play ‘melodies’ on the drums. My finger tapping pattern became the basis for an arpeggio of sorts when I used it to play different chord formations on my Korg Nautilus keyboard. That meant that I would use the repeated pattern for each chord in the song progression. Then I added new parts and changed a bunch of stuff until presto-chango! A new song!
I got out my cheapo 5 string bass guitar and added a back up feel for the keyboard melody. I like to add guitars to most of my recordings and used my brother’s Martin 6 string to add the chord structure and main rhythms throughout the song.
Once the arrangement was settled for the most part I started to write the drums. This gives me the opportunity to match or follow the accents and rests in the guitar parts. I can make sure the drum beat is matching my song and not the other way around. I often add rhythmic nuances to each verse and chorus. I use a MIDI drum pad to trigger sounds in software I have in my recording suite and created each segment’s drum track. After way-too-much-editing, I got a reasonable drum track with good balance and lively feel.
You guessed it. I do all of this myself so now it is time to come up with a melody and try to do the best I can to sing it. Most often the melodies I write reflect my limited vocal range and power. I would have a real vocalist sing what they were able to and felt inspired to sing. Same with all the other instruments I play as well. I get out my Audio Technica 4033 microphone to work out melody, timing, phrasing and harmonies. It takes me a number of practices just to find where my voice can fit in and what notes I can (and can’t) reach. All prepared and organized it still takes me an hour or so of trial and error to record what you will hear even though it is not quite right.
Package it all up with solid mixing levels and some processing or effects added to individual tracks and I have a quick mix ready for you. I might not add anything else to this song personally. As usual, I will play this song for friends and see if they feel like adding to or replacing my tracks.
There are so many ways to create music. Take your MIDI melody line and make it the bass guitar part. Use any drum pattern to trigger piano notes or other samples. Play with the rhythm by starting the drum pattern on beat 2. Listen to birds chirping or wind chimes in the breeze. Make it easy to get started and see where things go, but rule number one: don’t wait for the vocalist to show up!
MIDIMike
Everything has its Place MSK 2006
Posted: July 25, 2023 in PoetryTags: #audio, #korgnautilus, #lyrics, #michaelskennedy, #Midi, #midicontroller, #mididrums, #midimike, #midimike.com, #music, #musician, #personal, #poem, #poet, #poetry, #poetrytolyrics, #Presonus, #recording, #songwriter, #sound
At times I think I am a bit OCD, but it is probably just an organizational fixation I have developed. Mostly because I walk throughout the house without lights on all the time. If something is out of place I can find myself stumbling to the floor. Mistakes are made, wonders go unobserved, people search for the wrong thing. It’s easy to do.
Take Away One Lyrics and Music
Posted: July 21, 2023 in #poetry, MUSIC, Music Theory, My TunesTags: #korgnautilus, #lyrics, #math, #mathematics, #michaelskennedy, #midimike, #midimike.com, #music theory, #musician, #musicismath, #poetry, #Presonus, #recording, #recordingstudio, #singer, #singersongwriter, #songwriter, #studioengineer, #studioOne
I wrote lyrics for Take Away One based on the idea of removing a particular note from a 4-note-chord. This leaves you with a specific 3-note-chord. Hence the name of the song and also the foundation for the original poem. I had to add a verse to the poem converting them to lyrics because for a few weeks one band member or the other could’t make a scheduled music jam. Often three members would drop out one by one leaving me as the only bandmate that made it for the jam! Sometimes we travel and jam in person, but more often we use a program for on-line musicians and connect from our homes. That is how we survived the Covid-19 lock-down.
You will notice the difference right away. This is another example of a song that came together really fast because it was based on a mathematical theme or idea. The chord pairs were based on the idea above, but the progression was completely random. The arrangement was pretty basic so it wrote itself. Once I had the title it was easy to think of examples in life where things get taken away. You’re probably doing it right now.
If you get writers block, try starting from a different point. I’ve never had writers block in my 50 years of writing and recording songs, so maybe I’m on to something.
I had fun with the ending and the arrangement has a few twists as usual. Enjoy Take Away One.
Enemies in your Head MSK 2022
Posted: July 18, 2023 in PoetryTags: #audio, #korg, #korgnautilus, #lyrics, #michaelskennedy, #midicontroller, #midimike, #midimike.com, #music, #musician, #personal, #poetry, #Presonus, #recording, #recordingstudio, #singer, #singersongwriter, #songwriter, #sound
Every decade or so I think I have written the best song I will ever write. Then I get older and write another. That is how I feel about Enemies in Your Head. It is a simple, powerful, emotional and deeply moving piece for me. I recorded the song with a piano, bass guitar and one vocal track. A capsule of desperation and futility. No end in sight. Often the price is paid, though there is no reward.
MidiMike 