Brothers

Don't think I've done this before, but I went with a 1Hz binaural beat on this one after I saw somewhere that it is supposed to cause euphoria and endorphin release. Sounds good to me! After Tuesday I'm sure most of us here in the States will be ready for some endorphins. I'm ready now.

This is also a long one - about 15 minutes. It may be too long to sustain such a simple arrangement and melody, but not for a lack of trying. I did the guitar and banjo parts and experimented with several counter melodies, harmonies, bridges, etc. but found that everything else just got in the way.So I ended up making the intro and outro longer, which was probably the best thing anyway.

Includes embedded artwork, lossless version to be posted soon. Enjoy!

Brothers

Ultima

After some delay, a new tune. I hadn't done a drone piece in a while, so that's what I went for here. Experimentally, I also added quite a bit of high end harmonics. I tend to stay away from the upper ranges but this time it seemed like it might work. I hope it did.

Binaural beat of 10Hz this time, good for alert listening.

Includes artwork! The lossless version will be posted later today at Binaural Banjo Lossless.

Ultima

Rehab, sort of...

I know I'm a little behind my usual schedule for new tunes, and wanted to post quickly to let folks know the podcast is still alive and a couple songs are on the way. We recently had a run in between banjo and child, and the banjo got the worst of it. The pickup on the electric banjo quit working around the same time, so there was not much for me to do but wait on the repairman.

But the banjo is back from the shop and it looks and sounds great. Hopefully within a week or two I can post some new music. Thanks for listening!

Cat's Eyes

Back in February we experienced another move and the start of a new job. One of many perks in this arrangement is I now have a dedicated home studio space - the day we moved in I sat down and just recorded a chord thing on the guitar, which ultimately evolved into the tune featured today.

Hopefully it sounds okay. This time around there's a lot of carpet to deal with, and the studio is also fairly small, so everything sounded different to me.

In any case, there's an 8Hz beat on this one. I know I tend to favor the 4-8Hz range, but that's just my favorite. Hopefully others like it, too. The mp3 also has "cover art" already attached, which is no big deal but should look nice on little devices.

I haven't uploaded the lossless version yet, but check http://www.petalmusic.org/beats/ in a couple days and it will be there.

Cat's Eyes

Lossless Site Back Up!

Nuff said!

Binaural Banjo Lossless

Lossless Site Down

While logging on to the Binaural Banjo lossless site this morning to deal with comment and member spam, lo but I discovered that something is wrong. The main page does not load. The non-main pages don't load, either.

I apologize for the inconvenience to any who have tried to access the site since this occurred. I recently started a new job and moved a couple hundred miles (again!), so I haven't been keeping tabs and don't know when the site went down. But the dust is settling so I will plan to have the site back online within a few days.

Thanks again for listening and for making the Binaural Banjo the number one ambient banjo resource in the galaxy.

The Ashen Light

Ahead of the usual schedule this time, with a 16Hz binaural beat. As I was getting this one together, it put me in the mood for more aware, active listening, so I went with a beta wave frequency. I should say that as a tune, this one is still pretty meditative and relaxing. Not quite as simplistic musically as I usually try to keep things, but hopefully it will be interesting without being obtrusively so. Lots of major pentatonic stuff going on, for the theory geeks out there.

Also, some folks will have noticed that I've been embedding images in the mp3 files for the past few episodes. So far the picture has always been the old Binaural Banjo banner image, but starting with this tune I'm going to try and use original art each time. I'm not much of a visual artist, so I doubt anyone will be blown away, but I think it makes for a nice additional touch.

As usual, the lossless version will soon be available at http://www.petalmusic.org/beats/. Also, since I updated the template here there's a lot of social media capabilities. Please use the buttons provided to "Like" on Facebook, or to Digg or Tweet or otherwise spread the word about the Binaural Banjo. The subscriber count has been holding for a while now and I'd like to see if we can grow the audience.

Enjoy!

The Ashen Light

Updated Template

After years of prodding by the Google and Blogger folks, I finally updated to one of the new templates. Looks good and works fine, but mainly I decided it would be nice to capitalize on the available views for mobile devices.

Additionally, there is a follower gadget. If anyone has a strong feeling against this for privacy or other reasons, please comment or send an email.

Thanks as always for listening!

Ambient Radio Feature

Zurich radio station Lora will be featuring the music of my "Petal" project in a broadcast of the "So21" art music program, hosted by Akita Yra. Several Petal tunes will be mixed in with works by acoustic ecologist Gilles Malatray of Des Arts Sonnants, whose work we highly recommend. This should be a real treat! Tune in to radio Lora at 95.7 in the Zurich area, or follow the internet stream from the station's website this Sunday, January 8th, between 21:45 and 22:30 Swiss time.