Youtube Videos

I just spent a good few hours last night throwing up a bunch of stuff on youtube in a lazy attempt to grab up some attention. I noticed that a kid who downloaded one of my songs from NG already posted one of my tracks. He gave full credit to me so it's all good... I just wish he linked to the original song file so people could download it :P

I also noticed that he threw Dumbstep into the title. The track isn't a true Dumbstep song because it's in 4/4 but I'll be honest in that the track is heavily influenced with rhythmic syncopations in the synth patterns. It's more of an experimental Dubstep song then a real one. Here's the youtube vid he threw up. He's using an image of Hokusai's Wave print... I remember doing a copy of it back in highschool for some senior project :)

Like I said, I spent a few hours making lazy picture videos. Here's a link to Quarl's music page and here's a link to Laqur's. The Quarl account might not have any dumbstep but it has a few rhythmically inspired DNB tracks. All the song descriptions should include a newgrounds link where you can download the songs by clicking on an icon of a floppy disk. In the words of xKore "Bask in the glory of free music."

Air Guitarist :p

If the last post didn't make you giggle in some way shape or form then this one is probably going to have the same effect on you. As I've been doing this air drumming thing now for a couple weeks I've been thinking "man, it would be awesome if I had someone to pretend to play air guitar with me. Then I could have an air band."

So I shot out a few texts to see if anyone was interested. A friend of mine Andrew Wheeler has agreed to learn the songs and perform with me. He doesn't have a music background that I'm aware of but that's not really important for the performance. I just need someone that's willing to go out on stage with me and have a shit ton of fun.

This whole air performance idea actually reminds me a lot about what I enjoy in music. I started playing drums around eight years ago towards the end of middle school. I picked up the drums because I wanted to have as much fun as possible. Drums just seemed like the most intuitive instrument to pick up and start learning. Because the tones on a drum kit are so specific, you can learn the drums by just listening to other drummers. Unlike other instruments which can feel daunting at first due to the apparent number of notes. Yes, you can still learn melodies by ear, but generally speaking there are 12 tones to try and find a melody within and that's not considering moving between octaves.

The performance might not be the most amazing thing in the world to watch but it's a lot of fun to perform. To me, music should be a fun or enjoyable experience. The experience might be subjective and not enjoyable for everyone but that should be common sense. At this point I would like to challenge any readers to post their opinions on what music is. I don't expect to get any responses but if I do I promise I won't comment on your opinion. Feel free to be as specific or as non specific as you want. If you like lyrics, write it. Are you a man of melody? Go for it. Do you like middle eastern folk jazz fusion when applied to heavy syncopations and fast tempos? Cause if you do, now would be the time to share it with us :p

Air Drumming

So in my adventures to try and find a way to bring the dumb step sound live I've started playing with the idea of air drumming. I know what you're probably thinking "AQLUR! That's a really stupid idea!" Well, to be frank it is. As I have stated this genre of music is called dumb step. We're not trying super hard to be taken seriously and that has led me to start doing performances with just a few drum sticks and an invisible drum kit.

I'm doing this in favor of a DJ set due in part to the nature of the music. Because the songs all move about through awkward time signatures, common DJ mixing techniques such as beat matching doesn't really create much of a flow. A measure in 5/8 won't synch up with a count of 7/8 until around 35 counts which is really inconvenient for phrasing anything that sounds coherent. If I do this air drumming thing I can present the sound work in a way that doesn't compromise the music at all. This method also allows me to have a good amount of fun with the performance which is why I got into music in the first place. When I started drumming eight years ago I decided on picking up an instrument that was stress free, easy and intuitive.

Air drumming is all of that... except it's not always easy. I get really into it actually and I'm usually more tired than I'd normally be on a real drum kit after just a few minutes. Also, some of these rhythms are impossibly hard to try and nail. I'll be posting some videos soon for lulz but for now here's a still from an experimental prototype recording...

A few more peeps make dumb step...

Well, I recently caught a few more people trying out their hands at dumbstep. I'm not sure if any of these people are considering to continue with making dumbstep but I'd feel bad if I didn't post their info here :)

Chromanut

Ian usually goes by the moniker sessilenomad but for his dumbstep alias he's going by Chromanut... which shouldn't be confused with Chronamut; another NG user from which Ian's new name is based off of. We've collaborated before and I have a lot of respect for his work so I'm glad he finally got around to making a dumbstep. It's a short track but it's pretty clean. Click on his name for the song.

xKore

Here's just a little dumbstep experiment by NG user xKore. His work is usually insanely good. I'm not sure if his heart was entirely in this one but here it is. Again, click the name for the music.

Trohn Javolta

Another great anagram of a famous actor. This guy wishes to remain annonymous so I'll just give the link to his song.

In related news I recently uploaded a song to newgrounds that wasn't really written with a time signature in mind. Mid way through the song it sticks to 12/8th notes but for a little while there's some ambience with the time signature. Here's the link.