Minuet

Something quick for the holiday - a nice 18Hz beat drone with a banjo/cello duet way in the background, out of the way when you need to refocus but audible enough to attach your ears to.

Minuet

Changes

It didn't seem like I could put off moving to the new version of Blogger much longer, so I went ahead with the conversion yesterday. Then, lo and behold, I notice in iTunes that every episode was re-posted... That explains the 500% increase in downloads yesterday!

So for those of you who leave iTunes running all day, sorry. You got some duplicates.

The next episode will be up shortly. In the meantime, I'm getting a sampler together to send to NPR's Open Mic program, which is a web-only feature of All Songs Considered. They're only going to listen to one tune, most likely, so if anyone out there wants to make any suggestions as to what the strongest episode has been, please speak up. Right now, I'm leaning towards Drift.

Thanks for listening - if the changeover to the new Blogger has caused problems anywhere, please let me know.

Signal Loss

A 14Hz beat to get your mind going, and another dose of Hydrogen towards the end. This week's episode reintroduces the acoustic banjo - a quarter inch jack of dubious worth has made it difficult for me to mic it for the past several months, though the sound is undeniably superior to the electric banjo. As it is, I was fortunate to get through the intro before the usual issues forced me to revert to the electric in order to complete the recording.

Overall, though, this is another of my favorites. Crashing is still a problem, however - the working title of this week's piece stuck, and just about says it all. The Binaural Banjo is and always will be free to download, copy, and distribute - but if anyone out there has some unused memory cards they could contribute to the cause, email me!

Signal Loss

Un Poco Mas

The 2Hz beat is the only thing about this tune that's mellow. The opening drum hit comes courtesy of Hydrogen - a nice piece of software, so check it out. The rest is a mixed bag of banjo riffs and melody, all of it fun to put together though the mix came out kind of rough. Hence the title - I kept trying to get a little more refinement, a little less edge on the melody, a little of this and little of that...and then my PC would crash.

So take this one in the spirit in which it was written - simply a jam. A change of pace.

Un Poco Mas

Decay

A tune for fall - music to rot by. The beat is 4Hz this week, and completely derived from a sampled banjo roll. For the first time there's no ebow. Enjoy.

Decay

Rejoice

A few of the tunes so far have really hit the mark as far as what I'm trying to get at. This is one. The beat is 12Hz, and it's prominent - I can only analyze the source .wav files and not mp3's that get downloaded, but I do know the past few weeks have been iffy about actually containing binaural beats. Not this week, and hopefully not anymore. Enjoy.

Rejoice

Ghosts

One for the season. Including a 6Hz beat and some computerized guests this week: The bass line is a convoluted sine wave blip, and the synth is... synth.

Ghosts

Technical Notes

The site seems to get a decent amount of hits, so I figured I would go ahead and post regarding the delay on getting the new episode up. I am migrating my audio production from a Windows XP environment to Linux (Fedora Core 5), and while it's been fun enough in it's own way, there have also been plenty of hangups.

In fact, this week's episode is finished and will be posted ASAP - I still have to upload from Windows, however, and sample rate issues and whatnot between Linux and Windows have made it difficult to produce a decent sounding mp3. But in case anyone is checking, thanks for hanging in there. The next installment is on its way.

Murmur

A 4Hz beat this week and an droning loop.

Murmur

The Rising

A thought of song, but no song: The drone taking precedence. The beat is 6Hz.

The Rising

Toads

Nothing conveyed the mood of the week better than swamp sounds. Enclosed please find frog noises and a 2Hz beat to mellow out with.

Toads

Chromosphere

Old Joe Clark he had a mule, some heavy delay, and an 8Hz beat.

Chromosphere

There is a Gentle Hand

A respite from delays and phasers, echoes and flangers. A 12Hz beat and some gospel. Simple.

There is a Gentle Hand

Drift

Snow drifts, and sand. Rain drifts in windblown curtains. A 15Hz beat, a loop meandering around hidden foci. A drift adrift.

Drift

Glass

Art from fire, molten flares. For the Green Man. Analysis failed to pinpoint a binaural beat this time, but the target was 11Hz. Refinements will be made. It's all banjo, folks. All banjo.

More housekeeping: For those who stream this podcast, there may have been problems with Honey Spot. These issues have been resolved and the bad link replaced. Please check it out again if you haven't already.

Glass

Honey Spot

On a banjo, the honey spot is where a player places his or her right hand to evoke the most mellow tone. But the placement is unique to each instrument, the degree of desire unique to each player. Consider this an auroscope, an invitation to seek life's honey spots. The beat is 7Hz. It's another mellow, lengthy meditation which dips into musical structures without becoming strictly definable as music. Use headphones. Close your eyes. Enjoy.

Honey Spot

Parabola

A return to first principles, with respect to what's been accomplished. Not simply a drone, not fully a song. A 5Hz beat and a real trance inducer - turn the volume down and let the beat work.

Housekeeping note: Sorry for the delay this week - thanks for being patient. Server maintenance at the Internet Archive resulted in upload issues, but it all works out. I feel nothing but gratitude for their hard work. Thanks to them all.

Parabola

Mythos

A 4Hz beat and a guest this week: The cello, nearest of all instruments to the timbre of the human voice. The vibe? Motifs, argument, ascension. A lock step rhythm necessarily devolving into a shuffle. Then, a momentary lull, a false start, the peace of the vanquished. Finally, rhythm returned; acceptance, union, unity. Peace indeed. Thanks to Amy for the cello riff.

Mythos

Pthalo

Blue: Royal blue, sky blue, feeling blue. The ambiguity of blue derives from our karmic ambivalence, the disconnect inherent in our love of life and our simultaneous desire for something more sublime, something rapturous. The beat is 6Hz this time, intended to calm.

Pthalo

Incantata

A call and response: Mysteries abound. Melody rises, falls almost into place but finally remains, an unknown quantity, hovering on the edge of the aural moment. Nothing is defined. Even the beat hangs at a liminal 13Hz. Alpha or beta? Perhaps the point is not to decide, but merely to let it be.

Incantata

Quartz

Opaque and elegant, quartz intensifies healing energies. This one is for clarity and calm: An easy, old-timey banjo waltz enfolding a 3hz beat. Quartal harmony sustains the whole, for another dream effect. But it's sweet dreams this time. Sweet dreams.

Quartz

The Shadowed Paths

The banjo dreams down shadowed paths, through chambered spaces of melody folded in on itself until nothing remains but cumbrous remembrances, spacious harmonics. The beat is 20Hz once again; Dream and awaken.

The Shadowed Paths

Saint Andrews

The first one I really like, and yes it's all banjo. The beat is 5Hz. The tune is decidely creepy - after two weeks of sun worship, it seemed good to head for the shadows. The whole thing puts me in mind of a misty day among the cathedral ruins of Saint Andrews.

Saint Andrews

Corona

Another one for the sun. A 20Hz beta wave to get you out of your own head. Musically, a choppy intro and then a lolling roll that just liked being what it was.

Corona

I Bless Ra

All hail the Sun god. Music over drone. The beat is around 14Hz, with an improvised, admittedly redundant, banjo melody. Some delay spices it up towards the end.

I Bless Ra

BiDrone

A set of stacked banjo/ebow drones. The beat is 10Hz. Intended as the base track for an improv, they turned out to be so deep I had to leave them alone - for now.

BiDrone

Drone Two

Originally, this was a second drone which was added to The Dip. Now standing alone, with a 10Hz adjustment to the right channel for the binaural beat.

Drone Two

The Dip

Here's the first offering, a languid drone with a binaurally tuned banjo "drip." The ebow started bouncing around towards the end, creating a real nice pulse.

The Dip

A Past Life

We lived in New York City for four wonderful years. I had at one point intended to put together an impressionistic collection of solo pieces based on my NY experiences. While that didn't work out, most of the tunes were resurrected into a lullabye project which I recorded for my daughter. These tunes are now available for free from the internet archive. See link below.

As this was my first real upload to the internet archive, I neglected an important detail: Song order! So the tunes are listed alphabetically. I don't think it makes much difference, but I did create the project with a kind of flow in mind. If there's enough interest, I will re-upload the tunes, or else post the original song order.

Another important detail: These tunes were compressed using FLAC, and will in most cases have to be decompressed prior to being listened to or burned to CD. The software is free and easy to use. Please follow the link provided over yonder in the sidebar. The advantage of using FLAC is that it is a lossless compression, which means that you get to hear the music exactly as it was recorded, as opposed to MP3's and OGG's. However, the good people at the archive have indeed provided MP3 and OGG versions for those who do not care to use FLAC. So you win either way!

Follow the link to the project site at the Internet Archive and enjoy!
Here You Are - Lullabyes for Luna