Gruber

Gruber News! – More Requests?

Added 2020-09-21 14:01:01 +0000 UTC

TL;DR: Open to more suggestions for cover songs & Pico-8 tutorials!

More jazz piano articles coming, and possibly new piano music!

Hey everyone! Happy September. For many of us, this is the beginning of a new year which includes school starting. Whether you’re a teacher, or have kids, I hope everything is going well.

Some things to share. Of course, most importantly, Levi is doing well and is cute as ever.

Pico-8 Music & Tutorial Requests

Since the last update, I’ve posted music from Sonic 2, Hollow Knight, Vulfpeck, and Paul’s Dune II remake. I’m still open for more requests, Pico-8, MilkyTracker, or otherwise. Let me know!

I’ve also released three Pico-8 tutorials which are part of a kind of “Music Making Machine:

I currently don’t have any plans for future tutorials, so I’m open to suggestions. This could include ideas for composition, workflow in Pico-8, or feedback on your own music. What do you think?

Jazz Piano Articles

I FINALLY finished my article on Jazz Counterpoint. 12,000 words and 125 images. Almost ready to release a book! Well, maybe…. we’ll see.

In case you missed it, I also posted five Bud Powell solo piano transcriptions.

Up next will be an article on jazz voicings. Specifically, two-handed, rootless voicings. This is one of the most common “weak spots” with students, and I think I have a good method for practicing this. Stay tuned!

Practice, Streaming, & New Music

One of my biggest struggles with my piano practice has always been having consistent, reliable creative outlets. Regular performing spaces are hard to come by (even under normal circumstances), record companies are too slow in their release cycles, and nice sounding records are extremely costly to produce.

I’ve been trying to figure out a way to significantly lower these ceilings. Streaming on Twitch helps significantly on the performance front. (I’m back streaming a couple times a week btw, come say hello!)

On the recording/production front, I’ve been waiting for the right time to merge my piano practice with my electronic music practice. I think I crossed an important threshold last week. One of the issues with sampled and modelled pianos is that after a short while, I can hear (and feel) that it’s artificial. To solve this, I’ve created hocket machines in Ableton to change piano textures subtly and frequently to keep the sound interesting and “alive” in other ways. This is still in the early stages, but if all goes to plan, you can expect to hear some new piano music here soon!

Thanks for reading, be well!

Chris