The world according to Jutze
This song just happened while I was attempting to write some progressive rock stuff. The ending of the melody was borrowed from an unreleased Manticess song (“Dragonfire”). I might still work on some progressive rock material later today, but for this week’s song I’ll leave you with this somber instrumental piece.
(music by Johannes Schult 2015 Creative Commons by-nc 4.0)
Here’s a little piano piece – “Waiting for the Tide”.
Last week I got my copy of Tim Minchin’s double album “Live at the O2”. It is totally awesome. I will rave about this for the remainder of this entry. Of course, I hope that you’ve already heard of Tim and that you just keep nodding while you read this. If for some sad reason you haven’t heard of Tim Minchin yet, you’re in for a treat.
Tim is an amazingly talented person. He’s a singer, a piano player, a comedian, a thinker, and an all around fun guy. He comes all the way from Australia. Last month he played a concert in the O2 Arena in London, England. There he made statistic jokes in front of 10,000 people. And he sang about how it’s overly simplistic to divide everything into two groups. This may sound boring when I write it. But trust me, it’s hilarious. No, wait, don’t trust me – check it out yourself! A recording of the concert is available from Tim’s homepage. The song about dichotomies is on it. It’s called “The Fence”. No, that’s not really funny. But the song itself is funny. And it’s also terribly catchy – and beautiful. Even if the music is not your cup of tea, you might still want to hear Tim’s talk between songs. The way he rants about “poo and crocodiles” being “natural organic substances” is priceless. (Actually, it’s 10 pounds for the download version, a few more for the CDs.)
Another highlight is “Thank You God”. It’s basically a song about evidence. Again, it starts out with a wonderful introduction during which Tim remarks that “Love without evidence is stalking.” He then launches into a wild bonanza of pop, big band and the debate on prayer (incidently solving the latter). To illustrate the extent of awesomeness achieved here, let it suffice to say that I’m totally in love with the brass section on this track. Seriously, it’s fantastic! Ba, badada, ba. Yes, it’s the part where the lyrics go something like “mistaken attributional causation born of a coincidental temporal correlation.”
The set contains several other new songs (“Cont”!) along with a collection of old songs like “If I Didn’t Have You” (“You’re obviously special but you fall within bell curve.”), “Not Perfect” and the wonderful Christmas song “White Wine in the Sun”. I was skeptical about Tim being joined by an orchestra. But the result speaks for itself, I think. (Hint: It’s great!)
Until now I’ve focused on “Live at the O2”, mainly because it’s new and offers a perfect showcase of Tim Minchin’s wit and talent. That doesn’t mean that his older material isn’t worth further attention. But I already raved long enough to make my point – which is: Tim Minchin is awesome!
PS: Tim Minchin is probably not for you if you’re easily offended by atheism, cursing, and sarcasm. There is, of course, much more to the songs than that. And when Tim manages to put what feels like 300 fucks into his 3-minute long “Pope Song”, the underlying anger is far from baseless.
This song was inspired by Richard Shindell’s “By Now”. I had little and just forced myself to write a song. I filmed a quick video right after writing the first draft two days ago. Yesterday, I switched the chords in the chorus. Just an hour ago I recorded the final version, which features some piano playing that wasn’t there in the first place/draft.
Katy stands in the middle of the road
Looking for a place called home
Her broken heart is such a heavy load
She takes it everywhere she goes
Oh Katy, can’t you see
That you’re throwing your life away
Just face reality
And find a place to stay
So that your broken heart may heal(words and music by Johannes Schult)
This is a remnant from the time when my computer broke down. At first, I imagined the lead melody being played by a violin. But only on the piano did I find a proper way to continue the tune. This little piece of music is possibly a filler. But it’s one you can use to meditate on life and sound quality.
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 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.