Travis Conrad

Some days I wake up with an idea for a song in my head. Literally, these things come to me in my dreams. A couple days ago this came to me, and so I started working on it before it left my mind as ideas often do (opportunity is not a lengthy visitor). The song in my head wasn’t notes or instruments, but senses and feelings. Opening with a rich bright fanfare, followed by a quiet, ever-increasing crescendo dwelving deeper into a misty forest. And at the center of the forest awaits a spectacular marvel, a masquerade in full brilliance. Therein lies the name.

I utilized the glockenspiel and vibraphone combo to keep an ethereal feeling to the piece, haunting but curious. I’m not satisfied with the opening fanfare bit yet, it needs some more attention. This was my first work with brass instruments and I quite enjoyed using them. The harmonics between them are fantastic! After the fanfare there’s some soft strings and a clarinet with bits of bassoon here and there. The music is pretty simple, which I wanted, the depth lies in the richness of the instrumentationing. This is only the first 1:36, visually it takes you to the edge of the forest’s center.

It’s dark and sinisteresque, but not Lovecraft dark, more like…………………… Shakespeare dark………..
Shakespeare dark with pixies. The trees look millenias old, and moss drapes from their ancient branches. It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.

Let me know what you think, and as always, keep in mind it’s just a computer generated version, so there are some limitations to the sound quality and realism blah blah blah it’s better than a midi.

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-Travis Conrad

Now that the big ol’ C-mas is over, I can post some pictures I took of myDecember paintings without ruining anyone’s surprise. I’m going to start with the biggest piece I worked on, a pointillism piece. For those who aren’t familiar with the term, pointillism is done using dots of paint instead of brush strokes. What you get is a completely different type of colour and texture to your painting. Ideally it’s done using a finite number of basic colours and those colours combine in the brain to create more complex colours but I decided to start slow and use a wide palette of paints. If you really want to learn more about pointillism I’d suggest research Seurat, the more or less father of the technique.

In the next couple of pictures you’ll see a timeline of different layers over the same spot in the picture (on the full canvas its about half-way up and too the right).

That should give you some idea of how the painting process goes for pointillism. I always work in layers A) because I used oil paint and it takes a while to dry and B) it keeps the brush cleaner so your dots stay truer to the intended colour without mixing with other colours when you switches between paints.

Expect the final post about this painting within a week’s time. There you’ll be able to see the final painting in full and with some close up shots. Hope your holidays have been enjoyable!

-Travis Conrad

I was fooling around with, wait that sounds kinda dirty, let me rephrase that taking pictures with my camera the other day and snapped up a good picture of my desk, thought I would share my workspace with you. I thought it looked lovely anyway.

You can see my monitor and laptop set up. The laptop is closed here, precious little Acer One, innit so damn cute! Also in this picture; my beloved Santa hat and some painting, for lack of a better word, stuff.

As I’ve said, I’m doing a set of paintings for people for Christmas, and for the biggest one I’m using a technique very similar to pointillism. With traditional pointillism, only basic colours are used, and the eye is meant to blend them which is suppose to make a more brilliant secondary colour. For this painting however, I’m using a wide selection of shades and colours. The main reason is this is my first attempt at using dots instead of strokes, and I had some doubt about whether or not I could successfully pull off the effect. It’s turning out great so far, I’m really happy with it. I’ll upload a picture of it once I’m finished (don’t want to ruin the Christmas surprise).

I’ve taken a couple photos of one very small section of the picture after each layer of colour was added, just so you can get an idea about how the technique is pulled off. Actually apparently the server doesn’t want to upload the pictures right now, so that will have to wait. HRMPH!

Lastly I heard this amazing song at a Sondheim Cabaret that the UWO Music department put on a couple weeks ago. It’s called The Glamorous Life and it’s from A Little Night Music. The girl singing it is the daughter of a famous actress, it’s really rich and a brilliant example of how Sondheim gets into the heads of the characters he writes for. Here’s a clip of Audra McDonald singing it. Breath-taking. Hope you enjoy it as much as I do.

Ordinary mothers lead ordinary lives,
mop the floors and chop the parsley,
mend the clothes and tend the children.
Ordinary mothers, like ordinary wives,
make the beds and bake the pies and wither on the vine.
Not mine!

Dying by inches, every night, what a glamorous life!
Pulled on by winches, to recite, what a glamorous life!
Ordinary mothers never get the flowers, and
Ordinary mothers never know the joys,
But ordinary mothers couldn’t cough for hours
maintaining their poise.

Sandwiches only, but she eats what she wants when she wants
Sometimes it’s lonely but she meets many handsome gallants
Ordinary mothers don’t live out of cases,
but ordinary mothers don’t go different places,
which ordinary mothers can’t do, being mothers all day.
Mine’s away in a play, and she’s realer than they.

What if her broach is only glass, and her costumes unravel?
What if her coach is second class, she at least gets to travel.
And sometime this summer, meaning soon, she’ll come traveling to me!
Sometime this summer, maybe June, I’m the new place she’ll see!

Ordinary daughters may think life is better
with ordinary mothers near them when they choose,
But ordinary daughters seldom get a letter
enclosing reviews.

Gay and resilient, with applause, what a glamorous life!
Speeches are brilliant, if they’re Shauss, what a glamorous life!

Ordinary mothers needn’t meet committees,
but ordinary mothers don’t get keys to cities
Ordinary mothers merely see their children all year,
which is lovely, I hear,
But it does interfere with the glamorous . . .

I am the princess guarded by dragons,
snorting and grumbling and rumbling in wagons.
She’s in her kingdom wearing disguises,
living a life that’s full of surprises.
And sometime this summer, she’ll come galloping over the green.
Sometime this summer, to my rescue, my mother the queen!

Ordinary mothers thrive on being private,
but ordinary mothers somehow, can survive it.
And ordinary mothers never know they’re just standing still,
with the kettles to fill,
While they’re missing the thrill
of the glamorous life.

I fucking loves his rhymes. They roll off the tongue like Sondheim lyrics off the tongue. Wait a minute…………..

Aaaaaaaand anyway it’s 1:11 AM. Great. I have 5 paintings to finish in the next 48 hours (2 are almost done, 1 is about fifty percent and 2 have yet to be started). Why do I do these things to myself? OH RIGHT! Because I’m crazy.

Hope your holiday season is going smoothly!

-Travis Conrad

So I’m working on a musical called Dysfunction with my good friend Sean Kelly. He’s written the book (script) and I’m finishing up the songs. It’s a great story we envisioned about a break-up, and how each person deals with it. The show opens with guy (Cameron) and girl (Kimberly) after a year of dating, which is briefly summarized in a song (Friendship). The song also reveals the bonds between Kim and Cam and their best friends, Natalie and Jusin, and Peter and Ryan respectively. We learn that while Cam is still tits deep in love, Kim is getting bored. Needless to say, the break-up. Cam grieves, Kim parties, both try to move, yadda yadda yadda we introduce Charlotte, who hires Cam’s advertising firm for a project she’s working on. Things happen, events occur, scenarios transpire. It’s an awesome story that gives an adult view on what happens post-love.

Well we came up with the idea in November (I think) 2007, so shortly over a year ago, but at the time I knew next to nothing about writing music. Cart before the horse right? So I took a couple months to learn the craft of song writing. I read through several books on musical theatre, Sondheim’s biography, and a very useful book who’s name eludes me at the moment about orchestrating. I also did a good deal of studying songs themselves, just sitting down and listening. That was probably the most useful thing I could have done. Simply from studying songs I learned to identify the different instruments and percussion in a song, discern the time signature, pick out repeating parts. I learned more just from that than I did from any book. I was ready to rock and roll (and by rock and roll I mean maturely compose subtextful lyrics and professional music).

So we had our story fleshed out, picked out where songs should go and Sean had just finished the script. From about April til June I worked on the lyrics and structure of each song. Lyrics to me are the easy part. Conversation has a natural rhythm and I find sentences flow nicely into song. From there I can build and tweak, but I always need the lyrics done first. There were 14 songs, 10 speaking parts, and a whole new frontier just waiting for me.

Music, it turns out, is slightly more difficult than lyrics. There I sat, with a stack of blueprints, baffled. I’d attempt to start transcribing the vocals in my head into notes on paper. H-A-R-D. Clearly I was more unprepared then I thought, this wasn’t nearly as easy as writing the lyrics. But I kept at it like a dog humping a leg; some days I was the dog, some days I was the leg. I’d scrap half a weeks worth of work and start fresh if I wasn’t happy with it. I kept re-writing parts until they were perfect. Once I had the vocal notes, the music kinda came naturally. From my studying I knew simply having the music accompany the notes was a major faux pas; music had to accent and comment on the lyrics, not echo them. For some reason though, I couldn’t envision the first song just on piano. I tried but it always sounded dull and boring. Everything I read involved songwriters writing for piano first, and then having it orchestrated second, but that wasn’t working for me. So I added in some more instruments (violin, cello, double bass and a glockenspiel) and gave it another try. Success! Like magic the music began writing itself, and every artist will tell you that if a project starts writing itself then you’re on the right track.

Well, that’s the story about the first song I wrote for Dysfunction, called Charlotte My dear. The song is humourous in nature, and is sung by Kim, to Charlotte, in a public bathroom. Dispite me calling it humourous, it’s meant to be sung seriously and the music reflects that. For me, the humour arises in the context of what’s going on, not out of punch lines and jokes and funny rhymes. It has a brief opening where Kim and Charlotte are talking, so I mostly used pizzicato strings to build up some tension. I really do love the sound of pizzicato, always have. I’m still working on recording a version with the lyrics being sung, so unfortunately all you’re getting here is the synth generated song with a synthetic vocal track singing the notes. But that just means you can focus more on the music itself if you’re an optimistic loser such as myself.

I think that should be enough introduction. If you actually read all that, KUDOS TO YOU. 10 points for Hufflepuff!

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-Travis Conrad

Today I was directed to, quite possibly, the coolest thing I have ever seen. It’s a blog (naturally) called AnnaTheRed’s bento factory and it’s about, well, just look.

She MAKES this stuff.... HERSELF!

I would pay good money for a meal this gastronomically creative. Art should penetrate everything like a burly inmate, enriching our lives with culture and insight. Also; IT LOOKS DELICIOUS.

She’s got bento boxes with scenes from Super Smash Brothers, Wall-E, Spirited Away and lots more. Totally cool stuff. I might have to attempt this with sushi sometime….

Luigi and Toad Futo Maki anyone?

-Travis Conrad

So when I started writing music I experimented with a lot of different instruments, time signatures, tempos, etc. Most of the stuff ended up being an abomination to the word music itself. I wept over the utter atrociousness of it. But amongst that sea of putrid audio filth, one piece actually managed to create a pleasant sensation when listened to, and that would be the waltz I wrote, entitled the Festal Waltz.

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It’s written for a string ensemble, harp and celesta over a steadily growing base of pizzicato double basses and a taiko drum. I chose the taiko drum because it has a more organic sound than a timpani imho, but really either would work fine. Do keep in mind it’s just a computer generated version so the strings sound a little, for lack of a better word, synthetic, and the celesta is somewhat more tinny than I’d prefer. But listen, for the love of god, listen and comment.

My inspiration for the piece came from Shostakovich, the Russian composer-god who lived around the time of Stalin. His stuff is so rich in the ear. I suggest you go check him out on youtube. Like…. right now. Seriously go. Go. Why are you still reading this sentence and not at youtube.com? Stubborn bastard, anyway, the Second Waltz and the Festive Overture are my favourites, I really do advise you to give them a listen. I doubt you’ll be unimpressed. Shostakovich has such a way with music, it invokes such emotion, especially some of his symphonies. Powerful, powerful shit. And by shit I mean stuff. Really fucking awesome stuff.

Feedback is always welcome. Let me know what you thought of the waltz or Shostakovich or my new layout or the mess Harper has made of the Canadian government or that salad your sister brought over for your birthday party that had the canned tuna in it which you don’t really like but you ate anyway for your sister’s sake…… Please?

-Travis Conrad

Christmas is coming up at record speeds this year. I’m sure it’s because of global warming. God-damned CO2. Where was I? Right, Christmas. This year I’m doing up everyone a personalized painting. I’m gonna have to bust a nut to finish them in time but Rome wasn’t built in a day. No, it was built in 13 days. Then left to dry for 4. And then wrapped hastily on Christmas Eve. That’s how it goes and don’t even THINK about questioning it.

I’m super excited about these paintings. You have no idea. We’re talking super excited. Maybe even SUPER excited.
That’s right, we’re talking capital letters heading bitches.

Well anyway, here are a couple shots I took of them.

A Cat Named Gary

Center of the Universe

Serenity Field

This one doesn’t really have a name yet. I’ve been working on it on and off for the past couple of weeks months and I’ve really learned a lot about light while working on it. Probably one of my favourites so far. Not that that’s saying a lot.

-Travis Conrad

Now that a couple a good chunk of the songs are finished, I decided to start working on the opening music for the show. What some people might refer to as the overture. Big words, big words, yes I know.

There’s a little over a minute so far, mostly I’m just trying to sketch out placement of motifs and development of the number. I’ve always found overtures to command a high level of attention from me. They are the introduction of everything that’s to come. They can foreshadow emotional movements in the plot, plant seeds that will linger throughout the piece and give your audience a little taste of the buffet you intend to serve them later on.

I opened with the backbone music from Love on piano accompanied by light pizzicato strings, and from there it grows. The Love theme is a major reoccurring element in Dysfunction, each time offering up new lyrics to show the developments going on inside the characters’ heads.

Let me know what you think, feedback’s always appreciated.

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-Travis Conrad

Well I’ve finally caved in and started up a blog. Someplace to keep people updated with my latest artistic endeavours. Now that Dysfunction (the musical I’m composing the music for) is on the home stretch to being completed, I can spend a more time working on paintings. I’m doing up a batch of various styles that I want to have completed by Christmas, I figured they’d make nice gifts for some family and friends. Once we’re into the new year I’m going to look at selling some of my paintings locally and over the interwebs.

That’s about it. Don’t want to overwhelm it with the first post. Blogging is serious business after all.

-Travis Conrad