Skip to main content

Izaak

Izaak's picture
  Izaak


JOINED:48 weeks ago
PROGRESS:37  37 songs
LOCATION:Logan, Utah
WEBSITE:http://www.last.fm/music/Izaak+Alexander
INFLUENCES:You can see the music I've been listening to on my last.fm user site. http://www.last.fm/user/izaakalexander

 
BIO:

My first 50/90. I guess I figure if I couldn't win FAWM on my first try I should tackle larger projects.

Songs: 37            ( + = Songs posted by a different Songwriter that you Collaborated on.)
Title Collaborators Comments Post date
1 Four or Five Reasons Why
Demo
11 45 weeks 1 day
2 The Day of the Dollar
Demo
8 45 weeks 2 hours
3 Three Little Pigs
Demofav
17 44 weeks 6 days
4 Fear of Fire
Demo
13 44 weeks 5 days
5 Rendezvous
Demo
8 44 weeks 3 days
6 + Nameless Woman
Demofeast
Izaak
Outasync
14 44 weeks 1 day
7 No Reasons
Demo
8 43 weeks 6 days
8 The Lawnmower Song
Demo
7 43 weeks 6 days
9 Bandido Argentino
Demofav
13 43 weeks 4 days
10 Wineglass Improvisation 7/24
Demofeast
9 43 weeks 1 day
11 Waterfall
Demo
5 43 weeks 12 min
12 Daylight
Demo
7 42 weeks 6 days
13 Vertigo
Demo
5 42 weeks 3 days
14 Fruit Snacks
Demofeast
9 41 weeks 3 days
15 Scars in the Bark
Demo
3 41 weeks 3 days
16 Losing Time
Demofeast
9 41 weeks 1 day
17 Song of the Redwood Tree
Demo
Winner levesinet 13 41 weeks 18 hours
18 Two Voices
Demofeast
6 38 weeks 5 days
19 + You're Sure To Find Yourself
Demo

Negasi
23 38 weeks 4 days
20 That City Life
Demo
4 38 weeks 2 days
21 Seven Long Years
Demo
2 38 weeks 17 hours
22 Tropical Sunset
Demo
5 38 weeks 5 hours
23 Silly Warmups for the First Day of School or...
Demofeast
2 37 weeks 6 days
24 If I Had a Nickel
Demo
6 37 weeks 3 days
25 Anything You Want
Demofeast
8 37 weeks 1 day
26 Flute Improvisation 9/13
Demofeast
1 35 weeks 5 days
27 Violin Improvisation 9/15
Demofeast
1 35 weeks 4 days
28 Trombone Improvisation (with distortion) 9/15
Demofeast
2 35 weeks 4 days
29 Lullaby in E minor (Ballad of The Iron Giant)
Demofav
3 35 weeks 3 days
30 Burning the Man
Demo
3 35 weeks 3 days
31 Touch the Sky
Demo
5 35 weeks 1 day
32 Loved and Lost
Demo
Loved Lost EtC 9 34 weeks 6 days
33 An Antidote for Air Sickness
Demo
NSFW
4 34 weeks 3 days
34 + Snowman transformed. Updated demo
linkfav
Izaak
musicsongwriter
1 34 weeks 3 days
35 Never Gonna Make It (To Fifty Songs)
Demo
5 34 weeks 4 hours
36 Jazz Walrus
Demo
5 33 weeks 6 days
37 + Days Are Fading
Demo

hoops
6 33 weeks 5 days


Soundboard


It's been fun. See you in F.A.W.M.

My instrumentals represented the summer season, like a snapshot. Alas, autumn happened! Besides, I was running out of bandwidth... damn Filefreak.

Yeah, they really lay it on the line with their performances, both studio and live -- FWIW, 'Uprooting' is the album I adore, their later stuff I have yet to engage with properly ...

Donated  hoops
hoops's picture

finally!: http://fiftyninety.fawmers.org/songs/12053

your section is awesome :) love the way you use the brass against the main melody

Thanks for those nice comments. Yeah, I miss those Levesinet songs too, there were some gems for sure ... so do you wind down now until FAWM or keep ticking over during the winter?

Donated  TomS
TomS's picture

Thanks for the comments, Izaak! The vocals are the Delay Lama, from several years ago:

http://www.kvraudio.com/get/226.html

hey, izaak! thanks for all the great comments! :) i finished the notation; it's in finale. can you open finale files? i can try and see if i can save as i pdf, but i'm not sure it will work. also, i would love to be able to download demos on here without having to use a secondary site, but i'm not sure how you guys do it. suggestions? thanks! :D

Hello Izaak, I've posted our collaboration and added you. Thank you so much for your fantastic work!

Hi Izaak, both compositions are now downloadable from Soundclick.
Thank you for collaborating.

Hi izaak, I really appreciate your interest in The Streets of York. Fingers crossed...

Thanks for stopping by on "Touch The Sky" I posted a demo befitting a "skirmish" (means it is pretty rough -- ha, ha).

Thank you so much for your comments on "passing storm" and "Oh for you"! So fun to hear someone comment on the earlier songs :)

Lyrics posted. Thanks for the comment! http://fiftyninety.fawmers.org/songs/11440

Thanks for listening and commenting on my songs. The title Jazz Penguin actually comes from the 4 foot tall stuffed penguin that stands next to my studio computer and wears a straw Fedora. JonnieGrunge and I call him Marcel the Jazz Penguin.

Donated  hoops
hoops's picture

hi Izaak - sorry for slow reply re: exquisite. Shady was busy and took a couple of weeks to do her bit and I've taken about a week so far (been too depressed to record, actually) but I'm the case now. Hopefully soon!

izaak, thanks so much the compliment and the wonderful offer! i try to whip something up finale! definitely feel free to change the key or alter some leaps as necessary...you rock! :)

Wow! You are kicking butt! I took a break to work on a different project.. but I might be able to get another one in there.. what happened to the summer right? Keep up the good work!

hey thanks for that tip about flanger and hiss....i would not know how to do that though...)) not too good at this whole recording/songwriting lark....;;;

Hey, thanks for your comment!

Thanks for the comment on "I Can Breathe Beneath the Lake". Chip Withrow is working up some music for it, so hopefully there will be an audio version soon. I've been lucky to get some lyrics done this summer, let alone getting a recording done, so most of what I have gotten up this time and during fawm was lyrics. Thank goodness for collaborating friends. You're doing a great job and I'm looking forward to hearing more of your stuff.

Happy you liked "Grand Reunion". It's always fun when an "old" song gets a fresh comment! Thanks for listening!

Thanks for your nice comments on "When You're With Me." Larry did a great job with the music.

On the melody algorithm: http://fiftyninety.fawmers.org/songs/9490#comment-51941
I'm certainly not going to generate 50 more pieces of Muzak... It's too schematic and mechanical. LOL

Thanks for the kind comments! I actually put that one together by rote and by quick piecemeal recordings of ideas... but I do usually notate. I'd totally be down for collaboration!! Congrats on 21 songs so far... when it's not so late and work not so soon, I'll be happy to give a listen to a few of them :)

It's Shady's turn at our Exquisite - will check in with her about it tomorrow and move it along one way or another!

Hey Izaak, I emailed you the correct link to the file, sorry for getting it wrong first time. Please drop me a note if you have any trouble picking it up.

Geoff

"I'm really just a band and orchestra teacher gone bad."
Gotcha! That explains to some extent why you're so studious. ;)

thank you so much for the comment you left on my latest song!!

Hey :)
Thanks for the feedback on the podcast. And your son was a-DOR-able hahah Hopefully they fix the jukebox so I can find new stuff. I must remember to start on that, like, now... >.<

Hi Izaak.

Re: Your questions about Focus In. I had several ideas hanging around that I threaded together for this. Each section came together independently and the sequence of recording/composing was : Rough guitar part, drums, lead rhythm bass guitar. then on to the next sections. Leads were on average two or three takes.

Tom

Comment by Izaak
Nice Tom! That might be a new challenge for me--- working in sections rather than hitting the whole song at once. We'll see.

...and on your note about the minor dominant chord. I was thinking you were talking a chord *type*, not a chord function. I never thought about the dominant in mix. being minor--interesting. I've been following your explorations of the modes with interest. I posted a song in (partly) dorian recently (the one with the Greek title, if you're interested) and am working on a mixolydian and phrygian one.

Thanks for your comment on my little song! I probably won't add anything to it, but hopefully I've learned something from it.

Hi Izaak, thanks for the detailed comment on "A Modern Robin Hood". I'll definitely take your thoughts into consideration when I go to work on performing the song, and any future updates to the demo. I agree that a little instrumental interlude would act as a breather for the listener.

Hi, I just wanted to say sorry i haven't commented yet on your songs, i barely spend any time at home and your songs are hosted in a place that the firewall at work won't let me listen to!

Comment by Izaak
No worries. I'm less and less happy with filefreak as 50/90 goes on. I may eventually put my files elsewhere.

I write almost every note with the mouse in FL Studio 7's piano roll view. There are some problems with the software, especially when I'd like to restructure a large score. I think a newer version would work better especially with the sound libraries. Then I have a few digital piano tracks that I just improvised (e.g. In Satie's Style I and II); they are more lively but contain many mistakes. Yesterday I wrote Bonne Nuit with the mouse and it involved drawing a tempo curve and positioning notes away from the theoretically exact beat in addition to parameterizing the cello synth. It gets cumbersome and the result is always somewhat unnatural. If I want to write a score sheet, I'll do it with LilyPond from scratch; now that's really arduous.

Your songs sound like you play all the instruments manually; or at least most of them. That's one of the main reasons why it sounds so lively and refreshing to me.

Since I'm most comfortable working with the piano roll interface, it's natural to do those mechanical music box and carousel tracks. They are the easy stuff.

Thanks for the nice comments/soundboard post Izaak! It means a lot to me. As I've said, I really enjoy your songs as well. I picked up the free EP you had on your Last.FM page the other day. I've played it a few times and it's really good. It's earned a place on my iPod for a while.

I just finished cutting my lawn. Guess what I was singing as I did it.

Comment by Izaak
*laughing* I can't believe you got a locrian mode melody stuck in your head!
Donated  Leslie
Leslie's picture

Thanks very much for the comments on my songs, Izaak. Sorry for the delayed response!

I'm a fan,
wolf.

Hi Izaak - just dug a couple more of your fantastic tunes! Thanks for the comment on my "Lovers Lane" song - you've inspired me to do some more work on it! I recorded it quickly during about a half-hour of free time before family descends upon us for a wild weekend. But I think I'm going to update the demo with guitar and vocal and let the banjo follow the melody more. So thanks again for the useful input.

Thanks for listening and your comment :)

Donated  TomS
TomS's picture

Hey Izaak, again, thanks for the listens and the great comments! :)

Izaak, thanks for your nice comment -- I don't perform and I only develop songs as far as this sort of demo stage -- if i ever get round to doing a 'proper' album, and this was on it, I think I'd pretty much stick with this melody.

Hey, thanks a lot for your comments on my stuff! As for your question about the style of the "game" I'm scoring/book it's based around, it's closer to steampunk than wizards and dragons. Steampunk style technology, along with some mystical hi-tech stuff that borders on being magical, is a sizeable factor in the world, and the story. So on the score, I'll be mixing electronics and "machines" with more fantasty-style stuff.

Hey Izaak - Thanks for the kind words on my dinocore tunes.. not going up to 50 with those, just a 10-track concept :) Looking forward to checking out yours this 50/90.

Hi Izaak, thanks for the comment on "Woody" - though I had to look up "solfeggio" and realise what a clever guy I am! Glad you enjoyed it, it pretty much wrote itself (or was it Woody's Ghost?) and was great fun to sing and play.

Thanks for the shout. 3am is updated with a rough demo.

hey Thanks for that advice and i will try and make use of it in the forthcoming weeks.....;

Donated  TomS
TomS's picture

Hey, thanks for the listen and the really nice comment. I was also not sure about the ending, but, hey, this is 50/90, right? :)

Yes, that is exactly what I was going for, but I couldn't quite get it -- singing it all in one breath is a great idea, thanks!

hey, thank you also... lookin forward to hearing more of yer tunes...i get addicted to things easily and right now its fiddyninety....and smoking...