Korg Monomania Monotron Contest!

It's been a while since I've posted about music, but I've been busy making a lot of it. Right on the heels of finishing up this year's Christmas album, I decided to stay on the music-making path and make some more. The music I've been coming up with has a very clear experimental electronic flavor, although I guess to some extent most of my stuff could be called "experimental."

Either way, so far I've got 11 tracks almost ready to go. I'm hoping to "release" (post to the internet) the album before the end of the year. Most of the tracks were created with "found" sounds I recorded (like the sound of a construction site jackhammer or the escalator at J.C. Penny. Most of the tracks are also pretty weird, even for me. I've been primarily working on these tracks while commuting to and from downtown, so in some ways this album won't be a "studio" album, it will be a Metra commuter train album.

A few weeks ago my lovely wife Claire told me about a Korg Monotron song contest. Yes, this is the same wife that regularly suggests I go fishing on weekends; i.e. a great wife. I thought it was cool, but didn't really think about entering.

Last night for some reason I went back to the contest site, read the rules, and listened to some of the winners from the Japanese competition. I expected to hear some completely amazing stuff, and although there was some very nice monotron playing there, it really didn't seem like many people were taking full advantage of all the sounds the monotron can make, especially when paired with a capable workstation like Ableton Live. I also checked out the prizes page, and when I saw the 24-karat gold-plated monotribe and silver-plated monotrons, I knew I had to enter.

Gold plated Monotribe

Reading the competition rules, I realized I already had a piece of music composed entirely of monotron, that also happened to be shorter than the 2 minute maximum entry length. Sweet! It was a track I made almost a year ago after I got my monotron for Christmas- I popped it into Live, did some quick remixing, and quickly posted it to YouTube.

Then I sat on the couch, opened my laptop, and began playing my monotron into Ableton Live. After a few short hours, I had a 2 minute piece of pure monotron music. Although it may sound otherwise, every single sound in the track was created using the monotron, through extensive editing, repitching, and some other secrets. It's amazing how voice-like the monotron can sound with some nice reverb (toward the end of the track). I'm pretty happy with how it turned out!

I will definitely add that to the track listing on the upcoming album. Although it would super amazing to win something for playing around with my monotron, I don't really know what my chances are, or even what the judges are looking for. I just did my thing, and they can take it or leave it. Either way it was a fun little evening project, and another addition to the new album.

Entries are due by January 1, and they'll announce the winners (1st, 2nd, and 3rd places I think) on January 6. If you happen to have a monotron, you should enter too! I know for a fact at least one person is getting a monotron for Christmas (I'm talking to you Dan Kramer), and a monotron piece would be worth major extra credit in my class... Just sayin'....

Change of seasons

As you may have noticed, I haven't been fishing much lately. It's been cold, and the past few times I've been out haven't been especially productive.... Or comfortable! I waded the Desplaines last weekend, and although it was nice to wade, the water was ice cold and the fish weren't biting. I don't have fancy neoprene waders; my sweatpants and thin waders were no match for the frigid water. Especially when I went deeper....

The other day I stopped by the retention pond for one last hurrah. It was freaking cold out, but I managed what is probably my last bass of the year! On a homemade lure, no less. Those black fury knockoffs I've been making work pretty well. So far I know they can catch catfish and bass.

Notice the awesome hat- it was very cold that day

So far pretty much every post here has been about fishing (it's called "CB Fishes" after all..) but there is a subtitle in there: "...and cooks and makes music and stuff." I've posted a few recipes, and mentioned my music making in passing, but for the next few months I will probably be posting more about music and food than fishing. If all you want to read about are my misadventures in fishing, don't worry! Whenever I head out to wet a line I'll post about it, but realistically it probably won't happen much for a while. Come Spring, I'll be flooding the internet with novel-length fishing entries once again. I'll be making lures throughout the cold months, so I'll post about those adventures too.

So I've been changing gears, from one obsession to another. Fishing is a relatively new thing for me- as you can tell by my posts- but music as always been my main obsession. Before I had a full time job with downtime used exclusively for fishing, I was a freelance gigging musician/composer/whatever. Every moment of my time was spent thinking about music, practicing music, trying to get gigs, and making music. Since I've been gainfully employed, I've discovered the joy of hobbies. When my income depended solely on my effort, I had no time for non-musical endeavors.

Now that I don't make my living making music, my music-making activity comes in spurts. Right now I'm transitioning from obsessed-with-fishing season to obsessed-with-music-making season. The timing works out well; for the past two years, I've been releasing a freely-downloadable Christmas album. My lovely wife suggested I do it, and what a great idea it was.

If you feel like getting in the holiday mood already, you can play the previous two albums right here. If you like them enough, you can download them too!

Last year's:



The original, from 2009:




Lately I've been playing in Ableton Live, working on some holiday songs, sampling instruments in my garage, playing with Kontakt, my Korg Monotron, and generally being obsessed with music and music technology. Normally all this stuff happens in my headphones, and I'm pretty much the only one who hears most of this stuff (besides my students, who are occasionally forced to listen to my most recent creations).

Now that I've got a blog, I plan on sharing details of my musical adventures just like I've been sharing my fishing adventures. Fall and Winter are actually my favorite times to cook, so I'll also be posting lots of recipes. I've got a Bell's Brown Ale beef stew recipe to write up, as well as one for slow-cooked ancho chile pork. And one for Beckstrom Molé...