Travis Conrad » Instrumentationing

Drums & Guitar Test #1

Travis — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 19:18:04 +0000

I’ve been trying to figure out which instrument I want to try the Retail Musical for, just been testing out different combos of things. This one here is;
-piano
-electric bass
-acoustic guitar
-violin
-basic drum kit

It’s not a new groundbreaking arrangement or anything but I think it works. Might need a cello- undecided. Also considering an electric guitar.

-Travis Conrad

p.s. I got a beautiful black Takamine guitar. I’ve named her Ophelia. We’re very happy together.

Space Opera Update

Travis — Wed, 19 May 2010 19:44:53 +0000

So… I’m past the halfway mark towards my deadline, July 1st. I assure you the space opera will be complete! I’ve got the story hammered out, the characters developed and the settings all planned out perfectly. Also; some of the lyrics are finished. Now it’s time to ~~give up and quit~~ write the music.

ACT I, SCENE I.
Dark, cunning, spacey overture wraps up. Johnathon and Raechel Heiloc are aboard the solar cruise ship CASSIRIC IV, orbiting the Sun. They head down to the main observation deck to witness the next wave of solar flares, making their way through the crowd in order to get a view.

It’s short but it gives you an idea of what to expect, music-wise. None of the other songs will be anywhere near this happy sounding, so I have to make sure this one stays bright and optimistic. Contrast is more important than balance. One star against the black night sky can inspire the world. A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. Opportunity is not a lengthy visitor. STARTING NOW I BAT A THOUSAND.

-Travis Conrad

P.S. Working 40 hours a week makes you view your free time COMPLETELY different. Also; I can now identify geraniums, impatients, begonias, salvia, phlox, thyme, sage, oregano, mint, rosemary, hostas, clematises, lilies, blue spruce, mugo pines, boxwood, forsythia, rhododendrons, hydrangeas, lilacs, spirea, japanese maples (common and dragon variety), ivy, saxifrage, coleus etc. etc.

Garageband Test Two

Travis — Sat, 24 Apr 2010 18:35:18 +0000

Test two.
Piano (Orchestra Steinway to be exact).

-Travis Conrad

Garageband Test One

Travis — Fri, 23 Apr 2010 12:24:39 +0000

Got my Mac Mini! And Garageband. Oh frabjous day!

Test one.
Vibraphone, cellos and steel string acoustic guitar.

-Travis Conrad

The Three Month Project

Travis — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 15:20:15 +0000

THE MISSION:

To complete a two-act album musical/operetta in the 3 month span of April 1st, 2010 to June 30th, 2010 (91 days).

THE REASON:

To instil a sense of urgency in my life as a composer. To prove I can apply myself in my craft. To improve and hone my compositional skills. To demonstrate that I can produce high quality work under a deadline. And lastly, to get my name, and the names of numerous talented people I know, out there.

THE KICKER:

If I fail to have the project finished by July 1st, 2010, I will release all the work I’ve done on it into the public domain and never EVER touch it again.

THE LONG TERM GOAL:

Once all the music is composed, this baby is getting produced!

THE PLOT:

The storyline takes place around the year 2150. That’s right, I’m writing a Space Opera (and who can write a space opera without synthesizers?) It’s built around a virtuoso computer scientist and engineer who’s inventions have made huge impacts on mankind, and his dying wife, a brilliant engineer in her own right who has fallen ill with one of the few fatal diseases that science has failed to eradicate. The husband refuses to accept her death and devises a way to copy her memories and entire neural map onto a series of drives; essentially, he creates a computer program that is his wife, allowing her to cheat death.

So if you see me between those dates, and I’m not working on the above project, feel free to kick my ass. If you have any questions or thoughts, feel free to leave a comment.
Also, you can e-mail me using my gmail account: travisconradr

-Travis Conrad

A Harp Seems Appropriate

Travis — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 22:27:39 +0000

So I started working on my elegy composition and I’ve been exploring a lot of different avenues. It has to be well composed, fluent throughout and above all, beautiful. While experimenting on the piano I stumbled upon a melody containing only five different notes, and it was just the ticket. Just the sound I’d been looking for. And it occurred to me, why not make the entire opening using a pentatonic scale?
And so I did.

This is the opening ten bars, it really sets the mood for the whole composition. And I have to say it, I really love the harp as an instrument. It’s perfect in so many ways. I could listen to harp music all day, and I’m sure one day I’ll make a playlist full of it and do just that. So yea, this is the pentatonic harp opening. So lush, I’m very happy with it.

Off to see the Last 5 Years at the Grand tonight. Word on the street is it’s pretty good. I’m fond of Jason Robert Brown’s work for the most part. What I’ve seen of 13 I wasn’t too crazy about but I never really gave it an honest chance. But the Last 5 Years…. so good.

-Travis Conrad

P.S. Tip of the day: Don’t put zuccini… zuccini? zuchini? zucchini? zucchini….. don’t put it in soup. Adds little taste and ends up looking like pickles. #gag

We’re Opening Doors

Travis — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 19:16:49 +0000

Here’s the score I composed for my friend’s short film. The film is called Erin, and it’s a lovely little 5 minute masterpiece.
We wanted to keep the music simple, so I stuck with piano and strings for the majority. ‘Melancholy made Beautiful’ was the theme to reflect the film. Check it out, let me know what you think.

The Beautiful Mean – Opening
Seventh Chord Opening

Motif for a Letter I – Charlie receives the first letter from Erin.
Motif I

Motif for a Letter II – Charlie and Erin’s correspondence / Erin stands him up.
Motif II

Motif for a Letter III – Conclusion
Motif III

-Travis Conrad

Festive Waltz goes Latin

Travis — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 19:36:52 +0000

So lots of exciting stuff has been happening. Between my job going awesomely, the excitement of designing the set for Western’s Big Purple Couch, having my friend’s string quartet learn my rendition of O Canada, running a D&D campaign with some friends and finally recruiting some singers to help me make some demos for Dysfunction, I’ve had next to zero down-time.

Unfortunately, the aformentioned events offer nothing to share on my blog (yet!!), but give it a month and I’ll have real updates about stuff! Big stuff! Cool stuff! Stuff that will make not hate my blog so much! Haha, so as a peace offering, I’m giving you a sneak listen of this version of my Festival Waltz that I’ve been working on. I wanted to give it a latin/blues feel, so it’s got some sax, marimba, pizzicato, bass, lil bit of steel drum. It’s different. Darcy (@darcypatrick on twitter) is trying to convince me to arrange it for string quartet, but we’ll see.

latin waltz

Hope everyone’s summers are going as great as mine.

-Travis Conrad

Some Random Music

Travis — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 15:23:32 +0000

Yesterday I was trying to convert some new songs I have been working on from .midi form (which I do my notations in) into .mp3 files, but the site I normally use (HamieNET) was down.

I was not impressed.

And as is usually the case in these situations I promptly looked for alternative free routes.

And that lead me to the Direct MIDI to MP3 Converter. It may not be free but it’s got a great 30 day trial which I’m VERY pleased with. It comes with it’s own soundfont and makes adding new soundfonts incredibly simple. The sound is crisp and clear which is a huge step forward; HamieNET’s conversions (as I’m sure you heard) tended to get scratchy. Not these. And it lets you control the reverb and adjust individual track volumes as you’re about to convert your files which is just fugging awesome. Needless to say I’m very impressed. It may not be garageband but it’s the best I have to work with right now and it’s a hell of a lot better than what I was using.

So in light of the new renderings at my disposal, I thought I’d share some of my older, pre-Dysfunction stuff here on the ol’ blog. It’s all classical/instrumental ~~shit~~ stuff, so I hope you like it, let me know what you think.

This one’s aptly named ‘Orchestration 4′. Really got the creative juices flowing on that title. This was the first time I ever really toyed around with percussion instruments, as well as weaving motifs throughout a song. SO MUCH fun to write. It’s for strings, harp, glocksenspiel and numerous percussions, along with the occasional orchestra hit.
Orchestration4

This second one is called ‘To London’. It’s a piece I was writing in dedication to my city (here in Ontario, not the one cross the pond). It’s got a bit of a jazzy feel, I was aiming for something kinda urban ~~although I think I failed at that~~. I worked on it for a couple days then got bored so it’s not even close to being finished. It’s for full orchestra.
To London

This final one here was a string quartet piece I was working on called ‘Orsus’, being Latin for ‘a beginning, undertaking, or initiative’. I thought of it as one of the first more serious pieces I worked on, and so ‘a beginning’ referred to the beginning of the wonderful things I would write (roflmao, talk about delusions). It’s very slow and not even CLOSE to being done, but this new rendering sounded amazing compared to the old version so I might just be inspired enough to work on it again.
Orsus String Quartet

On a side note, I rearranged my room last night!!!111!!1!1!! I know you’re as excited as I am. There’s something about newly rearranged rooms that inflicts me with such joy. It’s a sickness really… and it runs in my family. My mom didn’t work on Fridays when I was younger and so more often then not, we’d come home from school and the living room would be turned around or the computer would be in the basement or somehow the couch found it’s way onto the back patio. -sigh- Goooooooooodtimes.

-Travis Conrad

Happy 142nd Canada

Travis — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 07:10:57 +0000

Happy birthday Canada!

In honour of Canada’s 142nd birthday, I arranged O Canada for string quartet. I like to think of it as a birthday present to our great country. The idea came to me out of the blue on my way home from work and it was more or less fully formed upon arrival. Over the last couple days I’ve been getting it all down before it gets forgotten, or worse, tarnished in memory. My good friend Darcy Blinch and his string quartet will hopefully help me make a recording of this for me to share, in the mean time you’ll have to settle for the computer generated version. If anyone is interested in the sheet music just send me a heads up at travis at travisconrad dot com.

Enjoy your Canada Day everyone (and hopefully my arrangement :D ).

This should be a flash object

-Travis Conrad

PS Guess who got Twitter! Some bastard took TravisConrad so I had to settle for TravisOfConrad. It’s the best name that was still available, trust me.