Category: electronic

Categories
Demos electronic Quirky Rock and/or Roll

Keep Your Nose to the Grindstone

As followers of this blog know, I am no stranger to ridiculous ideas. Indeed, I am willing to chase a ridiculous idea to extraordinary lengths.

This is one such idea.

When work begins to pile up, I either remind myself of the old adage: Q: How do you eat an elephant? A: One bite at a time. Or I begin to hum a little tune with the words, “Keep your nose to the grindstone.” When my friend, Julie, told me she was “just keeping her nose to the grindstone,” how could I resist providing an inspirational soundtrack for her work?

 

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Art Music electronic

Real Good

Every year for a few decades I’ve woken up early on Easter morning to lead worship. With no service to lead this year, I’ll contribute Easter music of a different variety: “Death Swallowed by the Real Good.” The text was written and narrated by Amy Phillips, interspersed with 1 Corinthians 15 from Eugene Peterson’s The Message. In these poignant scenes from the end of her grandfather’s life, we hear echoes of the pain and brokenness in our own lives.

We could all use a little resurrection, couldn’t we?

(The first version of Real Good appeared in 2009 on this blog; this is a brand new mix of the piece.)

 

Categories
electronic Quirky

Attention

Here’s what happens on a Friday morning when I’ve been trying to load Kontakt all week long, and I open up a new Logic Pro file to verify my failure, and am then led astray by the ear candy of all the interesting instruments that automatically appear in the “electronic” template: Attention.

Categories
Church electronic Psalms

Psalm 23 for a Mid-Life Crisis

It’s my birthday today. (If you’ve forgotten to get me a gift feel free to head over to my Amazon wish list and buy something.) A birthday is a time to remember, celebrate, and look forward to one’s slow descent into a certain death. And for a man of my age, it’s a time to have a mid-life crisis. While I feel no great desire for a sports car, have no need to flaunt death with skydiving, and am entirely happy with my current woman (when my mother turned 40 my father threatened to trade her in for two 20s), I seem to be grasping after youth in a musical way: rap.

A few days ago, I submitted a spoken/rapped version of Acts 1:8 to Faith Alive. They liked it enough that they requested similar treatment of Psalm 23. I was a little reluctant. After all, Psalm 23 is sacred territory. But I gave it a try, and now I’m glad I did. It came out really well (if I don’t say so myself.) So take a listen to the MP3 while you read the lyrics below. Yo, MC G out.

He makes me lie down in fields of green
Walks with me along quiet streams
He restores my soul and gives me rest
Guides me in paths of righteousness
For his name sake and even though I take
A journey to the valley of the shadow of death
There’s nothing to fear, because you are with me
Your rod and staff bring peace and uplift me

There is nothing to fear
Because my Shepherd is near.

You’ve set a table full of good things
In the presence of my enemies
With oil you anoint my head and bless me
And my cup is filled to overflowing
Goodness and love will be with me
Every day I live brings brand new mercies
It will never end, because I’ll be a guest
In the house God forever find my rest.

There is nothing to fear
Because my Shepherd is near.

Categories
Contests electronic

Your Perfect World

Now for something–as Monty Python would say–completely different. Usually I post my own compositions on this blog, but this time I’ll be posting an arrangement of sorts. A remix, to be exact.

You’ve probably heard pop songs that have been released, and then various remixes are issued at later dates–dance remixes, extended club versions, etc. In the world of electronica some artists make their “stems” (raw tracks from the recording) available so that fans and DJs can freely create remixes. One such case is Celldweller, who not only made their stems available online, but are hosting a remix contest.

How could I resist?

You can get a feel for the original song from this YouTube video. Then take a listen to how most people remixed the song–they usually lean a bit heavier toward the dance/techno side of things, but it’s still similar to the original. Me? I couldn’t leave well enough alone. I decided to recast the song as if it were a performance by a band of lounge lizards from the 1950s. Go to the FiXT Remix website where my rendition resides. While you’re there, why don’t you go ahead and vote a bunch of times to bump up my ranking.

Categories
electronic

The soundtrack of success

On Saturday, my wife Amy successfully bench-pressed 125lbs in a competition. I’m so proud. (And relieved: it’s been an intense month of training and dieting.) To celebrate I created a soundtrack for the movie of the lift. No bench-pressing movie would be complete without the riff from “Iron Man,” and no pumped up competition soundtrack is complete without including Queen’s “We Are the Champion.” So I rolled them into one. Check out the video at my wife’s blog: Wait for It.

Categories
Contests electronic Rock and/or Roll

Robot Dance Music

For me, the Calvin Worship Symposium starts with a rehearsal Wednesday night and a worship service Thursday morning. The problem is that I’ve got everything ready to go and now have a full day stretching before me with none of the frantic preparations that have occupied the last month. Yes, there are lots of things I could–maybe even should–be doing. But I decided that it should be fun day. I was going to write a mass for the NPM mass contest, but the chances of me actually finishing that by Sunday are slim. So instead, I turned my attention to the FramesDirect.com Robot Dance Contest. I mean, being a fan of Kraftwerk, how could I resist?

Listen to an MP3 of my Robot Dance Music. I think you’ll agree that it’s chock full of vocoded goodness.

The employees of FramesDirect will make a video of themselves dancing to the winning entry. I’m about to post my entry to their FaceBook page. It would be great if you’d head over there and put in a kind word for my entry.

But wait. There’s more! I’ve decided to make a little contest of my own: The Greg Scheer Dance Like a Robot Video Contest. The rules are simple. You upload a link to a video of you (your family, your Legos, your pet cockroaches, etc) dancing to the above song. A panel of one (me) will judge the best video and send the winner a prize. For those of you who are serious about quality (and you’d better be if you want to make any headway in this contest) you can download an AIF file of the song.

Good luck to all. And may the best robot win!

Categories
electronic Rock and/or Roll

GR Press Phone Message

Last week someone wrote a nasty letter to the editor about a friend from church. It’s a long story, but what it boils down to is that a group of people in Grand Rapids are poised and ready to write mean-spirited letters to the editor of the GR Press any time they read key words such as “evolution,” “homosexuality,” or “President Obama.” But I guess they’re not the only ones who feel they are saving society one letter at a time–I was lured into the fray and wrote what I believe to be a beacon of reason in a turbulent sea of idiocy.

I was pleasantly surprised that one of these folks actually left a phone message for me at the church letting me know just how misguided my letter to the editor was. Really, it ranks up there with being lumped in with Robert Webber and the Antichrist by Jimmy Swaggart’s wife, Frances

In any case, I decided that this little aural work of art needed a frame, so I created a bed of music to accompany her message. Of course, I’ve edited out some of the details like the caller’s name and phone number, but you’ll get a pretty good idea of her rhetoric by listening to this MP3. It will also give you an opportunity to dance.

Categories
electronic Rock and/or Roll

Mind the Gap

My wife’s friend Paula is the founder of Mind the Gap Theatre Company in NYC. Recently she sent out a call for “a sexy cool jingle/ tagline” for their new podcast. How could I resist? After all, I’ve written marches, fight songs, faux soap commercials, VBS theme music and pop songs for girl groups–how could I say no to a sexy cool jingle?

Categories
Art Music electronic

Death Swallowed by the Real Good

An Easter meditation

Words by Amy Scheer
Soundscape by Greg Scheer

In memory of Kenneth J. Phillips (1919-1998)
And with thanks to I Corinthians 15 (THE MESSAGE)

To read “Real Good,” click here.
To listen to it, click here.