Music Composition

[Tsuru]

Hi all,

I stumbled across this side of Treeleaf just today and I’m glad I did.

Last year I based my MA portfolio on a form of pointillism and spontaneity that initially stemmed from the ideas surrounding ensō painting.

I’d love to hear music you all have composed, and hear your thoughts on the process (linked to zen or not)!.

The work I mentioned can be heard here:


http://tsurumusic.bandcamp.com/album/capture

Though soon to be re-released with Beached Records

With warmth,
Jonathan,
Gassho
St


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[Kokuu]

That's lovely, Tsuru! That kind of minimal sound based on recordings and music is something I really like.

Bandcamp is a brilliant source of relatively unknown music.

I am a writer rather than musician so my attempts are more fun than serious:

https://soundcloud.com/magic-drummer/closeness
https://soundcloud.com/magic-drummer/antares

Sekishi does some interesting things with electronics and probably others have been composing too.

Gassho
Kokuu
-sattoday/lah-

[Tsuru]

That's lovely, Tsuru! That kind of minimal sound based on recordings and music is something I really like.

Bandcamp is a brilliant source of relatively unknown music.

I am a writer rather than musician so my attempts are more fun than serious:

https://soundcloud.com/magic-drummer/closeness
https://soundcloud.com/magic-drummer/antares

Sekishi does some interesting things with electronics and probably others have been composing too.

Gassho
Kokuu
-sattoday/lah-

Thank you, Kokuu! I love pieces that contain field recordings a lot more than I expected I would, really changes the perception of ‘music’ as sound. It’s become my main focus as a composer.

I enjoyed these pieces, ‘antares’ in particular comes over very playful and earnest.

I’m hoping to see some links posted, can never have too much to listen to

Gassho,
Jonathan,
St


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[Kokuu]

Tsuru

I guess that field recordings are to composers, pretty much the same idea as found objects are to visual artists.

It does seem like a really lovely way to inspire a piece of work.

Gassho
Kokuu
-sattoday/lah-

[Sekishi]

Thank you, Kokuu! I love pieces that contain field recordings a lot more than I expected I would, really changes the perception of ‘music’ as sound. It’s become my main focus as a composer.


Hi Tsuru,

We did a project in the Treeleaf Art Circle a few years back where people from the Sangha gathered field recordings and posted them.

Many are posted here:
https://soundcloud.com/treeleaf-zendo/sets/treeleaf-art-circle-field-recordings

There are some that we could not include in the above playlist because they were not on Soundcloud, so you can also check this old thread:
https://www.treeleaf.org/forums/showthread.php?15483-Sound-and-Silence-with-Sekishi-and-Daizan

I have various live electronic jams on Soundcloud too (techno on modular synths, minimal ambient, etc.), but stopped posting last year after I ran out of space on the free account. :D
https://soundcloud.com/circumjacence

Gassho,
Sekishi #sat #headnod

[Tsuru]

Sekishi,

Thank you for linking those, I’d likely never have stumbled onto the on my own haha.

I really love that attention has been brought to still sound and that so many of the sangha have created their own field recordings.

Thank you also for linking to your work, the piece that opens immediately is brilliant. The reverb character reminds me a lot of Brian Eno’s Music for Airports. I’ll definitely check out more of your stuff.

Have you co side red making a bandcamp account? I’m not sure that there’s a limit on your uploads there and it’s a particularly good streaming site for discovering music.

With warmth,
Jonathan,
Gassho
St


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[Sharan]

I will need to take some time to listen to all of your music because, quite frankly, I approach music with a little bit more seriousness than a lot of people - being musician and ex-radio host myself.

I've been playing music in a lot of different bands, currently playing bass and singing in a hardcore punk band, but also doing a rock'n'roll thing with another band. None of these have anything to do with zen nor Buddhism, they're quite the "reactionary" music outputs :D

However, one of my ex projects is called TOPHETH/ELEPHANT'S FOOT and it's been inspired by different world mythologies, legends, and stories of human beliefs. I've released several albums before ending the project in 2015. I tend to think about resurrecting it from time to time, but then again, a lot of stuff to do at the moment and finishing my novel is the number one priority. I'm a poor man's renaissance man, I guess. :)

https://tophethell.bandcamp.com/

[Kendrick]

I hadn't really seen this section yet either! Now I have and fresh listening material from you guys to listen to this afternoon. :)

I haven't made any new music in about 6 years or so (became too busy with a job I got in 2013, then my computer I used to make music on broke) but I still have my SoundCloud account up, albeit reduced in size since its the free version now. Vast majority of the music I've made has been electronic; many different genres. Still some tracks here though: https://soundcloud.com/nathankendrick

Gassho
Kendrick
Sat

[Tsuru]

I will need to take some time to listen to all of your music because, quite frankly, I approach music with a little bit more seriousness than a lot of people - being musician and ex-radio host myself.

I've been playing music in a lot of different bands, currently playing bass and singing in a hardcore punk band, but also doing a rock'n'roll thing with another band. None of these have anything to do with zen nor Buddhism, they're quite the "reactionary" music outputs :D

However, one of my ex projects is called TOPHETH/ELEPHANT'S FOOT and it's been inspired by different world mythologies, legends, and stories of human beliefs. I've released several albums before ending the project in 2015. I tend to think about resurrecting it from time to time, but then again, a lot of stuff to do at the moment and finishing my novel is the number one priority. I'm a poor man's renaissance man, I guess. :)

https://tophethell.bandcamp.com/

Sharan,

Thanks for posting this, I skimmed through a few of the tracks on the bandcamp you linked and really enjoyed. I’m working with an artist on a release at the minute it’s very reminiscent of. I’d love to hear some of your other work if it’s available anywhere?

I’d also love to hear more about this novel, the more outputs the better!

With warmth,
Jonathan


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[Shinshi]

I have posted these before. These are projects I did for a course I took on Ableton Live.

This was attempt at something sort of electronic:
https://soundcloud.com/amdue/intheam

And for this one I was trying for something sort of cinematic:
https://soundcloud.com/amdue/the-morlocks-and-the-eloi

Gassho, Shinshi

SaT-LaH

[Archpoet]

Not sure how I missed this thread.

Figured I'd add mine to the pile. :D

https://soundcloud.com/archpoet/sets/all-tracks

Gassho,
Chris
st/lah

[Nengei]

What a wonderful idea, thank you for asking this question, Tsuru. I am looking forward to listening to these compositions that I did not know existed!

Gassho,
Nengei
Sat today. LAH.
Be gentle. Be compassionate. Be kind.

[Tsuru]

I have posted these before. These are projects I did for a course I took on Ableton Live.

This was attempt at something sort of electronic:
https://soundcloud.com/amdue/intheam

And for this one I was trying for something sort of cinematic:
https://soundcloud.com/amdue/the-morlocks-and-the-eloi

Gassho, Shinshi

SaT-LaH

Shinshi,

I love these. I definitely hear the Ableton vibe in ‘In The AM’, reminds me a lot of water levels on earlier video games.

And the second track would be brilliant in a sci fi short, thanking for sharing these!

Jonathan
St


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[Tsuru]

Not sure how I missed this thread.

Figured I'd add mine to the pile. :D

https://soundcloud.com/archpoet/sets/all-tracks

Gassho,
Chris
st/lah

Thank you for sharing, Chris.

Have you ever listened to SebastiAn? Some of the layered electronics, and particularly the synth tones remind me a lot of his album Thirst.

Really good stuff!

With warmth,
Jonathan
St


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[Ryudo]

Thank you all for your contributions.
Although I play music I am not a composer.
I enjoyed listening to your works.
Keep on being creative.

Gassho/SatToday

[Shinshi]

Shinshi,

I love these. I definitely hear the Ableton vibe in ‘In The AM’, reminds me a lot of water levels on earlier video games.

And the second track would be brilliant in a sci fi short, thanking for sharing these!

Jonathan
St


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Thanks. If anyone is interested the course I took was on Coursera and has just been updated to Ableton 10. It starts up on Monday the 20th of April. The instructor is really good and she teaches at Berklee College of Music. You can audit it for free.

The two things I think are at least kind of interesting about the Morlocks and Eloi song is that the flute is me playing live, and the sort of spoken word vocals. I just kind of made up vocal sounds that I thought were Morlock like. I said them out as sentences. Then I broke them up into individual midi snippets which were then played with a keyboard. So you could kind of play a vocal line.

Gassho, Shinshi

SaT-LaH

[Tsuru]

Thanks. If anyone is interested the course I took was on Coursera and has just been updated to Ableton 10. It starts up on Monday the 20th of April. The instructor is really good and she teaches at Berklee College of Music. You can audit it for free.

The two things I think are at least kind of interesting about the Morlocks and Eloi song is that the flute is me playing live, and the sort of spoken word vocals. I just kind of made up vocal sounds that I thought were Morlock like. I said them out as sentences. Then I broke them up into individual midi snippets which were then played with a keyboard. So you could kind of play a vocal line.

Gassho, Shinshi

SaT-LaH

I quite like doing that to create melodies with a slightly disjointed feel. I also find it useful to vocal sections I can’t quite sing!

Gassho,
Jonathan
St


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[Kyonin]

Hi guys,

I had this wrapped as an ongoing project, but due to the current events, I had to put it on hold. I have been working with a friend of mine who is a musician and DJ. We were putting together some songs. That's my voice :D

This is a tech demo we did some months ago:

https://1drv.ms/u/s!Akxki0vbnRKikoYLeofL_eYTE87mCA?e=5Nk46X

And here is an oldie I recorded a few years ago. We did a fusion of hard rock with Aztec instruments. Here I played drums, ocarina and that's my voice in Rarámuri.

https://1drv.ms/u/s!Akxki0vbnRKijuZt8YD0oi2fe1k2NA?e=o2EpHv

Hope you guys like them.

Gassho,

Kyonin
Sat/LAH

[Shokai]

Some neat stuff there Kyonin, congratulations. When do you start your concert tour??

gassho, Shokai
stlah

[Tsuru]

Just wanted to share this with you all, the teaser trailer for our launch mixtape coming on Friday. It’s taken a surprising amount of work to get to this point and feels amazing to be so close


https://youtu.be/uqcFhHWrzWE

Gassho,
Jonathan
St


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[Bokugan]

Wow, this area of the forum is new to me as well! So much new tunes to check out. I'm very passionate about music and love hearing work by others. Plan to spend the evening checking this all out.




I have various live electronic jams on Soundcloud too (techno on modular synths, minimal ambient, etc.), but stopped posting last year after I ran out of space on the free account. :D
https://soundcloud.com/circumjacence



I'm a synth nerd myself! I love analog -- all I have that qualifies as analog is a Bass Station II and Monotribe, but they are a blast to play with. I have some stuff on SoundCloud as well, but it's not all family friendly and some comes from a very angsty and different era of my life [evil2] [morehappy] https://soundcloud.com/ryan-spellman-1

Gassho,

Ryan S
Sat Today

[Kyotaku]

I play only traditional zen music on kyotaku
https://soundcloud.com/hans-vanloon1
gassho
Hosei
Sat today

[Bokugan]

I play only traditional zen music on kyotaku
https://soundcloud.com/hans-vanloon1
gassho
Hosei
Sat today

Really enjoying this, thank you for sharing Hosei gassho2

Gassho,

Ryan
Sat Today

[Kyotaku]

Glad you like it. I play daily 1/2 - 1 hour as additional zen practice beside 3/4 hour zazen. Called " sui-zen " . But is is old compositions. Not by myself.

Gassho2
Hosei
Sat Today

[Sekishi]

I'm a synth nerd myself! I love analog -- all I have that qualifies as analog is a Bass Station II and Monotribe, but they are a blast to play with. I have some stuff on SoundCloud as well, but it's not all family friendly and some comes from a very angsty and different era of my life [evil2] [morehappy] https://soundcloud.com/ryan-spellman-1


Nice! Inspired by 90's industrial / EBM? Two of my musical touchstones are Skinny Puppy and Gridlock - your work fits right in there.

Deep bows,
Sekishi
#sat #boombap

[Bokugan]

Nice! Inspired by 90's industrial / EBM? Two of my musical touchstones are Skinny Puppy and Gridlock - your work fits right in there.

Deep bows,
Sekishi
#sat #boombap

Oh yeah, you totally pegged my influences right there.

I am a massive Skinny Puppy fan -- got to see them a couple times! If you like Skinny Puppy, you should look into Youth Code. There are a lot of people like them bringing back that sound.

Gassho,

Ryan
Sat Today

[Hokin]

Hello dear ones!
I'd like to drop here (and not without loads of shyness!) the soundcloud-link to a little Folk-Rock project I founded and led some few years ago (now totally dimantelled for reasons unimportant to here...), totally based on compositions of my own authory...

I must say that I was never happy with the final overall result of the recordings (in terms of the recording sound itself and production- I was very low financed and still am!), but you can at least distinguish something like a general vibe to it and maybe, if you are somewhat familiar with musicianship and music production, maybe even find it potentially interesting (or at least so I hope!).

Anyway...there it goes...3...2...1...GO:

https://soundcloud.com/meandthewhitehorse

Now...just enjoy!

Gassho.
Arya.
ST&LAH.