Do you make music?

March 28, 2020 6:15 PM

Do you have an instrument at home? Or a voice? And a camera or a microphone? Willing to upload to Youtube or Facebook or Vimeo or Soundcloud or your provider of choice and link to it here? Better to be at home sharing music than to be at home not sharing music!
posted by clawsoon to MetaFilter-Related at 6:15 PM (43 comments total)

I just passed my NEPENENOYKA on the shelf

and it's outta tune. I once heard some folks play Bach slightly outta tune and it was, was, so human, ya know, to play Bach outta tune and still make music.

great idea.
posted by clavdivs at 6:45 PM on March 28, 2020 [1 favorite]

Rusty, dusty, outta tune, so shy you gotta hide behind the plants, it's all good! :-)
posted by clawsoon at 6:52 PM on March 28, 2020

Please consider posting to MeFi Music! I'd love to see more people posting there.

I'm hoping to get back into music recording as well. I have a few collabs and non-collabs pending.
posted by rangefinder 1.4 at 7:24 PM on March 28, 2020 [7 favorites]

yes and yes. posted to mefimusic this week (my second post there in as many years...probably on the selfsame guitar strings!). good idea.

haven't been playing much and don't have great recording capability. do have some mediocre piano meanderings already recorded, but they're not great, and tend toward the depressive: i think the most error-free thing i have is a really low recording of the masquerade is over, and i am doubtful it will cheer anybody up. maybe in a sort of point-and-laugh sense. will try to salvage something from the recorded piano noodlings.
posted by 20 year lurk at 7:43 PM on March 28, 2020 [1 favorite]

My partner and I have been writing writing writing like crazy (separately) these past few weeks. He's knocked out 11 songs and I have fewer than that completely finished, but he's a "one-and-done" type writer, whereas I tend to craft/obsess over a succession of days until it's perfect.

I'm sharing a few things over on MeFiMusic, but folks should also keep an eye on my Bandcamp. I've started a new project called Faulty Machine Recordings Service, under which I'll be releasing a new album every month for the rest of the year. I had initially designed it as a low-barrier subscription service, but with so many folks now indefinitely out of work, I decided to make it free. The first installment will be posted for download next Wednesday.

I'd love to see more musical MeFites' Bandcamp pages, if that's a thing we can allow here.
posted by mykescipark at 8:06 PM on March 28, 2020 [2 favorites]

mykescipark: MeFites with Bandcamp artist pages
posted by rangefinder 1.4 at 8:10 PM on March 28, 2020 [3 favorites]

I don’t have any videos or plans to share live streams as the bass isn’t (at least it shouldn’t be) a solo instrument, but I did just upload a new (to you) album to Bandcamp today, & there’s yet still more on our website.
posted by Devils Rancher at 8:27 PM on March 28, 2020 [3 favorites]

ok here's one. thanks for the prompt, clawsoon, rangefinder 1.4 et al.
posted by 20 year lurk at 9:05 PM on March 28, 2020 [2 favorites]

Plateau is the last thing we were working on; we'll see what covid does for the productivity.
posted by aspersioncast at 9:33 PM on March 28, 2020 [2 favorites]

mykescipark: MeFites with Bandcamp artist pages

Oh geez. Thanks for the timely reminder that I never filled out that section of my profile!
posted by mykescipark at 10:25 PM on March 28, 2020 [1 favorite]

If someone will post/send me a structured chord progression / instrumental part with no lyrics (i.e. a "song" with no words), and someone else will give me a topic/suggestion/inspiration word, I will improvise/quickly write words and try to record them with the music track. I just spent a year working on improvising songs in live performance. Now, no performances :<>
I'm not super up on recording into my computer, but I'm pretty sure I have the basics down with Audacity and my USB mic.
posted by amtho at 1:20 AM on March 29, 2020 [2 favorites]

This one is at least a year old, but here’s a 17 song set that my daughter Adora wrote between the ages of 5-9, which were put to music and sung by a folk singer from Indiana.
Enjoy.
posted by growabrain at 1:20 AM on March 29, 2020 [4 favorites]

adorable songs beautifully performed, growabrain. my kid mostly sings about rainbows and poop.
posted by 20 year lurk at 2:54 AM on March 29, 2020 [1 favorite]

20 year lurk, then you surely know this...
posted by growabrain at 3:51 AM on March 29, 2020 [3 favorites]

An illustrator friend of mine is just about to release a book of illustrated poems (the poems are by someone else), and asked me to make music that could be used for an online launch next month. One of the poems turned into a song, which Viv encouraged me to release, so here it is on Bandcamp. The streaming services will follow in their own damn time.

I'm actually busier than when I was able to leave the flat, but when I do have spare time I'm using it to record stuff, so hopefully there will be more releases. There's an album of instrumental music I want to release under the nom du plectrum Trey Fontaine (in the style of this track I posted recently on MeFiMu, which is on reflection neither nasty nor brutish), and will as soon as I've done a cover for it.
posted by Grangousier at 4:31 AM on March 29, 2020 [2 favorites]

Oh! It's turned up on YouTube and Spotify! And presumably all the others. I should have checked that before I posted.
posted by Grangousier at 4:51 AM on March 29, 2020

Well, what the hell - I'll take the chance on connecting my IRL identity with my MF identity.

Here's the EP we released, um . . . . like 4 years ago: Belmore by Fits of Hail

We have a full-length literally literally in the can ready to go and were about to send it out to the pressing plant this month and then, well, you know.
posted by soundguy99 at 7:20 AM on March 29, 2020 [1 favorite]

Yesssss, music. I've been doing very little writing of complete songs but have been trying to make more of a habit of recording voice memo versions of ideas at the piano or roughing out demos of stuff. I keep thinking I should post that stuff to Music as a "hey this is obviously just a sketch" material instead of sitting on it; maybe I'll try to start making a point of that thanks to this.
posted by cortex (staff) at 8:30 AM on March 29, 2020 [4 favorites]

→ mykescipark: MeFites with Bandcamp artist pages

Which misses off former mefites like Music | bgm, unfortunately.

Must dust off the banjo. Been a while since I did a frail and wail.
posted by scruss at 8:36 AM on March 29, 2020 [2 favorites]

recording voice memo versions
that's how i've been doing it, cortex, as i guess one can hear. i'm pretty tolerant of dissonance, and don't mind the aesthetic/ethic (but that's little lurk's mama's comment every time: not a very good recording. quite possibly fairly representative of a lot of casual listeners). greatest drawback: makes it harder to mix with better-produced music. not sure a higher-fi setup wouldn't make me more anxious about slapdash playing and poor singing. been thinking about posting an ask for recording setup suggestions (hate trying to learn music production software) ....
posted by 20 year lurk at 9:24 AM on March 29, 2020

If you have an iphone, I'll say that the iOS Garageband is actually a pretty great little stopgap for phone-quality audio but actually doing some multitrack recording. I'm likely as not to use that to make a demo at this point vs. setting up a proper mic with my laptop. It's nice to be able to layer a few tracks on each other to e.g. make it more workable to get each track sounding less crap and to be able to retake vox harmonies etc.
posted by cortex (staff) at 9:32 AM on March 29, 2020

This song and video were made in my household, but not by me.
posted by xo at 11:31 AM on March 29, 2020 [2 favorites]

amtho: "If someone will post/send me a structured chord progression / instrumental part with no lyrics (i.e. a "song" with no words), "

Some of my stuff on music would fit that description and I would love it if you could add a vocal. This might work, or this. Let me know if anything strikes your fancy.
posted by signal at 11:32 AM on March 29, 2020 [2 favorites]

Those are really nice, signal. I'm going to think about them for a bit. The titles are good starting points, too, I think.
posted by amtho at 12:03 PM on March 29, 2020

Great, I can re-mix things or send you tracks or the logic-x project if that would help.
posted by signal at 12:50 PM on March 29, 2020

I've been making music for years and have released two EP's on Spotify in the last year:

Cosmic Fugue

Most of the tracks are kind of the "lofi hip hop study beats" genre but more electronic with an 80s influence.
posted by mmoncur at 7:16 PM on March 29, 2020 [1 favorite]

I am very very new to the ukulele but am starting to record stuff to keep myself honest. Covers for now. Will check back if I do something good.
posted by wellred at 5:06 AM on March 30, 2020 [1 favorite]

A while back my friend peer-pressured me into playing music with him (I grew up playing piano, but only classical, and I've never sang in public). We have a pretty fun band now! We were in the process of recording more stuff when the world exploded, but here's our first video for our song Chris Allen. Available on Spotify and iTunes and all that.
posted by something something at 8:20 AM on March 30, 2020 [2 favorites]

I've got an instagram where I've been posting acoustic music with vocal harmonies for latter-day Goddamn Hippies, for a year or so. By all means drop by, have a listen, put your feet up, look in the frig, make a sammich. The more the merrier. And are we collaboratin'? I haven't even read the thread yet. If we're collaboratin', count me in.
posted by Sing Or Swim at 6:08 PM on March 30, 2020 [1 favorite]

I'm a classical singer (choral alto, solo mezzo soprano). I don't compose or write songs myself, but I'll find a better microphone if people are interested in some group singing over VC. I have a bunch of a capella music from the late medieval and Renaissance I could share.
posted by 4rtemis at 6:37 PM on March 30, 2020 [3 favorites]

MeMail me if you want to play three-minute-limit "pass the track". You go first, and you can choose between .aiff or .wav or whatever as your preferred "master" choice. I am flexible. The only other rule is, you get only one track to add.

I am sure to fuck this up.
posted by not_on_display at 8:41 PM on March 30, 2020 [1 favorite]

In the spirit of taking my own prompt to post more on MeFi Music, I just posted a synth cover of Make Right the Time (originally written by Danny Schmidt), which not_on_display helped me brainstorm. (hi not_on_display!)

4rtemis, I've always wanted to work with classical-trained singers but my music notation literacy is not great. Let me know if you'd ever be interested in learning/singing something by ear.
posted by rangefinder 1.4 at 1:29 AM on April 1, 2020 [2 favorites]

How do you do this "pass the track" magic? My a cappella group is trying to figure out ways to rehearse during quarantine.

(Also, I am using some down time to learn to play the ukulele, so if I get brave, I'll post a vid...)
posted by blurker at 3:22 PM on April 1, 2020 [1 favorite]

I'd be into some pass-the-track stuff!
posted by cortex (staff) at 7:12 PM on April 1, 2020

Not so much recordings, but I play live piano/harpsichord streams sometimes.
posted by polytope subirb enby-of-piano-dice at 8:15 AM on April 2, 2020

I'm in for pass-the-track. Also, I have a big bunch of songs I've been working on for like a year, and this gives me a nudge to actually start recording and posting them. It's good to see that MeFi Music is picking up a little bit.
posted by umbú at 11:28 AM on April 4, 2020

Also in for pass the track!
posted by signal at 5:39 PM on April 4, 2020

So pass it to me, don't bogart that track... MeMail me for my email address, or to send me a URL linking to a file I can work with.
posted by not_on_display at 5:46 PM on April 4, 2020

> How do you do this "pass the track" magic?

1) Player One records three minutes of music and saves it as an .mp3 or an uncompressed file (e.g. .wav or .aiff).

2) Player One directs Player Two to the track: either sending it by email, or via a URL to a cloud-based server where you've saved/uploaded the track to. (e.g. Google Drive, Dropbox, whatever. Does Dropbox exist anymore?)

3) Player Two downloads the track from Player One.

4) Player two records a track overlaid onto Player One's track, again saving it as an .mp3 or an uncompressed file.

5) Return to Step 2, reversing the roles. Repeat as often as necessary.
posted by not_on_display at 5:54 PM on April 4, 2020

Dropbox definitely still exists, I use it at work all the time & my band uses it to pass things back and forth.
posted by soundguy99 at 4:31 AM on April 5, 2020

Hey, sure, pass that track on over here.
posted by mykescipark at 11:59 AM on April 5, 2020

I just shared something on Mefi Music (and I'm on Bandcamp! check my profile if you are so inclined). The song I posted is part of a musical collaboration with a friend since we are both out of work and not gonna be gigging anytime soon. We have a plan to do several more songs. I'll keep posting them - would also love to see more action on Mefi Music from my fellow musicians out here in MefiLand!

Music has largely been keeping me sane these days while being shut-in. Like another poster above, I'm also teaching myself the ukulele (I'm a singer and bass player primarily).
posted by nayantara at 12:53 PM on April 6, 2020 [1 favorite]

Finally got around to figuring out how to set up my iPhone with two glue clamps and record my first musician-at-home-in-lieu-of-concerts video. I give you Couperin on the harpsichord.
posted by Namlit at 3:21 PM on April 18, 2020 [1 favorite]