New Song: (KP1-11.2) Scrub Your Mind, original composition by Kevan Paul

Click to Listen:


This new song was recorded over the last week with the attempt to develop a song form similar to a Sonata form. The piece begins with a solo Electric-Violin with "ambient" reverb and echo (delay), that is very free-flow and melodic, then moves into a rhythmic dance with violin "jam", and finishes with highly modified violin-turned-electro added to pulses of synthesizer patterns with various voices. The "highly modified" violin track would not be recognized as a violin, but gives a unique tone that would also not be recognized as a sythesizer or midi sound either.

The purpose of this piece is to express the different aspects of the electric-violin experiments that I am engaged in; the inclusion of modern free-form ambient instrumentals, straight-up dance rhythms, and electronic analog-to-digital-constructions, are all elements that I want to continue to explore in upcoming music albums. I have a great desire to take some familiar music (such as Christmas songs), and create an album with these combined musical elements. I'm leaning towards a Christmas music album for my next solo instrumental project (hopefully done before Christmas of this year).

The tools that I have been working on this week are Widisoft v1.21 AU - Analog-to-MIDI plugin, and G7 (by Sibelius). I've been having a terrible time with Garageband freezing up, but I finially realized that I only have 1GB of RAM in the Powerbook G4 1.67GHZ that I'm trying to use. This is at least upgradable to 2GB; so I'm now focused on getting this upgrade to see if it helps with the Garageband issues. I don't dare try using other audio tools yet, if I can get Garageband to behave, I'm sure it would be worse to try to use LogicPro, or CuBase (plus I don't know how to use these applications). I'm slowly getting more proficient in the recording process that I'm attempting to define, but I want to take a step-back from the technology "tweaking" and find a good balance between the development of musical ideas and the necessary technical precision.

I've been doing research on the Creative Commons licensing process and will place all of my original recordings and music-videos with a Creative Commons license to allow others to freely distribute and use as long as attribution is maintained. This may not be significant for the first "album" of music presented on this blog, but moving forward into the next few years, I plan on distribution of the music via the JAMENDO website. The JAMENDO site is dedicated to the Creative Commons method of distribution. The recent release of the RADIOHEAD album and music video with a Creative Commons license indicates that this will be moving into a mainstream media distribution mode, and hopefully there will be a convergence of traditional corporate media and creative individuals where the two parties can mutually benefit from the creative process (i.e. share-the-wealth) without being encumbered with copyright litigation. All of my projects will be allowed to be licensed for commercial purposes with the open-contract for mutual benefit, and I will do everything I can to stay within the boundaries of the Creative Commons licensing process and give credit to others whose material I reuse to the purposes of music and art development.

The whole album "Healing, Again, Forever" will be available on JAMENDO for download in about a month.

I'm also planning on a corresponding YouTube music-video for each song that will include as much photographic and graphic data that I have produced, as well as anything that I can find via a Creative-Commons license to remix and give credit to the author; this will hopefully build some bridges toward collaboration -- which is the real goal for this project.


KP1-11.2 Scrub Your Mind by Kevan Paul is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

Sacred Music (KP1-8.5) POSTED to YouTube

Sacred Music by Kevan Paul is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

Pandora Playlist for "Neo-Classical Fusion Radio"

Playlist for October 15 - Pandora Playlist for "Neo-Classical Fusion Radio" (see link to listen).
1- Breath of Passion by: Zingaia on: Musical Healing
2- Wine of Alugah by: Therion on: Live Gothic
3- Dancing December by: Katatonia on: Dance of the December Souls
4- Autoregistratzionecx by: Frabrizio Leo on: Cutaway
5- The Jester's Dance by: In Flames on: The Jester Race / Black-Ash Inheritance
6- China Gates, For Piano by: John Adams on: Various Composers, Piano Music of John Adams and Terry Riley
7- Symphony No. 4 ("Heroes"), For Orchestra by: Philip Glass on: "Heroes" Symphony
8- Marimba Dances (3) for Percussion by: Ross Edwards on: Evelyn Glennie: Light in Darkness
9- The Pines of Rome, Symphonic Poem, P. 141 I. on: Ottorino Respighi: Fontane di Roma
10- Free Life by: Dan Wilson on: Free Life
11- Language of Fools by: Tom McRae on: Tom McRae
- good use of string section fills
12-

New Song: (KP1-8.5) SACRED MUSIC (LONELY NIGHTS), composed and arranged by Kevan Paul

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This song came from a combination of several ideas. The first element was a riff that I kept hearing on the guitar and wanted to incorporate. The second element was the flute and drums as the basis of sacred music for native cultures, especially natives of North America. The third element was finding a process for gathering the melody and chord structure together. The first and second elements were easy because I already had some melodic content in my head that I wanted to develop -- especially the flute and violin trading melodic lines.

The title was changed from "Lonely Nights" to "Sacred Music" during the course of the week that I worked on this piece. The intent for the first title was a reflection of the idea that for someone to produce something on a creative level, there needs to be often lonely and quiet moments in time that allow the mind to assemble and "get-in-tune" with the ideas that are getting the "creative-attention". Then yesterday I heard the quote that "music is love, looking for expression", and I wanted to change the title to reflect that music can be a sacred experience, and can have great healing strength. This is in keeping with the theme of this album of songs. If there needed to be a sub-title, it would be "Lonely Nights", as I think back to all of the time that I've spent in my life practicing music, reading, thinking by myself at night. This is a necessary sacrifice, as I do not have the luxury of being able to go to work everyday as a musician --- my music must be attended to at nights and on weekends. For me, "sacred music" and "lonely nights" go hand-in-hand.


The third element of composition process was the hard one. I have tried several software tools in the course of the last week working on this song, but so far I'm not coming up with a process that works for me. When a composer starts with a melody, the chord structure can be a stumbling block to getting the musical ideas written or recorded. When learning someone's song, it is easier to dissect the chord arrangement as a first step; composing seems to be a bit different than that for me, but I want to follow correct musical principles of arranging the chord progressions, etc. I will continue my investigation into finding the right mix of tools and processes to help me build the original songs and compositions that I want to produce.

Remix Song: KP1-7.2 MEDICATION, by Son Volt; mandolin and violin added

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This song by Son Volt represents the Alt-Country style, which Son Volt was considered to be a pioneer. The live-version of the song has a longer grundge guitar jam; this version has a more interesting slide-guitar part. I added a mandolin part with a sizzle, and the electric-violin on a preset from the Digitech GNX-4 that I called KIVEBOMB, which makes the violin sound like a mellow electric guitar.

The theme "medication" has a meaning of a blessing and a curse. Modern-Medicine indulges in medications for every symptom. Some medications are essential for life sustaining, such as insulin, blood-pressure pills, etc., but other medications seem to get in our way of progress, and we find out later that the side-effects of many medications result in legal law-suits, lost time spent on hope for relief of our symptoms, and in the end, dis-satisfaction by all involved. The mystery of the brain still eludes the treatment for many of the symptoms that we are plagued with. Healing sometimes requires medication -- let's hope we can find the correct ones, as we learn more about the mechanism of the mind and body interaction.

New Song: KP1-6.2 SOLAR ENERGY, composed and arranged by Kevan Paul

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This song is written in a traditional jazz idiom, so it reflects a style developed well by Jon Luc Ponty, Regina Carter, Charlie Bishart, and other great jazz-violinists.

The song title "Solar Energy" reflects the flow of the song, from slow sunrise, to intense noon-day sun, and final sunset. The use of the sun for our daily energy needs is available to all humans on the planet. No more excuses for not building the infrastructure to support this process. We all need to be solar-energy pioneers right now! This is my anthem to that process.

The use of the midi-converted violin melody provides the basis of the synthesizer effects. I started working on this piece in August, but it was not developing as I wanted. Yesterday, it seemed to come together, and the last violin track I used was not edited at all -- this could be considered a live performance from that perspective. No recording tricks on the violin --- that's the real deal.

Remix Song: KP1-5.1 RIVENDELL, by Rick Wakeman

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This song is short and sweet. I wanted to add violin to this song to demonstrate how acoustic piano and electric-violin work so well together, and move beyond the "classical" music cliches when other sonic elements are added. Of course Rick Wakeman and YES have been doing this for decades. YES has always been one of my favorite bands and I was listening to them extensively when I was a senior in high school (along with Led Zepplin, Moody Blues, etc.).

I recorded this for my brother Rex, as I am anxious to work with him on performing with him in the same style - acoustic piano and electric-violin. He mentioned that he wanted to learn to play the dumbek drum, so I thought "why not add the ceramic-drum sound to this piece?" If you read this brother, I hope this motivates you to find a piano and call me.

This song was re-mixed from the Rick Wakeman album "The Lord of the Rings". Rivendell means the "deep valley of the cleft" (see Rivendell in WikiPedia), and was the valley that Bilbo Baggens stopped with the dwarves before going to the Lonely Mountain. In this case, we are coming back from the lonely mountain, and are traveling back to the mythical "home". I love Rick Wakeman's work, and would like to add electric-violin to some of the other solo pieces -- although I find solo piano soothing, it always beckons me to add violin to it.

Although this is a short piece, it took me all day to rehearse and edit the violin tracks. Rick Wakeman is absolutely masterful on piano, and I wanted to be as precise as possible with this piece --- I would love to perform this live.

Thanks for everyone who has listened to these songs -- there will be about 15-20 songs posted by the end of November, 2008, so keep coming back for more musical analysis, comments on home-recording techniques, and electric-violin experimentation.

Remix Song: KP1-4.2 Baal T'Shuva, by Michael Hedges

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This was another Michael Hedges solo track from the "Beyond Boundaries" album. I didn't know what the title meant, until I looked it up on WikiPedia. The phrase means "He Who Has Repented", but I don't know what the reference is as far as why Michael gave the song that title.

The title seems appropriate to the message of healing, especially spiritual healing. Repentance can be a very emotional and painful experience, but the after-effects are a feeling of relieve and composure. There is so many moments that need reflection and repentance, For me, I want to repent from procrastinating this recording project --- I started this project last winter, as far as the concept, and the methods of recording. I'm not really sure why it has taken so long to get the project going to do the actual recording and editing, but I have no more excuses.

As I was playing through the song, I kept hearing allusions to the Hallelujah hymn that is sung at Easter time, I don't know if this was sub-conscious or not, but I echoed the allusion in the violin part.

I love the way the guitar sounds (hopeful, full), and this was main reason for choosing this track to add violin and percussion.
Upon request, I've added another link to this song provide connectivity via viddler.

New Song: KP1-3.2 MOVE FORWARD, composed and arranged by Kevan Paul

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"Move Forward" is an original composition based on a violin theme that has been going around in my head for about six months. The addition of the 104 beats-per-minute drum track gave my original version of the theme a whole new feelling, and I just went where the rhythm wanted to take me while trying to keep the run intact.

I was desperate to find some guitar samples to go with this, but I had to settle for the cheesy GarageBand sample loops for lack of a better option. The intent was to give it a sporadic "heavy-metal" sound in certain sections to give the impression that sometimes you have to just "grind it out" and keep moving forward regardless of the circumstances or how many people are expecting or predicting your failure. When failure is not an option, this is song that I want running around in my head. I had recorded this song last Sunday, and had it running in my head all week. When I get the chance, I want to re-record the guitar tracks with my own electric guitar or from a friend.

The primary violin part is going through the DigiTech GNX4 with IPS (Pitch add = 4th Up). This may seem a little "bright", but I wanted the theme to stand-out. I can't remember what the RaySpace settings were, but this was the first song that I applied RaySpace to after I bought it online from QuikQuak.com,

The recording isn't as perfect as I would like, but the artistic intent is representative for what I was trying to achieve.

Remix Song: KP1-2.2 Rickover's Dream, by Michael Hedge

Click to Listen:


This song is a "re-mix" from a solo guitar recording by Michael Hedges, on his "Beyond Boundaries" album. I added original violin parts that I feel adds a whole new dimension to the song, as well as the synthesizer percussive effects that give the song the "dream-like" essence that keeps true to the title that Michael gave it.

The violin part was essentially a one-take improvisation, with mild editing (I did not hear too many weird notes), and the synthesizer track was deliberately random to give a sub-consciousness effect of the Rapid-Eye-Movement phase of sleep (when the dreams occur).

Dreams are an essential part of daily healing, and the reason I selected this song via the title and ability to add violin tracks (one with dubbing to a second track for the runs and fills).

I can't remember the synthesizer settings or the DigiTech GNX4 settings that I used on this song, so I hope I can replicate if I need to someday. I'm going to use the blog to keep better record of the settings for future reference.

New Song: KP1-1.4 TOUR de FRANCE", composed and arranged by Kevan Paul

Click to Listen:


This song is an original composition based on creating a feeling of progression and freedom at the same time. The title and content was inspired by the band Kraftwerk who created a song about the Tour de France. This song becomes a natural addition to an album about healing, as Lance Armstrong is a perfect example for the difficultly in healing and how hard work and effort can make the body and mind stronger and overcome adversity and impediments.

Note 1:
The song cataloging system that I'm using to keep track of the mix-downs that I like is the reason for the numbering in front of the song title. KP1 refers to this first recording project, the 1.4 indicates the first finished song, with the fourth mix-down as the preferred track. As time goes on, I may post all versions of the mix-down and let people vote on the one they like best.

The Analog-To-MIDI Odyssey:
There are elements in the song that come from the attempt to convert the analog signal from the violin to a MIDI file using the WidiSoft Analog-to-MIDI-AU (MAC Audio-Unit) plug-in, but I was using the demo version of the plug-in and would only get 15 seconds of data with 30 second gaps in-between. This actually turned out to be a good thing, because the default settings of the plug-in produces too many data points, whiich totally choked the GarageBand application on the MACBOOK. I tried to match the MIDI file with the time-line, and then cut-out the blank spots, then attempted to change the MIDI instrument to something with synthesizer strings to make it sound "electronic" on purpose. This was not very successful; I actually recording the first takes in August, but tabled the recording. I pulled it out again for this album project and tried to cut-out the parts of the violin jam that seemed annoying to me. I never could get a clean play-back before October 1st, because of all the extra MIDI notes that the MAC could not process fast enough, but then I finially found out that I could lock all of the tracks before play-back and this would limit the processing power needed. This saved this song from the scrap-heap.

I added the diffusion pitch-bend of the RaySpace plug-in to the primary violin track, but this seemed a little overwhelming. One of the violin-to-MIDI samples were interesting enough to convert to a Fretless Bass part, and another was converted to a synthesizer-Cello-Ensemble-with-Trills. I still thought the piece sounded too busy, until I accidently muted the primary violin track on mix-down attempt number 4 --- this yielded a version that I liked because it allowed the MIDI-modified parts to be heard, I had lowered the bass track(s) volume, and the RaySpace pitch-bend was kept on one of the tracks.

I hope to purchase and learn how to use the WIDISoft plug-in better, but the sampling I did taught me that I need a lot of time tweaking the sensitivity and polyphonic settings to get the right amount of sampled data-points. This idea of analog-to-MIDI conversion has been attempted by me before by playing through the Vocorder option on the Yamaha PSR-740; with similar mixed results (not optimal). I never recorded any of these experiments, but I am still looking for the analog-to-MIDI option. I know Barcus-Berry has an electric-violin that has a MIDI output feature, but I'm trying to find my own alternative until I can afford such an instrument.

Back to the song:
The end-result is a composition that gives me the feeling that I'm riding in the middle of the Tour de France Peloton with the whirring of the wheels, and the constant uphill climb characterized by the ascending violin parts. Overall this was a satisfying experiment in using the sound modifications to the violin track and then having fun with mixing other rhythmic elements. And I love the RaySpace reverb tool for giving the violin the natural ambience that it needs to sound like a Stradavarius in the concert-hall! You'll hear what I'm talking about later when I jam with cello tracks from Yo-Yo Ma's solo cello recordings.

I think I got the French sound right, as I just listened to a song on Pandora called Belle, by Alif Tree, from the album French Cuisine that has a similar mode, melodic line movement, etc.
http://www.pandora.com/music/album/alif+tree/french+cuisine

Self-Produced Recording Project of Electric-Violin Music

Announcement of a Recording Project to be completed from October, 2008 to December, 2008
Self-Produced by Kevan Paul
Recording at home-office studio in Payson, Utah, USA.

The goal of this project to produce a prototype or concept album of music to demonstrate unusual or interesting ELECTRIC-VIOLIN techniques, styles, and sound enhancements.

Title of Album: HEALING AGAIN, FOREVER
Genre: Jazz Violin, Neo-Classical, Cinematic-Rock, Orchestral-Pop

Reasons and Motivations for the Project:
I have been experimenting with electric-violin "sounds" and analog-to-digital sound effects processors for several years, and have recently been motivated to produce something different in terms of my musical output. I have been performing with several "western and folk" ensembles for the last ten years, as a chance to perform violin music whenever and wherever I can from a local performance perspective, while maintaining a career as a computer network engineer. My performances have been in good and healthy environments like town celebrations, private parties, cowboy poetry gatherings, schools, and churches. Avoiding the cultural trappings of bars and clubs and band member issues, has allowed my family to participate in my music performances in ways that I am comfortable with. The "Folk" violin genre has many pre-conceived expectations and inherent limitations in terms of style and participation as a band member, however, I have done everything I could to stretch the limits, and have patiently developed my ear training and harmonic "blending" with any song that seemed right for a violin part.

There is another side of my musical background and training that leads to other styles and instrumentation blends - this project is the beginning of being able to share some of my experimentation technique and style for unique violin sounds, while doing some basic home recording via a MACBOOK and various applications and Audio-Unit plug-ins, with other Digitech effects processors, a Yamaha keyboard, and whatever other instruments I can get my hands on.

A recent conversation with my brother David, has motivated me to try to generate a prototype or concept album of music to demonstrate what I have "discovered" or learned about basic home recording and combine it with my talent for violin music performance. I will dedicate this project to his personal healing process, and this is also the impetus for the album title that I have selected to use.

The style that I have selected for this album may be called neo-classical, cinematic-rock, orchestral-pop, or something along those lines. The intent is to be as melodic as possible using the violin as the primary or secondary voice throughout the composition or "re-mix", while introducing some of the unique stylistic sounds from modifying the violin from direct acoustic violin inputs using a piezo-electric transducer embedded in the bridge , an electric-violin (Yamaha Silent Violin -- no acoustic body), guitar-effects processors, and midi-to-synthesizer sampling, and anything else I can find to make it interesting.

My intent is to use my other guitars for some parts, but will rely on other guitar samples or solo guitar tracks as a reference to add the violin parts. I have an Ibanez electric guitar, a mahogany Johnson dobro resonator guitar, and an Ovation 6-string. I am going to try to use these instruments in some of the recordings along with violin as a way to stay true to the artistic vision that I have. With that said, I am planning on taking several solo guitar tracks from Michael Hedges, Pat Metheny, and some of the Narada recording artists, and perform a "re-mix" version of some of these solo tracks to add the harmonic and melodic parts that I believe are missing. Hopefully, if these songs develop to the level of perfection that I am hoping for, that I would be able to find local musicians that could help me perform and/or record these tracks (with the permission of the original artist and/or representative, of course).

My intent is to post a new blog entry for each song as it unfolds and develops. My personal favorite is when an artist shares their inner thought process while they reveal their creation or assemble their ideas. What motivation is there for revealing one's own inner feelings and thought-processes? I don't know, but I know that I am personally always interested in getting the story behind the story when creativity is involved.

As each song may have a story to tell, I am planning on using as many multimedia techniques as I can, while keeping true to the vision of "rapid-prototyping" as stated in the blog mission-statement. I hope that everyone who takes the time to listen will enjoy or find it entertaining. I will make full versions of the music available to anyone --- if someone wants to produce further evolutions of this type of music, I will make myself available for future recording, performance, or compositional projects.

If this first concept album can be completed within the rapid-prototyping period outlined (two months), then I will be motivated to continue to produce additional concept albums of various styles, and/or eclectic blending of styles at my creative whim.