Riffs

So, here are some random riffs of mine, both for the guitar and ukulele, so far unconnected to any larger piece of music.

A Little Mischief

I've since added a little more to "Bleak," but I don't have a midi of that draft to post.

Bleak

Many of my riffs and songs began when I put my fingers over random frets and seeing what kind of chord it made. I thought this one had a nice East Asian flavor. I play this one as close to the bridge as possible to get that tinny sound.

Pagoda

The title of the next one is obviously a play on "Dust in the Wind," from which I got the picking pattern.

Lint in the Breeze

Here's another little riff that began as a random chord that I liked.

Pyramid

This last one is an ukulele riff. The title is a combination of Flea, the model of ukulele I play, and blue, since this is played in a blues scale.

Flue

That's it for now. Most of my subsequent updates will probably be single riffs like this, since they're easier to come up with than complete songs.

Loss, The March of Time

I'm not usually one to get my emotions out through creativity. Art and music are things I do for happiness and enjoyment, not to express my depression, anger, or neuroses (not that I necessarily have depression, anger, and neuroses). However, about a year ago, I had my heart broken, and I attempted to do just that. Here is the result. It didn't make me feel any better. The self-pity is palpable in these notes.
The main "dun-dun" melody of this song, and the one following, is highly influenced by this, a background song from Super Castlevania IV.

Loss

A few weeks later, I reworked the main theme into a new song. This one is much more trudging and ominous, and less mournful. It's a product of creativity, rather than sadness. It's also one that I really need to record, because it probably sounds fairly boring in midi. Too bad I don't have a microphone anymore.
I play this song a lot, and it's growing naturally. If I play it enough, the last part of the song will eventually let me know what needs to come next. It's a very active work in progress. This version is actually unfinished; there are subsequent riffs that I have not added to it yet.

The March of Time

I feel that both of these songs have their moments, but I'm more creatively involved with the second one.

The Stars

Sometimes I play around with certain melodies, chords, and note patterns for quite a while before a song emerges out of it. This song is an example of that. I played the opening guitar riff, or riffs similar to it, for well over a year before a song solidified out of it.
As I wrote this song and listened to it, I got feelings and images of a man looking out of a spacecraft window out at the heavens. Wonder and unease at the vastness of the universe, profound isolation, weightlessness.
That's what I get out of this song, anyway.
The instrument that comes into the mix at 1:00 is supposed to have vibrato, but for whatever reason PowerTab (the program I use to make these songs) doesn't want it to.

The Stars

Shadow Over the Land

This is my attempt at a sort of spaghetti western soundtrack song. Very unfinished.

Shadow Over the Land

Crossroads

This was inspired by the music playing during the end credits of the movie "Spanglish." I have both a midi and an enhanced version, and I'd recommend listening to both of them, since there's a fairly marked difference between them.
At the tail end of the midi, you can hear the first line of another melody, which I never finished.

Crossroads midi

Crossroads remix

Comet

Here's the first song I composed on Power Tab. This is actually the second version of the song. This version only goes the first chorus riff, while the original went on somewhat further, featuring a second verse and chorus, and the beginning of an interlude. I started work on a third "definitive" version, but both that and the original perished along with the hard drive on which they were saved. This version, along with many of my other songs, were on a flash drive, and escaped that fate.
I tried to use some fancier chords in the intro to this version, but the result is atonal.

http://www.zshare.net/audio/70834571df4970ac/