2014 on Brian P. Hogan

MonthOfMusic Retrospective

Wed, 24 Sep 2014 17:58:40 +0000

In August, I embarked on a huge task: I set out to record and release one song a day for an entire month. And I actually did it. The entire playlist is up online.

MonthOfMusic Day 31

Sun, 31 Aug 2014 20:28:44 +0000

This is it.. the last #MonthOfMusic song. (To listen to the whole month, check out http://bphogan.com/tag/monthofmusic) For the finale, I chose to finally record a song I wrote a long time ago for my wife, Carissa. Here it is. Hope you enjoy, and thanks for listening.

MonthOfMusic Day 30

Sun, 31 Aug 2014 04:34:08 +0000

Just a little piano piece I wrote a long time ago. I figured it was time to record it.

MonthOfMusic Day 29

Fri, 29 Aug 2014 07:32:35 +0000

I really haven’t done any hard rock, and seeing as how I grew up listening to straight-ahead rock of the 80s, I figured I’d better sneak one into the MonthOfMusic. Gotta pay tribute to some of my influences. So here’s number 29.

MonthOfMusic Day 28

Fri, 29 Aug 2014 01:14:30 +0000

For day 28, I went back to the guitar and just kinda jammed. I felt like doing some tunes like I did in college, and I am pretty happy with what I ended up with.

MonthOfMusic Day 27

Thu, 28 Aug 2014 00:21:50 +0000

We’re in the home stretch here. I did another electronic rock tune. This song’s melody was originally written after I finished the RPM Challenge in 2011. I pulled out the original track today and scrapped a lot of what was there and finished it up. I think it could use a little more work on the mix, and it ends a little too abruptly, but again, I’m limiting the amount of time I spend per day on these tunes.

MonthOfMusic Day 26

Tue, 26 Aug 2014 22:32:37 +0000

Still going strong. Although now that school has started it’s been a little tougher to wedge in the time to get this done. Another EDM track, this time a bit short and faster.

MonthOfMusic Day 25

Tue, 26 Aug 2014 03:17:21 +0000

For today, I did a little more electronic music, using a little 303 melody I wrote last year. It was part of something else that never sounded right, so I used it here instead.

MonthOfMusic Day 24

Mon, 25 Aug 2014 03:46:54 +0000

And here’s song 24. Getting closer to the end! This is a tune I wrote several years ago, and because today was so busy I didn’t have much time to write anything new, so instead I just recorded this piece on the piano. Enjoy.

MonthOfMusic Day 23

Sat, 23 Aug 2014 07:49:18 +0000

While working on the mix of Song 22, which took far longer than it should, I came up with a different melody and 45 minutes later, I had this. I’m ridiculously happy with this one. This one will eventually end up on Stutter It just goes to show that by doing this every day, I’m ready when the muse shows up.

MonthOfMusic Day 22

Sat, 23 Aug 2014 04:50:06 +0000

Today was rough. I have had this guitar riff running through my head for a week, and I finally sat down to record it. I did it in the key of G, and I’m just awful at that scale. It was an excuse to make me practice, and man, was it rough. I did about 30 takes of this one. This is the one song this month that took the longest for me to record, and it’s a few minutes to midnight so I’m shipping what I have.

MonthOfMusic Day 21

Fri, 22 Aug 2014 02:39:46 +0000

Here’s song 21, and it might be a little all over the place, but I really liked the melody. I’ll probably rework this in the future, but for this challenge, it’s good enough for me. One of the biggest problems I’ve had before doing this is a lack of confidence in releasing things, and by releasing things that aren’t as perfect as I’d like, I’m working to get over that.

MonthOfMusic Day 20

Thu, 21 Aug 2014 04:24:30 +0000

Here’s song 20, done in just a few minutes. It was an extremely long day today, but I still managed to fit this in and I’m happy with the results. Enjoy!

MonthOfMusic Day 19

Wed, 20 Aug 2014 04:46:46 +0000

Here’s today’s song. Another electronic one, based on a melody I did during the RPM challenge this year.

MonthOfMusic Day 18

Tue, 19 Aug 2014 03:26:32 +0000

Day 18’s tune is actually the song I wrote and recorded on day 16, but it got bumped two days because I had other ideas I wanted to do. It’s electro-pop, almost in the style of Pet Shop Boys or Erasure. I can’t sing like Neil Tennant though so there’s no vocals. (Ok, there were but I chickened out and cut them out before uploading.) Anyway, here ya go!

MonthOfMusic Day 17

Mon, 18 Aug 2014 03:29:06 +0000

Today’s song is another solo piano piece, recorded in a single take. Sometimes this happens; I’ll just get an idea for a song and go bang it out, and then completely forget it because I never recorded it. This time I got it, and I’ll probably do something more substantial with this piece in the future. But for now, enjoy!

MonthOfMusic Day 16

Sat, 16 Aug 2014 06:04:59 +0000

For song 16, I banged out a heavier rock tune than I’ve done in the past. This riff is something I’ve had laying around for a while. It took way too long to do the solos for this one and what I ended up with is the best I could do given my (artificially-imposed) time constraints.

MonthOfMusic Day 15

Sat, 16 Aug 2014 00:33:19 +0000

It’s day 15! I’m at the halfway point now, and despite being on the road for a conference and having many other interruptions, I’ve managed to make it this far. Song 15 is a little drum and bass things I cooked up. Enjoy!

MonthOfMusic Day 14

Fri, 15 Aug 2014 04:29:53 +0000

For Day 14, I took a track I was working on for a bit for the RPM Challenge and did some more work on it. It’s electronic and was originally composed when I was doing 26 Days. Give it a listen! And if you missed any others, listen to those too!

MonthOfMusic Day 13

Thu, 14 Aug 2014 04:02:30 +0000

Another song recorded on-the-go at ThatConference. A short electronic piece again.

MonthOfMusic Day 12

Tue, 12 Aug 2014 13:29:23 +0000

The MonthOfMusic continues, from ThatConference. Missed the other songs? Listen here. Do you like NES-style 8 bit music? If not, what’s wrong with you?

MonthOfMusic Day 11

Mon, 11 Aug 2014 12:30:11 +0000

Here’s today’s tune. It’s another short piano piece. I’ll be switching gears for tomorrow’s tune, but enjoy this and pass it on!

MonthOfMusic day 10

Sun, 10 Aug 2014 17:21:58 +0000

Today’s piece is another piano tune. Oh, and did you miss yesterday’s tune? Listen to that one here.

MonthOfMusic Day 9

Sun, 10 Aug 2014 04:00:32 +0000

Day nine was spent at a wedding and running some other errands, and in the middle of all of that I found some time to upload a song. I recorded this early in the morrning. A nice simple piano tune.

MonthOfMusic Day 8

Fri, 08 Aug 2014 17:48:11 +0000

I had a really hard time coming up with anything I could be proud of today. Lots of other things on my mind. But then I came up with a little melody and ran with it. This is one of the reasons I’m doing this challenge; sometimes we have to be creative even when our minds our fighting us. We need to overcome and do our best. We’re back to electronic today.

MonthOfMusic Day 7

Thu, 07 Aug 2014 07:06:28 +0000

For day 7, I did another guitar-rock tune. I took an old riff I wrote in college and laid down a full 4 minute demo of the song. It feels really good to get this one out of my head. Enjoy. And spread the word please!

MonthOfMusic Day 6

Wed, 06 Aug 2014 15:08:45 +0000

Day six is some 90’s-influenced “modern rock.” Think Gin Blossoms or stuff like that.

MonthOfMusic Day 5

Tue, 05 Aug 2014 07:20:16 +0000

Here’s song #5. A little more aggressive techno than I usually do. Inspired by some 90s techno.

MonthOfMusic Day 4

Mon, 04 Aug 2014 18:46:14 +0000

It’s Monday, day 4 of my Month Of Music. if you missed any of the weekend’s songs, give those a listen too. Day 3 Day 2 For Day 4, I’m releasing a track that will end up making the cut for Stutter. I haven’t been able to make much time to finish that project and I’m hoping that some of the tracks that I do for this month will be a good “fit” for that project too.

MonthOfMusic Day 3

Sun, 03 Aug 2014 15:08:22 +0000

For day three I busted out my electric guitar and figured out how to get the clean sound into the computer for recording. I used the USB cable that came with the Rocksmith game and it turned out to work very well. I brought it in clean and used lots of effects processing to get the sound I wanted, and I think this worked pretty well. On the downside, I’m really rusty at playing solos, and even rustier with a slide, so it took several takes to get the guitar solos down.

MonthOfMusic Day 2

Sat, 02 Aug 2014 06:54:03 +0000

On Day Two I decided to go back to what I know best – a little bit of electronic music. I had this damn melody going through my head most of the evening for some reason, so I scrapped my original plan and worked this one up. It ended up being longer than I expected, but I’m not spending too much time cleaning things up for this experiment. Thoughts welcome!

MonthOfMusic Day 1

Fri, 01 Aug 2014 08:18:03 +0000

For the month of August, I’m recording and releasing a song each day. Read more here. This one was easy. It was bouncing around in my head all day so as soon as it hit midnight I started recording. It’s a short piece with strings.

A Month Of Music

Fri, 01 Aug 2014 03:55:20 +0000

I’ve been challenged by a friend to record and release something every day for a month. I’ve chosen August to do this and I’m going to see how far I can get. I plan to use anything at my disposal, including my phone if I have to. I’m going to use this as a chance to experiment with different styles, too, so if you’ve heard any of my electronic music, prepare to be a little surprised.