Johannes Schult

This is an instrumental piece that could easily be incorporated in a lonely movie scene. I started out with the acoustic guitar part, double-tracked it and added some high piano notes to augment the atmosphere.

#9 Requiem for a Snowflake

This is actually the song I made for the second round of Song Fu #6 (listen and vote!). The task was to write a song that doesn’t contain any rhymes. Years ago I had written a song in German entitled “Morgen kommt der Kommunikationsentferner”. I reanimated the lyrical idea and translated a few of the original lines into English. The chords of the verse also remained the same. Still, I think it became a completely different song. For instance, it used to be a ballad; now it’s a rock song.

The song fu-version of this song (entitled “Communication Removal”) is 45 seconds longer; it contains more instrumental mayhem as well as an additional line about Mike Lombardo and Nickelback. I had originally planned to have a chorus going “And as of now my rhymes are out of order”, but that didn’t fit the rest of the song, so I scrapped it.

Some trivia: For the music box in the outro I punched arbitrary holes into a sheet of paper and pulled it through the little machine. Other instruments I recorded for the outro were ukulele, harmonica, melodica and tin whistle.

#8 Communication Removal Is Due Tomorrow

I just shut down the weather
Love doesn’t work anymore
Communication removal is due tomorrow

The shadows no longer obey the sun
All seasons are in exile
Communication removal is due tomorrow

Yesterday I made silence a little bit louder
And now I’ll turn off time
Communication removal is due tomorrow

I successfully divided by zero

(words and music by Johannes Schult)

This is another example of why I like the 52-second format: If this lonely hearts ad was any longer, people would actually start taking it seriously. I was somewhat uncertain about the exact wording, the organ in the background and the main chord sequence (D G E A was in there at one point). But I think, the song works in its present form (p < 0.05). The concept of the song was inspired by an old statistics lecture that featured remarks about Love@Lycos, matching algorithms and bootstrapping.

#7 Lonely Hearts Ad (Bootstrapping)

I’m looking for a woman who is capable of bootstrapping, yeah
I don’t care if she’s tall or thin or if her hair is red

It’s good for a romantic relationship to be based on common interests, yeah
Even though I’m the first to admit that bootstrapping’s uncommon

This statistical procedure
Is an important feature
Of our future late-night conversations

I’m looking for a woman who is capable of bootstrapping, yeah
If we can figure out bootstrapping we can figure out everything else

(words and music by Johannes Schult)

I just recorded a video of me playing the song at home:

This one was written on the spot today after I had decided that the song I had prepared during the week will only be released at the very end as song #52. Last night I saw the Dubliners live in St. Gallen. (They played a wonderful show including favourites of mine like “The Rocky Road to Dublin” and “The Town I Loved So Well”.) So I was in the mood for some Irish folk. Please excuse the cheap keyboard sounds. Just keep in mind that me playing a real fiddle would have sounded much worse! Anyway, it’s just a 52-second tune, so please bear with me and my artificial orchestra. (The guitar is real.)

#6 Jutze’s Jig