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This is yet another instrumental piece. It’s merely a quick combination of chords and notes. But then again, most songs are. I took the chance to play on the piano, even though I only had my digital camera to record the audio. So the sound is crappy, but you can watch me playing. I wrote and recorded the track last Sunday, after two days of heavy metal at the Keep It True festival. Please excuse minor timing problems. After all, I had to guess the tempo in order to make the song 52 seconds long. So I did have a slightly better version recorded, but it was a couple of seconds too long. The version you hear here is actually has a bit a silence appended at the end to make it long enough. I know that’s cheating, but I rather have it like this than with the additional noises you can hear on the video (which does reach the 52-second mark).
This is a song in German about a shopping list. It deals with the everyday encounters at the supermarket. Thankfully, I had to stop at the 52-second mark. Otherwise the song would have ended with red cabbage being the last item on the shopping list.
Ich sah noch aus dem Augenwinkel, wie sie im Aufzug verschwand.
Ich nahm mir ihren Wagen, der vorne in der Schlange stand.
Für einen Euro Pfand gehörte er vorübergehend mir.
Da entdeckte ich ein kleines Stück Papier.
Es war ihr Einkaufszettel.
Sie brauchte ihn jetzt nicht mehr.
Es war ihr Einkaufszettel.
Und ich vermisse sie so sehr.Dabei kenne ich sie gar nicht, weiß nicht mal ihren Namen.
Doch was sie einkaufen wollte, lässt Großes erahnen:
Buchstabensuppe und Möhrensalat, Cornflakes und Bio-Käse,
Eine Packung Taschentücher und zwei gezeichnete Küchengefäße.
Es war ihr Einkaufszettel.
Tomatensauce im Doppelpack.
Es war ihr Einkaufszettel.
Sie hatte ganz klar Geschmack.(words and music by Johannes Schult)
This is a little homage to WatchTower, written in anticipation of their show next Friday.
Eleven years ago I wrote a song called “Golden Future” for From Thy Ashes (my band back then). It was an attempt to combine a whole bunch of complicated parts. The result wasn’t very impressive. But I figured back then that the ideal unit for writing such material wasn’t a couple of bars; much rather does it boil down to chunks of maybe three or for notes. If you have a big simple thing and start adding details, the music just gets weary. So this time I didn’t really bother with the big picture and concentrated on making every single note count.
I started out with the drum track, programming some wild, odd bars of hectic noise with only very vague ideas of guitar riffs in my head. I have little (meaning no) advanced harmony knowledge, so I just played what I’d never play in an ordinary e minor setting. Half-step runs? Yes, please. I wrote pretty much every single note by trial-and-error as I went along, recording the tiniest bits separately, one by one. I was baffled how flawless it all sounded once I stuck everything together. I played the bass on keyboard, as usual. At that point I was close to keeping the song an instrumental. Most of you probably wish I had. But then I figured I could mirror the title of WatchTower’s third album, Mathematics, by singing about my profession: statistics. I dare to say that it all made sense in the end. At least to me. I know, I sound somewhat ridiculous when I try to channel Alan Tecchio’s vocal style. Still, I’m very happy with the overall outcome!
When I say what I do for a living
The response is silence
Statistics: misunderstood and ignored
Statistics: valuable and powerfulI love data
I love Stata
Statistics: misunderstood and ignored
Statistics: powerful and valuable(words and music by Johannes Schult)
This is just a quick experiment with distorted keyboard sounds. I have no idea how Targorian beings are marching, but I imagine them having enough legs to warrant the 5/4 beat of this track.
This is probably the most annoying song I’ve ever made. I could pretend that there is a deeper meaning behind the lyrics. But it’s really just a trip on memory lane back to when school children had electronic pets that were as annoying as my falsetto vocals. If you want to translate the situation to today’s portable devices with their apps and cameras, do so at your own risk. The main reason for even publishing this is it lowers the bar even more. At least it was a good exercise to play all the synthesizer parts. I corrected almost no notes and I wouldn’t even know how to digitize the tracks to the beat.
Feed me, need me, keep me closer
Love me, touch me now
Please me, tease me, take me with you
Tell me all your secrets
Take good care of me in the morning
Keep me in your sight
Dream of me while you are sleeping
Hold me close at night(words and music by Johannes Schult)
This is a short ode to the TV series 24. It’s about Renee Walker in particular. And I inserted a birthday greeting to Annie Wersching, the actress who plays Agent Walker. If you don’t understand anything of what I just wrote, let it suffice that this is a fanboy song. Again, the 52-second limit comes in handy, forcing me to concentrate on the essential message. Not that the song contains an important message. But when I found out about Wersching’s birthday this morning, I figured that this is the best time for such a song. I also made a little video of me singing the song a bit slower, a half-step higher and just with the acoustic guitar.
By the way, I was thrilled to incorporate a reference to bloody stumps; you see, eleven years ago, when I first accessed the internet, the bloody stump homepage taught me a lot about this new medium, all of which is still true today.
#13 Dear Screenwriters (Happy Birthday, Annie Wersching)
Dear screenwriters of 24
Please don’t kill Renee Walker
I’m sure there are many more
People like me who ♥ her
Despite all her flaws
And the way she handles thumbs
But who hasn’t bent the laws?
And who doesn’t like bloody stumps?So happy birthday to you
Annie Wersching, who played
Renee Walker so real and true
Here’s to her surviving season eight
She’s the best red-haired woman on screen
Since Lena Headey played Luce
The red-haired flower queen
In the movie Imagine Me & YouDear screenwriters of 24
Please don’t kill Renee Walker
(words and music by Johannes Schult)
This one started out with vocals. The melody still hints at the title, which I just kept, because I was running out of time to think of something else. A while ago I was looking at the sky and beheld shifting clouds (see video below). It was there that I came up with the title. I intended to make it a song with space between parts and notes. It ended up being rather packed, anyway. I also admit that the verse uses the same chords as “1998” (which Manticess made for Song Fu last year) and that the middle part is basically the bridge from “The Flower Song“. The end result justifies the self-citations, I think. The main reason I omitted the vocals was that I’m not a good singer. But I also figured there’s a pattern in the previous tracks (except for the first one): every third tune is an instrumental. And I’m a sucker for patterns. And, as I said, a bad singer, who didn’t want to spend what’s left of his weekend failing to sound fragile.
One of Sweden’s finest punk rock bands, Ninja Dolls, visited Konstanz on Thursday night. They played a tight, quick set featuring three songs off their new “D.I.Y.”-EP along with most of the songs from “1 2 3 Go!” (which was one of my favourite albums 2009). Malin’s voice showed a little strain towards the end of the set, but overall she proved to be an excellent lead singer who handled the old material with ease. As an encore we got a nice cover version of Dolly Parton’s “Jolene”. Other highlights were the acoustic version of “Valentine” and, well, pretty much every other song. I only missed “Run and Hide”. Still, it was an enjoyable show, albeit a rather short one. (Just observing, not complaining here – admission was free, after all.)
