Gruber posts
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In My Melancholy - Sheet Music
Sheet music attached for In My Melancholy! Very happy I was able to FINALLY find a place for it on Songs of the PastI wrote this song around 2014 (I think!), around the time I was teaching myself how to use Ableton. The goal was to write something minimal, using only 2-part counterpoint, pointing and clicking into Ableton’s MIDI matrix.One of the reasons it’s so rhythmically repetitive is because it’s easy to duplicate sequences of MIDI pat...
My Fickle Friend - Sheet Music
Sheet music attached for My Fickle Friend! Out of all the songs from Songs of Past, it’s the one with the most influence from contemporary jazz piano.This song took a long time to write. It started with my “chord factory” in Ableton – a collection of interesting, unconventional voicings.With this factory, I can spurt out random sequences of chords, isolate the ones that are most interesting, and re-sequence them in an interesting way.Afte...
New Release! - Songs of the Past EP
Very excited to announce that my first EP under the moniker “Christopher John” has been released! You can listen on most streaming platforms: Apple Music Spotify Bandcamp“Songs of the Past” is a collection of songs that have been collecting digital dust on my hard drive since 2015. They are songs I wrote years ago, but songs that also have qualities of reflection and remembrance.Though they have been finally realized as piano pieces, they...
Reminiscence - Sheet Music
Attached is the “official” sheet music from my composition Reminiscence (which you can hear on most streaming platforms) Apple Music Spotify Bandcamp
Forest Firefly - Sheet Music
Attached is the “official” sheet music from my composition Forest Firefly - available on most streaming platforms including: Apple Music Spotify BandcampReleasing music with sheet music has been something I’ve been wanting to do since I started releasing music in 2008. With help from Little Symphony Records, I’m finally able to do it! More coming!
September 2022 Gruber Update!
Tl:dr – New releases coming, jazz articles coming, Always here to answer questions and help solve your music problems!--Hey everyone!We got a new puppy! This is Lizzie. 3-pound, 4-month old yorkie puppy.New Moniker – Christopher JohnI released my first track with Little Symphony Records! LSR is a boutique record label based in Canada that specializes in online distribution and “Neo-Classical music.” I’m very happy to have joined their c...
New Music - Dreamers
I love thinking about how different listeners will perceive the same thing differently.How do you hear the first few bars of this song? Where’s the downbeat?One option:Another:Both are correct!
New Music - Drifters
Solo piano with piano percussion and sound design!
New Music - Ward Lock
This composition is all about the interlocking of various rhythmic relationships. The main piano ostinato is written in 5/8, but made ambiguous by the lowest note occurring on the 2nd eighth note. This ambiguousness is furthered with the melody being in 3/8. If I did it right, different listeners will perceive the beginnings and endings of phrases differently!Another interesting thing about the production of this track is the use of “piano as p...
New Music - Pluie Lyonnaise
This is my third rendition of this composition. The original was chiptune and called “Bot Online” from my Pico-8 album The Last Bot.Secondly, Myriad3 recorded it as “Pluie Lyonnaise” from the album Vera (The middle section was rewritten for 6 hands on the piano!)Now, in this version, I’ve adapted it to fit a Neo-Classical style. This is part of a creative direction I’ve been heading since meeting the folks at Little Symphony Records. ...
New Music - Next Time
Years ago, when I was first learning how to use Ableton, I created all of these 2-voice compositions using very harsh square waves. Most of them never left Ableton and remain in my “Sketches” folder.Recently though, I’ve dusted a few of them off to see if I can make them more interesting as piano compositions + sound design. This is one of the more minimalist/ambient ones. It’s mostly stagnant, but has some development in reverb, delays, ...
New Music - Studies in Red Hotness
Heavily inspired by Squarepusher’s My Red Hot Car from one of my favourite albums Go Plastic.Inspired in two ways: first is the general tongue-and-cheek quality of the main theme and groove that starts at 0:20. Whenever I hear the opening minute of My Red Hot Car, I find myself making funny faces and bobbing my head in the most ridiculous waysSecondly is with how drum and bass music is technically created and sampled. I was always curious how a...
New Music - Been Here Before
This is the first "jazz trio" inspired track I've written. I like how it ended up - despite all of the electronic manipulation, it still has a feel of a traditional "jazz ballad."You're hearing acoustic bass, plus brush/cymbal sounds sampled, layered, and looped in various ways. All of these were sourced from various Myriad3 stems that we recorded over the years. (Most of the drums/brush sounds can be heard in the first bi...
New Music – Comfort in Chaos
This track is based on Pico & Chill’s Ambience #3. These Pico-8 ambiences have been really difficult to compose in Ableton. My general workflow for these Pico-8 ambiences follow these steps: 1) Using my Pico-8 sampler, I try to recreate some of the custom instruments in Ableton. 2) I turn knobs to find the best way to develop the idea in a similar way as the Pico-8 version 3) Get frustrated that it’s not working 4) After a few hours, drop the...
New Music – That Place We Go
As I’ve been thinking about “minimalist lo-fi,” I thought about how I could explore more interesting rhythmic cycles.For this track, I transcribed the first track from Dawn of MIDI’s album Dysnomia (highly recommend this album!) The rhythmic cycles are identical, but my track is much slower, uses a simple linear harmonic progression, and has a more traditional A/B song form.Perhaps more DoM inspired music again soon!
New Music – Below, from Above
This track is based on another ambience from Pico & Chill (#2).Generally, the goal of these compositions is to create two different musical zones and travel between them seamlessly. It’s one of the things I learned from listening to r beny’s music: Ambient music can be random and aleatoric, but still have form and development!It’s probably not a new idea, but it definitely makes writing ambient music more interesting and challenging.
New Music – Way Through It
Minimalist lo-fi anyone?The main feature of this track is a sample of a wind turbine that has been separated into three parts: Metallic clicks, high screech pings, and a constant hum.Admittedly, it’s not really lo-fi, I’ve been preferring a more “full” sounding piano, but I’m still hoping it’s spacious, ambient, and CHILL!
New Music – Last Call
Still exploring the lo-fi genre.I’ve never liked thinking and writing based on genre. But it’s going to be necessarily for the next little while as I try to meet and connect with other artists and listeners. It’s also nice to write some music that properly belongs in a certain box.One thing I AM interested in is exploring more “minimalist” lo-fi. More space, more repetitive, more ambient…. Less slick and smooth. We’ll see how it wor...
June 2022 Gruber Update!
Tl:dr – Lots more music coming; Always here to answer questions and help solve your music problems!--Hey everyone,Levi update! – cute as heckMore Music Coming!I’m busy writing music. One of the reasons I’m trying to write as much as possible is to improve my production skills (I think I’ve levelled up my mixing!).Another reason is to clear a pipeline from production to publishing. Ideally, as I produce music, I have spaces to publish it...
New Music – Inside the Lights
This is another ambient track, except inspired by some of the ambient music I wrote for Pico & Chill. I thought it would be interesting to try and recreate some of the tracks in Ableton.This one is based on “Ambient 1.” I went through each of the Pico-8 “instruments” that make up this composition and tried to recreate each of them from scratch in Ableton. In some cases, it was easy to use my Pico-8 sampler. In other cases, because workflo...
New Music – City Kid
Every now and then, I hear music from a movie or show and I say to myself “I could write that!” I make note of it and find it again if I need inspiration.In this case, it was a scene from Euphoria. The clip was only 20 seconds long, so I took the core idea and expanded on it.Chill beat + lofi piano + a synth solo!
New Music – Somewhere Not Here
This composition follows the same experiment as the previous track: listen to something once, write down everything I hear, and then trying to recreate a similar vibe.In this case, it was some Ben Prunty music from his Faster Than Light OST. I don’t remember which track it was specifically, but it was one of the “dark ambiences.”I was curious how one might approach making this, so I tried it. Turns out, you take almost any ambient soundscap...
New Music – But Not For Sza
I’ve been trying an experiment where I listen to a song once, write down everything I hear, and then try to capture the vibe in an original composition.This is based on the song Good Days by Sza. There’s only so much I could extract on one listen, so naturally, the song starts to detour after the first minute. The song ends with a piano improvisation that’s accompanied by audio effects and other electronic manipulation.Using piano improvisa...
New Music – C’est What
More in the lofi vein.I’ve always been interested in how sampling can create staggered, non-linear phrases. So, for this track, I sampled myself improvising at the piano. I created hundreds of ‘piano bits’ and assembled them to create new phrases which are the melodies you hear in this track.Because this was my first time trying this, I definitely spent too much effort creating these samples. Most of these samples went unused. Instead of hu...
New Music – Night Walker
More Lo-Fi!I took a different compositional approach with this one (which won’t be apparent from just listening). I finished reading Making Music – 74 Creative Strategies for Electronic Music Produces where I found a few good tidbits on process: As you develop an idea, you create variations by cloning and evolution. Never delete your variations when you’re first exploring a composition. Having too much material puts you in a better spot for...
New Music – Smooth Talker
Months ago, I discovered Kiefer’s music, which serves as excellent examples of jazz piano + electronic production/composition (probably also categorized under “Lo-Fi” music).I’ve also always been intimidated by sound designing/mixing drums and integrating drum programming into the process. So, I jumped in. My first lo-fi track!
New Music – A Conversation with Time
Another reactive piano! This one is much more complex than the previous composition.This came about by imagining what it would be like yelling in a large space, like a cathedral, but instead of hearing back a predictable echo, you hear back something COMPLETELY different. In this case, it sounds like the piano is conversing with multiple whales.Musically speaking, I realized after the fact how closely the song resembles Kirk MacDonald’s Calendu...
Pico & Chill Animation
Look at what zep did!!This was done for the YouTube release of Pico & Chill.Very thankful for this EXTREMELY cute animation (but also cerebral and self referential right!?). Attached is a Pico-8 cart which accompanies one of the tracks. Will be posting this on the Lexaloffle forums too.
New Music – Out with the Old
This composition is the first in a series of “reactive pianos” I’m experimenting with in Ableton. While improvising at the piano, the MIDI information is being fed into multiple different channels with different instruments and effects on them.This was inspired by this album, Tomorrow is Yesterday by Vardan Ovsepian & HEO where there are lots of conversational interactions between the piano and electronics. “Making conversation” is one ...
The Chromatic Scale and Fingering Maps
In the last few months, I’ve been writing about how jazz pianists play fast runs. This has encouraged me to revisit and update my article on ‘fingering maps’ and how they relate to idiomatic gestures, economical motion, and playing in different keys. The article below is similar to what I wrote in 2018, but with updated reflections on how pianists use spatial/directional relationships, and updated images that better communicate fingering/no...
