videogame developers go here first!

oy vey!

So my brother-in-law, Shannon, goes and buys a really nice soundcard for his computer and invites me to taste the difference. My jaw hits the floor as real instruments come charging out of his speakers, instead of the cheesy, crappy, dinky little instruments I get on my computer. Imagine my pure delight as I sit down to load my original compositions into Shannon's computer, expecting to hear them at a level of magnificence my computer can't even contemplate.

Now, imagine my horror when over half of the buggers sound worse.

Since they were designed to sound good on a really crappy soundcard, I discovered that many of them were really out of balance on a good soundcard. Way too much in the drum department. Also, some of the instruments were so different on Shan's 'puter that it turned what I thought were well-chosen instrumentations into a big mud bath. Ewww.

After screaming and clawing at the screen for several minutes, I began the arduous task of remixing and rescoring those midis which really needed it. It took a long time, but lo and behold, the new versions sounded wonderful, making the effort worth its weight in sonic gold.

I can't guarantee that the remixes will sound good on every soundcard. But for those of you with high-quality cards, they should sound better than before.

a few words about the composer

I used to think music composition would be really hard and require a total grasp of music theory and a degree in music composition from a respected university. But you don't need all that stuff. Just shove a whole bunch of notes into an electronic score and listen to the result. If you like what the notes do, keep them and play around with them, and if they offend you, trash the bastards.

My compositions can roughly be divided into two categories:

• Wow, isn't that pretty!

• Holy god, this guy's insane!

My midis are in reverse chronological order. This means that as you scroll down the page, you're actually traveling backwards in time.... Just promise me you won't be tempted to press the history eraser button.

• fortune's fool (1-24-99) - boys and girls, here's your lesson for the day: don't ever, ever, ever call an ex-lover in the hopes of getting back together, especially when the relationship ended a year ago. As a public service, I have composed a pleasant little ditty to show what will happen to the inside of your head if you make such a mistake. Warning: this file is huge (261 K). Also, I would encourage you to keep your finger on the volume control so you don't blow out your speakers. I won't be held responsible for any equipment or emotional damage that comes from listening to this...thing.

• a pack of blessings lights upon thy back (1-20-98) - a very happy song, with a blatantly Zappa-inspired middle section

• lament (1-20-98) - I wrote this several months ago, but I didn't like it at the time. Now, I do.

• existential crisis, stage right (12-22-98) - I started this several months ago and just now finally got around to finishing it. It's kind of a mushing together of progressive rock, atonal jazz, and metal. It's also the first of my compositions tailored to the sonic requirements of a really good soundcard

• must...climb...stairs! - dedicated to all those moms out there who have insanely hyperactive babies. Good videogame music too, if ya ask me

• heart-shaped bodybag - progressive, cool, and pretty...what more could you ask for?

• ricecake liferaft - I'm guessing they're not going to reach the shore

• exploration, not conquest - could easily be a theme song for an original series on the SciFi Channel

• fugitive from the water gestapo - you can't escape from the ruthless agua junta, don't even try

• elusive as robert denby - title taken from the Mystery Science Theater 3000 episode "Riding With Death," music taken from the troubled waters of my brain

• tirnanog - I started writing this simple pop song in the last band I was in, which was so short-lived we never even had a name. I got as far as the verse when the band broke up, and I shelved it until recently. To the best of my knowledge, the title is pronounced "tee-AIR-nah-NOG." It's Celtic, and means "Land of Youth"

• splunge - a strange collaboration between me and my brother. He's a great guitarist, but he has little interest in midi, and consequently his midi style is a lot like Jackson Pollock's art: aim at the canvas and fire away. I was listening to one of his totally insane splatters one day when part of it caught my attention. It had an air of funkiness about it, and it cried out to be used. So I cut and pasted it into a new score, repeated the snippet over and over again, added drums and a bassline, a chorus and a bridge, and volià! The title comes from a Monty Python episode where a quick-thinking studio lackey saves his job by inventing a word that means "whatever the boss wants"

• i not human - okay, I came home from a really stressful day at work, see? Rather than wreak physical violence on a piece of furniture, I decided to create a midi so bizarre that even people who like to listen to bizarre things will go "NO! It's too much!" Unfortunately, I got a little distracted, so it's not quite as bizarre as I'd hoped. But if you don't get a belly laugh or two out of it, there's something wrong with you

• space porn - this used to be named after my baby niece until my brother-in-law pointed out that the new version sounds like something you'd hear on a late-night soft-porn movie...oy vey!

• teletubbie funk-a-thon - look, just clean up the damn tubbie custard, NooNoo

• shipwrecked on the eastern shore - a eulogy of memory

• they say it gets easier - a bit sad, with joyful interludes

• 11.82 seconds of good, wholesome family entertainment - they must be watching the Family Channel

• insane is not a verb - another one of my heavily layered pieces...you'll either be entranced or annoyed

• vadinho, are you an onion? - the title of this groovy tune was shamelessly lifted from the Mystery Science Theater 3000 episode "Puma Man"

• neener neener - ladies and gentlemen, I present my first midi composed since I accidentally discovered how to make notes bend on NoteWorthy Composer. I can't believe it took me this long to figure out. Oh well. I guess you can expect that my midis will get exponentially weirder

• botticelli's jelly botty - the title was inspired by a bit of dialogue from a Young Ones episode where Rick tries to get everyone to play a game:

  RICK: Oh, come along now. What about Bottcelli, where you have to guess the identity of the famous person?

  VYVYAN: What about Jelly Botty, where you have to eat 18 curries?

• i must have baroque the handel - writing these kinds of pointless Bach-esque pieces is really fun

• noyesnoyesmaybe - fairly sweet pop-type tune, no major surprises

• losha - pronounced LOW-sha. It means "the ugly one with the jewels," which is the title of an album by performance artist Laurie Anderson, wherein she tells the story of how she got the name Losha from a tribe of Native Americans that her brother, an anthropologist, was studying.... None of this has anything to do with the piece. I just thought "Losha" sounded cool

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Jeremy Jacobs

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