Thursday, December 13, 2007

CD Track List

Here's a tentative track listing for my new CD. They may not all fit, and you may not recognize a few tracks, but please give me your thoughts. I really want to capture the listener's ear and keep him listening.

1. The French Word For Butterfly
2. A Hero Rises in the East
3. A Crime in the Family
4. The Wrath of God - Dies Irae
5. Philip Glass Eats a Mysterious Loaf of Bread
6. All Hands on Deck!
7. The Stars at Night
8. Untitled Ancient Rome Project
9. Peaceful Cowboy
10. Shadows Theme I
11. Shadows Theme II
12. Shadows Theme III
13. Shadows Searching Cue
14. Shadows Action Cue
15. Shadows Suspense Cue
16. Dante's Inferno I - Entering the Woods
17. Dante's Inferno II - Descent into Hell
18. Dante's Inferno III - Dark King Revealed
19. Building a Mystery
20. The Final Battle
21. King Nefarious
22. A Little Town
23. Puzzle Time
24. When Woodwinds Share
25. The Queen's Lament
26. Doo Doo Dee
27. For Cali
28. The Cranemaker

6 comments:

SuiginChou said...

I thought you already released Shadows on a separate CD? Then again, I see a few champs returning from Jurassic Jay's Junk ... although not your most sentimental piece, oh well.

I will say, though ... to keep a "listener listening," the songs will need to become progressively longer. At least for a listener like me. The moment I get this CD, the songs're going into my music folder for spontaneous listening ability -- because it's too much to ask me to put a CD in the PC when I just want to hear a 1:20 ditty out of nowhere.

Also, this CD (to compare it with a real one) strikes me as a hodgepodge, like a "Greatest Hits" CD. It doesn't have what I'd deem "album cohesiveness," something I tend to prefer when listening to CDs *as* CDs in a CD player and not CD rips as isolated songs on a computer.

(If I may be so bold,) maybe that should be your next ambitious project: to settle on a theme or image and write an album for it. An entire album, let's say 9-12 tracks, that all tie in in some manner to that piece in a way that you think listeners could understand and agree on upon hearing the melodies. That is to say, the songs can differ in instrumentation, emotion, tempo, any and all, so long as listeners listening say, "Yeah, I agree that song #1 reminds me of samurai warriors ... and so does #2 ... and yeah, #4 reminds me of a Japanese war bride stuck at home while her husband goes off to fight," etc. etc.

If you've already tried to do this/ are trying to do this, sorry for being condescendingly naive. The idea just came to me, and I think it's a good suggestion, and (to my knowledge) you've never actually tried to write songs from this "album" POV. Even if you dislike themed albums, considering it's something all of your heroes in cinematic music have to go through, it might be a really good exercise for you.

Anyway, count me in for a CD. I'll be home in less than 48 hours.

Jay said...

That's an interesting take and I really like the idea of pursuing a thematically cohesive CD (although it would take months, I imagine)

To my mind, I'd rather listen to a CD with tracks that are fairly dissimilar lest I lose interest, so that was the schematic plan for this CD. (also trying to include 'greatest hits' should I decide to mail it out as a demo)

What's my most sentimental piece you're referring to?

SuiginChou said...

"Mrs. C" (Track #44 on Jurassic Jay's Junk)

Jay said...

We should meet up over break. I'm planning to see Sweeney Todd and Alien Versus Predator Requiem at some point in time.

SuiginChou said...

Neither appeals to me, but I agree about the first bit. ^_^;

The only movies I'm interested in seeing this holiday season so far are The Golden Compass and Persepolis, and unfortunately one's gotten lackluster box office moolah (which doesn't bode well for the excellence of the film) while the other probably won't even be shown in Hoosier theaters because it's too Cannesy, just like Pan's Labyrinth was. -_-;

Jay said...

"Persepolis" looks awesome. Doesn't appear to release until dec 25, which probably means at least 2 weeks later in Indy, but maybe we'll get lucky. I'd also like to see "Juno" which releases next week.