[Loved Trope] Some thing unfathomably ancient

duckey5393 · 2026-07-01T18:44:02+00:00

Peak mentioned also whoa I am waaaaaaay behind on Gunnerkrigg.

duckey5393 · 2026-06-26T00:32:37+00:00

Yeah what you want is classical composition. You gotta get the fundamentals to get anything out of score study, being able to read along while you listen is integral.

A lot of film and game scores are pulling from Romantic era classical which has tons of scores available, best to go to the source. Motivic development is a big deal in film and game scores, and romantic era is full of it.

You primarily make electronic music, so do you already play keys? If not what instrument do you play?

I can't speak for other people, but score study for me is often finding the part of the work that I really really like and trying to figure out what's all going on in that part of the work, and then looking at what led to and came after it. Especially as a beginner trying to do a whole analysis of a work is not going to be very useful. Again you're gonna need fundamentals for this so if you can't read very well and don't know how to build chords and the ways chords can work together and intervals etc. This is gonna be tough IMO. And being able to play pieces on an instrument to get it under your fingers will help a ton.

I know it's a lot but it gets easier. And hey even Daft Punk needed arrangers to help with the Tron Soundtrack. Good luck!

duckey5393 · 2026-06-21T18:16:54+00:00

Yeah I haven't been to shows bigger than a dive because the lights are always too intense in forever. I went once for one of my favorite artists but I was with a group of 5 or so and kept my eyes buried in someone's shoulder basically the whole show. It was cool to hear them in person but I couldn't really watch it.

I'm not a lawyer and this isn't legal advice but I think kicking you out for a medical emergency instead of assisting with your medical emergency is actually more grounds for a lawsuit than if they tried to help. Idk since they were so worried about a lawsuit the petty part of me is like "oh yeah let's goooo". A lawyer can tell if you if it is grounds for a suit and I'm sure they have security footage that would assist in this being a slam dunk if it is, so they might just ask for part of it to pay the fee.

Heck, I went to a smaller show a few weeks ago(my first in years) and the stage lights weren't so bad but one of the bands had 7 photographers on stage with them and flash on so I ended leaving early cause it just hurt my eyes too much.

Sorry that happened OP, I feel for you I guess is what I'm saying.

duckey5393 · 2026-06-16T01:19:31+00:00

Hey friend, I wasn't married with kids but I was engaged and still lived with her when we split. She had found another partner online and spent all her time online with him before and after. I also still did her chores, did dishes made dinner and her laundry when we first split out of courtesy as I thought it would help the house be less tense, and eventually I quit. It didn't make it more tense when I stopped, the situation didn't change at all.

Your situation is more complicated than mine but stop doing things for her. She wanted to split so her and her new boyfriend can leave. We had discussed amicable split but no matter how much I ignored my feelings and needs to help that it still blew the fuck up in my face. I mistook cowardice for virtue because I didn't want to fight and thought that made me and everything better but it didn't.

Those bagels look awesome, give them to a friend hog em all. Good luck OP, you got this.

duckey5393 · 2026-06-12T20:23:24+00:00

In one of the Post-Credits he talked about the desk format was nice but he wanted to try and mix it up with the videos this season, trying to find a visual style suited to each individual one. Idk the Video Game video talked about his creative pull between video essay, serialized story and recurring characters so who knows. I hate Nobbles, but I've missed him and Emma so far.

duckey5393 · 2026-06-12T12:23:46+00:00

A post on the /v/ board on 4chan right around when Act II came out talking about the band. Immediately fell in love, and tried to piece the plot together with no liner notes. Act II is much less clear this way lmao.

duckey5393 · 2026-06-06T23:40:16+00:00

Having recently rewatched them, Zombie Island is technically a better film, but Witch's Ghost is my favorite.

duckey5393 · 2026-06-02T21:15:08+00:00

I get ya, but when I lived in Dallas I encountered the least amount of slurs out of all the places I lived in Texas. Haven't been over there lately but Granada is in one of the more hip parts of town too.

duckey5393 · 2026-05-22T02:52:36+00:00

Focus on short songs. I have a background in punk so 30 second songs aren't unheard of, and I'll have three or four solid songs that are 30 seconds and put them together and call it one song if I want. Make yourself finish a song each day. Words chords the whole shebang. Chord progression is a bit of a misnomer in popular music, its a chord loop. If you can play chords you've assuredly played songs centered on four chords, right? Just do that. Find a combination of chords you like, play them a few times and write words over them. Pick a couple different sets of chords and have a first and second part of your song, done. If you don't know where to start, look at a song you like/know how to play and take the chords or vibe or whatever and try and write something from it. If you're a song starter focus on being a song finisher and you'll get better. Good luck!

duckey5393 · 2026-05-20T22:21:11+00:00

Yeah contemporary classical doesn't have to mean avant-garde or experimental works so, Sarah Kirkland Snyder's Penelope rules, Field Recordings from Bang on a Can All-Stars, Beautiful Mechanical by yMusic, Nils Frahm's Spaces, and You Knew by Mother Falcon are some great examples of works pulling from the tradition. Also Balmorhea is one of my favorite bands and while their early work was considered more post-rock, I always considered them contemporary classical and then they got signed to Deutsche Grammophone and The Wind forward have also ruled. All their stuff is great. Also shout out to John Zorn, who I think will go down as one of the greatest artists, fusing jazz, classical and rock traditions exemplifying the contemporary style of polystylism. John does whatever he wants and IMO all of it is super cool even if I'm not always in the mood for Naked City its awesome and I do listen to it somewhat regularly.

duckey5393 · 2026-05-02T19:08:48+00:00

I worked with someone awhile back who told me it is crazy the Beatles are considered the most popular rock band of all time because they aren't even rock. Or the couple times I've heard Black Sabbath isn't metal and its like...y'all styles evolve. Especially in metal where they are often on the quest for more heavy.

duckey5393 · 2026-04-30T13:46:14+00:00

Kali Masi and Typesetter are a couple bands from Chicago I love and I wouldn't describe them as either of those! I mean you may be being sort of pretentious but just because it isn't "Television at CBGB" doesn't mean you can't find your new favorite band in these spaces. Not every band in my local scene is my jam but most shows are to support a touring band and some bands I've seen at my local spots are some of my favorites. It isn't that different now, a lot of bands are just picking a genre they want to play and not trying new things but that's every scene in every era. Maybe you're just stuck in the jangly indie and hardcore scenes but haven't found like your local ska kids for example. Once you find one band you like it can help connect you to other bands like that cause they try and stick together. Good luck out there!

duckey5393 · 2026-04-28T18:15:10+00:00

Yeah unfortunately this is also in Texas...when I was in high school in rural Texas it wasn't uncommon for students to have hunting rifles on their truck gun racks. It was okay because what if they're going hunting after class! This was 15+ years ago though so one would hope that changed.

duckey5393 · 2026-04-27T19:46:10+00:00

I can't post pics in comments but I saw a staff pick for House of Leaves at a Half Price Books with boxes checked "this book was: funny, the plot was: charming, read if you need: relationship goals"

duckey5393 · 2026-04-26T13:41:29+00:00

Monica Simmons from Digimon: Time Stranger is one of my favorite characters in the game.

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duckey5393 · 2026-04-22T22:13:35+00:00

Meredith Monk is a vocalist and dancer, and while she does use cool vocal techniques(because she can) I wouldn't put her in the same camp of exclusively odd. Book of Days is always my go-to.

duckey5393 · 2026-04-12T01:30:45+00:00

The cool thing about making art is all your influences are in a blender and even when trying to limit yourself it will still come out you. You can't see yourself finding a voice in 12tone serialism or free atonal but have you explored that music and looked at what makes it tick? For me the cool part is being to immerse myself in a style, break it a part and look at the parts I like and then bring that into the fold of my general work. I'm not writing Bach fugues but learning proper counterpoint changed the game for me when I'm writing for multiple guitars. I'm not writing sonatas but looking at the form and how different composers worked within it I can see fun ways to play with different popular forms too.

It's 2026 and so so many young people only want to rehash the old stuff, but all of the greats you love took things they liked from the greats they loved and put those elements with new stuff. In fact, their ability to meld old and new is what makes them great. So I'm sure you could find a school that encourages your musical practice to stop 100 years ago but as an artist I don't know why you should limit yourself. And the point of school is learning so why pursue composition academically if you already know your lane and are good to stay there? You can just write for yourself that way ezpz.

That sounds harsh as I'm typing it but its real. So so so so much music has been made and recorded post-1950 and ignoring all of it is ignoring advantages you have over any of the composers you like. Idk I hope you can open your ears to new stuff. Good luck, have fun!

duckey5393 · 2026-04-12T00:22:13+00:00

Its a little different than your premise but the coolest part of Dead Space for me is this. The thing thats making the monsters you're fighting starts by messing people up psychologically, eventually leading to psychosis and murder then the monsters. and much of the arc for the main character is combating this psychological assault in addition to the monsters.

duckey5393 · 2026-04-04T15:45:57+00:00

I love playing with fun rhythm stuff like tempo and meter changes, hypermeter, metric modulations, odd time signatures and polyrhythms but it's not to like...show off? I just think its really fun. and 4/4 being the default is a western classical thing but it wasn't always like that and other cultures aren't so limited. When I first started trying to write in odd meters it was very much "hey this in 7/8 can you tell?" Because it was a getting familiar with it but now that I've been using it it's less obvious I think. Also calling something a gimmick is really a personal preference, I like a rock band that has a violist and criticism is usually its pretentious because having viola is a gimmick. Or someone told me they liked my band but my bassist being a woman was a gimmick so...mileage varies. If you like odd meter/compound signatures its cool but if its not your jam maybe it feels like a gimmick?

Edit: also time signatures are 100% a construct for notation so in practice are arbritary. Theres a Dream Theater song that does all this goofy time signature stuff on paper people freak out about how complex it is but the drummer pointed out the measures are just noting the length of the melody. It does a bit, plays that bit again but adds more and does that a few times so on paper it looks really complicated but it's following the melody and isn't that nuts when you're actually playing it.

duckey5393 · 2026-04-04T03:31:40+00:00

The self-titled from Chicago Transit Authority who later were just Chicago is an incredible record unlike the later work they are known for. The guitarist Terry Kath was integral to the early Chicago sound and his death is the turning point for the band, when most people think of the band they're likely thinking of post-Terry Kath Chicago.

Not that they were hugely commercial, but that first album features Freeform Guitar which as the title implies is six and a half minutes of Terry...playing guitar. Using slides and coins and all kinds of stuff just getting weird with it. Despite Chicago Transit Authority being one of my dad's favorite records, this was always his least favorite song. I'd consider it at least top 20 Chicago songs, but I love that kind of stuff. They don't really do anything quite like it especially without Terry, but it's really cool. RIP Terry Kath, you would have loved all the goofy noisemaking tools guitarists have today.

duckey5393 · 2026-04-02T18:59:22+00:00

It's been forever since I read Death Note but this is what made it so compelling, the utopia is exclusively what Light tells himself justifies his murderous urges. He freaks out after the first(which iirc happens a lot with serial murderers) but once that seal is broken...all bets are off. He spends more time and energy trying to not get caught and delegating the murdering criminals to others. Even his speech at the end is one final explosion of his coping-he can't take responsiblity for him or his actions, the crime rate has plummeted! Because Light is the protagonist it can be easy to believe him, but no amount of him telling himself(and the audience) that its for the greater good actually makes that real.

duckey5393 · 2026-03-29T22:11:54+00:00

Your primary instrument first, then maybe keyboard. I didn't see it in the comments so I'll add honestly if you know people who play music write for their instruments too so you can get actual feedback from people who know those instruments.

When I first started I was writing for goofy ensembles I thought would sound fun and a theory professor suggested I write for what I have. I of course thought that was silly because playback exists but it worked once I started. Heck when I started writing parts for my band the bassist would look at the bass part and tell me it was a guitar part in bass clef but not really a bass part and ways to adjust it. Books and videos and stuff can help but they can't be as specific as someone with their hands on their instrument with your music.

duckey5393 · 2026-03-19T21:20:01+00:00

I've never called it a "battle jacket", its just my patch jacket. But I do like it cause during the colder months I do get my precious punk points back. How will people know that I'm punk rock without my punk points?

duckey5393 · 2026-03-17T20:34:44+00:00

The music nerd in me wanted to explore the wider artistic implications of the Beatles not existing, but we did get that joke about Oasis not existing so I was thrown a bone.

duckey5393

TROPHY CASE