100 Days of Music by Aaron Parecki
100 Days of Music by Aaron Parecki
Aaron Parecki
Follow as I write 100 short songs in 100 days. Each song is an experiment in some aspect of writing music, and is usually between 20-90 seconds long.
Day 100 - Century
Day 100. As you can probably imagine, I was spending a lot of energy trying to figure out what to do for my 100th day. I had considered a few options, like "33 seconds of silence", or a bizarre mashup of the previous 99 songs. In the end, I decided to make the final song be just one note, a massive orchestra hit. It turns out it takes a surprising number of instruments to make this sound like anything still. Several layers of strings, various percussion instruments, a large piano chord, and I even snuck in a subtle hint of the electronic cello that's been featured in a few of my songs. And with that, I am done! I've published all the songs and videos on a web page if you want to browse through the archives! https://100.aaronparecki.com
Mar 30, 2017
10 sec
Day 99 - Penultimate
Day 99. Almost done. I had fun with the pizzicato strings in this one. The pizzicato cello and the snare drum hold down the rhythm, and I have a few different violins and violas playing the melody.
Mar 29, 2017
48 sec
Day 98 - Mushrooms
Day 98. Another multiple-layer piano track. Each piano has a different effect applied. Echo, reverbs, EQ to emphasize specific frequencies.
Mar 28, 2017
48 sec
Day 97 - Unknown
Day 97. Further proving the theory that when I don't have a plan for the day, I end up finishing way sooner than I thought, today's song took less than an hour. As usual, I started this with the piano intro, and built it up from there. I considered using a drum set, but then opted for a light bongo track instead. The piano part is actually two overlaid tracks in the same range, which for some reason ends up working nicely together. I think the middle section could use a little more buildup, but the flute does an okay job at denoting the middle section.
Mar 27, 2017
54 sec
Day 96 - Sunrise
Day 96. I always seem to spend a lot more time on these when there's a specific sound I'm going for. This one turned out to take way more layers than I expected. I'm still a little confused why I couldn't quite get the string section to sound correctly "on" the beat. I tried snapping it exactly to the beat, and that sounded too lagging in some cases, so I tried moving up a few of the notes in some cases. It's not quite right, but it's about as close as I can get it.
Mar 26, 2017
40 sec
Day 95 - Travel
Day 95. I wanted to try something in a medieval style, so this is a quick sketch mostly experimenting with the instrumentation of it.
Mar 25, 2017
20 sec
Day 94 - Windows
Day 94. I didn't have a great plan for this today. There's a lot of sounds going on here, but I tried to make a few of the highlights stand out. I think also after a few days in a row of doing piano-centric songs, I tend to try something in a totally different direction just to make sure I'm not getting stuck.
Mar 24, 2017
40 sec
Day 93 - Signal
Day 93. I didn't end up finishing today's song before going to the studio for my last class, so I had to finish it here. I ended up doing something pretty simple just cause I didn't have much time. The video is some test footage we shot on the green screen earlier today.
Mar 23, 2017
31 sec
Day 92 - Bloom
Day 92. This is maybe a little more wander-y than I wanted, I wasn't expecting to bring in the orchestra in the middle until after I had started. I originally thought it would be just piano again. There's a couple little nods to some other songs in here if you listen closely.
Mar 22, 2017
1 min
Day 91 - Green
Day 91. I don't know why I'm on such a piano kick lately. This one was kind of fun because it's more notes than can be played with two hands, but doesn't totally sound like it.
Mar 21, 2017
51 sec
Load more