Ryan - Week 5

HDCwk5 (WIP) by Ryanimation

Started writing this last night. I've been putting off music stuff for the past couple weeks, but had some inspiration last night.

I was going to export this with a metronome, seeing as I'm all over the place with time signatures. The song bounces around between 4/4, 5/4, 3/4, 9/8 and 7/8. I rather like the 7/8 passage in the middle. If you're not paying close attention, it feels pretty natural for something in 7/8.

Ryan - Week 4

HDCweek4 by Ryanimation

7 1/2 minutes of poorly-mixed, spacey, self indulgent music!

I've fallen behind, and sorta changed the rules for myself. I'm just going to be making music whenever I get around to it, aiming for once weekly at least. I'm just trying to do too much personal work at once.

Regarding the actual song, the main thing loops 3 times. The first time, I play leads as I wrote them. The other 2 times, I'm just playing whatever. I spent more time setting up for this than actually recording.

Well, until next week.

Maybe.

Ryan - Week 3

HDCweek3 by Ryanimation

I was super lazy again, so here's a sloppy recording of a rather Scale the Summit-y sounding part.

Ryan - Week 2

I was a lazypants this week. I made 1 song but I'm counting it as 3 parts because I can and YOU CAN'T TELL ME WHAT TO DO.

HDCweek2 by Ryanimation

Mostly in 4/4 (with a bar of 5/8 thrown in the first part), a bit of polyrhythm in the second part. The 3rd is an alternating 4/4 - 3/4.

Next 2 weeks might consist of similar amounts of content. Work is finishing up, and then I'll probably be free for a little while to catch up.

Tim - Week 2

Hey all! I actually got everything up in a timely matter this week. Nothing crashed, and I had a fairly easy time recording. Awesome.

So A and B could technically be part of the same song. They are in the same key, as well as same tempo..well...sorta. A is essentially chromatic. Starting an octave apart and ending at a major third, the lowest note moves up a half step every bar, and the highest note moves down a half step. It's pretty neat. B is pretty much a straight up heavy metal riff. Actually, kind of reminds me of a mix between Eternal Legacy and Opeth. \m/ Please excuse some of the sloppy playing near the end of B.

C is..well...just C. I don't have much to say about this one, other than the fact that it uses 7 chords. Oh, Joy!

D and E are the complicated ones for the week. In D, the distorted guitar is basically playing in 3, with 8 16th notes at the end of each other bar. The bass is keeping everything moving in 4/4, and the clean guitar is actually playing a mixture of 8th and quarter note quintuplets, or groupings of 5 (like triplets are groupings of 3). The end of it is just syncopated dotted 8th notes with all of the instruments playing the same thing. The entirety of D is in 4/4 time.

E is more like the beginning of a new song entirely (though it's not worked out for that right now). The whole part is written in 5 (starts in 5/4, then moves to 5/8). And then, of course, I had to modulate it toward the end and throw in some syncopation :)

Tim - Week 1

Tim here. After having a plethora a problems with sloppy playing, trying to find a decent tone, and having Reaper crash every 20 minutes, I have finally been able to upload my sick riffage.

A is probably the craziest of the 5. If the guitar sounds off in the right channel, then good...because it's a based off of a looping phrase in 17/16, while the rest is in 4/4. Also, the bass is the only thing in the center channel, and I'm tapping root note octaves with my left hand, and tapping double stops with my right hand. This whole thing kind of reminds me of a mix between Ashes from Pain of Salvation, and Scarred from Dream Theater. Kinda spooky.

B is a just a cool little cheesy, jazzish thing in 5/4 in A major. Yea, I know it's not really metal, but SHUT UP! On the other had, C and D are pretty metal, with D wandering into 5/4 and 6/4 territory. And for E, we got the John Petrucci-esque blues riff to round out the week.

Sorry about the wait. Also, I'm still not crazy about the tones, but metal waits for no man!

Edit: Just noticed one of the guitars cut out in E near the end. I have no idea how this may have a happened, as I did each track in 1 take, and there were no edits. I'm probably not going to fix it, as you get the point from the rest of the riff. I guess this is just proof of the frustrations I had to endure to get my post out to everyone. :)

Ryan - Week 1

Here's my week 1 collection:

Half-Dried Canal - Week 1 - Ryan by Ryanimation

A, B, and C all stem from the same idea so they're rather similar. First one has a little improv lead at the end.

D is a heavier part. It's in 4/4 with a bar of 3/4 at the end. Kinda sloppy, as it's a rather difficult part and I didn't practice it enough.

E is in 7/8. It could technically be 2 parts, but whatever.

Feel free to leave a comment/critique.

Tim should be recording his today and may have them up later.

Half-Dried Canal

Welcome to the metaphorical dilapidated waterway that is the project known as Half-Dried Canal.

In this blog, Ryan Neff, Tim Chimes, and Bruce Vermett will attempt to write (and hopefully record) 5 parts of songs every week.

"But why?" you might ask.

"Because shut up, that's why," we will likely respond.

So keep an ear out for material on a weekly basis. I will have my first round posted sometime tomorrow (Monday), and Tim will have his probably sometime tomorrow as well. Bruce hasn't started yet, so maybe next week for him.

Until then, please wait in a darkened room, staring unblinkingly into your computer monitor, with your browser locked on this page, waiting in overwhelming anxiety for any sign of content.

- Ryan