DiViNE EViL
Saturday, May 22, 2010
Random Thoughts Squeezed out from Boredom.
From my Facebook notes because I am really lazy.
Because I have nothing else to do while actually standing-in for somebody else's duty for over 6 hours, and I've gotten absolutely sick of Bejeweled Blitz that I've hit 300k about 20 times today already, that I decided to go back and think about what I actually want to do, and that is, produce music.
Armed with only a facebook-accessing computer (because the speed it loads youtube videos is approximately equivalent to the speed of my progress in life right now), what I have left to do I just to force these thoughts to be expressed. Since usually I am so lazy, and that I can probably spend some time sleeping rather than typing, I've decided that with some effort I can actually correct some misconceptions of my own musical interpretations.
It has been four months since I discovered Touhou inadvertently and, as it has always been, a new source of influx of a new style of music has it stuck in my head. Even though the tracks are pretty midi-like, I am quite amazed that, for the work of one person, he can associate a unique piece, yet a rather simple sequence of notes, to a certain character of certain behaviour and values. And that's for over sixty characters I know. Not to mention nearly every of those characters have their own 'stage' theme, which, rather than representing a body or a physical presence, represents a location, scenario, or situation. The style is rather rudimentary, but it grew on me pretty fast. At first some of the tracks sound like a random mixture of notes, but soon they seem to follow a certain recognisable pattern. Additionally, through the process of attempting to play them on the piano, I find that ZUN (the composer/programmer of the Touhou Project) just likes to transpose as he wishes, no matter how sudden it may be. Additionally, nearly all of his themes are in keys with numerous sharps and flats (which incidentally, transpose into keys with even more sharps and flats).
Also intriguing is that how many different unrelated circles actually take Touhou music and remix them. You can virtually find any sort of remix of any of the 60-80+ character themes that is in any type of imaginable style. I've heard rock, vocals (though I've never really been a true fan of vocal music), techno, solo piano arrangements, and even hip-hop (makes me go wtf). It goes to show that there's indeed some sort of addictive basic melody that establishes all these remixes.
It's actually a unique style, that, though it intrigues me to a certain extent, does not warrant the actual desire for me to imitate it. I still appreciate Classical music, of course, and the general musical structure of Queen's songs, but this is sort of a completely new style, isolated from the rest, that's decent as well (don't know about your own opinions). It's a type of music that, when I hear something like it, I'll declare it's ZUN-style (or Touhou-style). The thing about Touhou that attracts me the most is not the characters, not the actual game, but the music, which I accidently came across on YouTube. But believe me, you don't want to see which video I actually encountered. There's a lot that I had to filter through and clean my brains to extract the virtues of what I've come across. But I think I'm starting to move on again. When I lose all the hype of Touhou music, the time to compose will return, as there would no longer be any more distractions again, and hopefully inspiration of new content shall arrive. And then, I shall compose theme music for...whoever I can think of that I know.
Just maybe.
Because I have nothing else to do while actually standing-in for somebody else's duty for over 6 hours, and I've gotten absolutely sick of Bejeweled Blitz that I've hit 300k about 20 times today already, that I decided to go back and think about what I actually want to do, and that is, produce music.
Armed with only a facebook-accessing computer (because the speed it loads youtube videos is approximately equivalent to the speed of my progress in life right now), what I have left to do I just to force these thoughts to be expressed. Since usually I am so lazy, and that I can probably spend some time sleeping rather than typing, I've decided that with some effort I can actually correct some misconceptions of my own musical interpretations.
It has been four months since I discovered Touhou inadvertently and, as it has always been, a new source of influx of a new style of music has it stuck in my head. Even though the tracks are pretty midi-like, I am quite amazed that, for the work of one person, he can associate a unique piece, yet a rather simple sequence of notes, to a certain character of certain behaviour and values. And that's for over sixty characters I know. Not to mention nearly every of those characters have their own 'stage' theme, which, rather than representing a body or a physical presence, represents a location, scenario, or situation. The style is rather rudimentary, but it grew on me pretty fast. At first some of the tracks sound like a random mixture of notes, but soon they seem to follow a certain recognisable pattern. Additionally, through the process of attempting to play them on the piano, I find that ZUN (the composer/programmer of the Touhou Project) just likes to transpose as he wishes, no matter how sudden it may be. Additionally, nearly all of his themes are in keys with numerous sharps and flats (which incidentally, transpose into keys with even more sharps and flats).
Also intriguing is that how many different unrelated circles actually take Touhou music and remix them. You can virtually find any sort of remix of any of the 60-80+ character themes that is in any type of imaginable style. I've heard rock, vocals (though I've never really been a true fan of vocal music), techno, solo piano arrangements, and even hip-hop (makes me go wtf). It goes to show that there's indeed some sort of addictive basic melody that establishes all these remixes.
It's actually a unique style, that, though it intrigues me to a certain extent, does not warrant the actual desire for me to imitate it. I still appreciate Classical music, of course, and the general musical structure of Queen's songs, but this is sort of a completely new style, isolated from the rest, that's decent as well (don't know about your own opinions). It's a type of music that, when I hear something like it, I'll declare it's ZUN-style (or Touhou-style). The thing about Touhou that attracts me the most is not the characters, not the actual game, but the music, which I accidently came across on YouTube. But believe me, you don't want to see which video I actually encountered. There's a lot that I had to filter through and clean my brains to extract the virtues of what I've come across. But I think I'm starting to move on again. When I lose all the hype of Touhou music, the time to compose will return, as there would no longer be any more distractions again, and hopefully inspiration of new content shall arrive. And then, I shall compose theme music for...whoever I can think of that I know.
Just maybe.
