Just a quick bit of news: Finale (music notation software) featured me on their blog!
Patreon Statistics
I'm going to be speaking on a couple of upcoming panels about crowdfunding, so I thought I'd share some statistics about Patreon, and my Composer Quest patronage. Hopefully these stats will give you a little insight if you're thinking about launching your own Patreon project.
Online Jamming with Plink
Last week, I asked my Composer Quest patrons to join me in an online jamming experiment. My friend Alex pointed out Plink, a cool site that lets you jam with random people on the internet. By adding a hashtag to the URL (#cqpatronjam), we were able to have our own "chat" room.
Composer Quest Podcast Awards
In honor of Composer Quest turning 2 today, I thought it would be fun to present some totally subjective podcast awards.
Composer Quest: The Infographic
Merry Podmas: 7 Composition Podcasts
Welcome to this special Christmas episode of Composer Quest! Since I'll be taking a break from interviews (until I find a few more patrons...wink wink), I thought I'd share a few of my favorite music composition and music production podcasts. If you've been listening to Composer Quest, you've heard from many of these podcast hosts before.
N64 Composer Grant Kirkhope Talks Banjo-Kazooie, GoldenEye, Perfect Dark
It was an honor interviewing legendary composer Grant Kirkhope about his time at Rare, where he worked on some of the most popular video game soundtracks of all time. In this episode of Composer Quest, Grant talks about composing within the very small limits of the Nintendo 64 cartridge, and he shares some stories behind the soundtracks to Banjo Kazooie, Banjo Tooie, GoldenEye 007, and Perfect Dark. We also talk about Grant's more recent orchestral work for Kingdoms of Amalur and Civilization: Beyond Earth, and he shares his favorite chord progressions that keep coming back in his music.
Chiptune Composing with Ben Burnes
In today's episode of Composer Quest, I talk with fellow Minnesotan Ben Burnes, who has been writing chiptune music for games (12 games in 12 weeks, as a matter of fact). He just released them in his album Three Red Hearts, and in our talk he shares some tips on creating video game music. We also talk about creativity and the business of indie game composing.
Quest 13: Arias on Tap, the Sequel
For the next Composer Quest quest, we're partnering with Opera on Tap Twin Cities again to premiere new arias and art songs. You can write for up to 4 voices accompanied by electronic piano. Optional additional instruments are clarinet, bassoon, and euphonium. Send your new composition to charlie@composerquest.com and twincities@operaontap.com on or before December 28 at 11:59pm central time.
How to Create a FEZ Track Like Disasterpeace
I had the privilege of watching Rich Vreeland (aka Disasterpeace) give a live music production demo at Gamer’s Rhapsody this past weekend. I recorded it for my new sub-podcast of Composer Quest, Charlie's Music Production Lessons. In the talk, you’ll get to hear Rich composing a track on the fly. He shares his secret ingredients in scoring the video game FEZ: the Massive synth, with heavy amounts of reverb, bitcrushing, randomness, and tape warble.