Well it’s nearly coming up to Christmas, and the Christmassy commissions are slowly making an appearance. One of which is a soft, but epically wonderful, children’s rendition of ‘Twinkle Twinkle Little Star’ to be used as part of a primary school’s Christmas play. The great thing about this is that I get a free ticket to watch the performance. It’s always nice to see the result of my work included and put to use.

As for other news, I have just re-released the album ‘It’s Christmas Time’ by Kylee Henke. This time its a deluxe edition with two extra tracks, and if you buy from iTunes, you get a free digital booklet (the digital equivalent of liner notes on a CD). The release date is 1st December, just like the previous album, but I’ll let you know as soon as it is on iTunes so you can pre-order it.

Speaking of Christmas.. if you would like to commission a song from me as a gift for a loved one or friend. I’m doing so for just £25! (That’s just a small fraction of what it would cost normally, but hey, it’s Christmas) For that £25 you get a song or piece of music, up to 2 minutes in length, composed specifically as per your request. It can be any genre of music, any subject matter, go crazy. Got any questions? Feel free to leave a comment below.

Sound good? Just drop an email to commissions@widthofem.com with the subject of ‘Christmas Commission!” and all the details of your request. I will get back to you to accept the commission.

Even if you don’t fancy it yourself, spread the word as it may help make a great Christmas for others.

Peace out!

A few years ago, I used to compose music for all sorts of different people, animators, web developers, solo artists, but I slowed down the work to concentrate on other businesses and aspects. I’m glad to announce that I am back on the scene. I’m working with a few clients at the moment but one I am very pleased about is SoCo Productions.

You may have heard of SoCo Music Project, which is a non-for-profit service to promote and develop the creative and cultural offer in Southampton and Hampshire, UK. SoCo Productions was set up in response to the growing demand of video and photography services within the Music Project. As the Production element, they attend all SoCo events and festivals providing the media coverage. They have also branched out to external clients offering quality music videos, promotional videos, trailers, photography, event coverage solutions and more at affordable prices.

As one of their external clients, I am proud to be part of their extremely talented team, providing made to measure, original and royalty free music for their own production services.

I also had the pleasure of attending SoCo Fest 2012 and took many photos as a photographer there (another passion of mine other than music) while SoCo Productions were filming the event.

Here is the montage of the event, set to music composed by me. (See if you can also spot me in the video holding a camera):

Don’t forget to like SoCo Productions on Facebook, they might come in handy for a project of yours.

Yes, it is full of wonderful videos. Well, not exactly full, but it is the place to find some exclusive songs that you won’t normally find on here or Soundcloud.

With that said, here is a link to the channel for you to subscribe to: http://www.youtube.com/user/WidthOfEm

…and a video here for your enjoyment.

So it has.

All is great though. Woke up early, feeling rough, but after a few hours of being awake, I grabbed my keyboard and started composing. I speak to you as I’m halfway through writing a new song, and I must say, it is sounding very very nice indeed. Sounds almost like early Depeche Mode on steroids. That was bound to happen though, since I’ve been listening to lots of Depeche Mode recently. Never really liked them when I was younger, was always more of a Human League fan. Either way, back to the song!

If I’m happy with the end result, I’ve been planning to make a music video in the style of this image that I created two days ago.

All the test shoots look really good, so hopefully, once the song is complete I can start planning the storyboard and direct the video.

Enough babbling, I’m going back to work on the song.

I’ll update soon.

So, I’ve only just heard about the sad death of Edd Gould from Eddsworld. Edd had been battling cancer for about 6 years until the Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia unfortunately took over. He died on Sunday 25th March 2012 shortly after going into hostpital following a fever. Edd will be sorely missed and so will his animations that brought a smile to everyone’s face.

I had known and supported Edd since his early animations on the art site ‘Sheezyart’. I used to provide free music and opening themes for some of his animations. Edd always knew what he wanted when it came to the music and was also very specific with his requests, which was great for me at the time since many other animators didn’t really mind what I composed for them. It was nice to have the direction, listening, tweaking, and to then have the finished pieces used in his animations. From modern remakes of early 90s cartoon show themes to even a Russian version of the ‘Austin Powers’ theme ‘Soul Bossa-Nova’, that was fun to do. After all that, it was great to see Edd’s fan base grow rapidly and then again when he joined YouTube to gain subcribers and plenty of features.

It’s just a real and unfortunate shame that he’s no longer here to keep doing what he loved best. To make animations for all of you.
R.I.P. Edd Gould (28 October 1988 – 25 March 2012).

Yesterday, Aron Fisk (The Waiting Rooms) and I went down to the SoCo Music Project Creative Hub to record a balcony session. The balcony sessions are quickly becoming a great showcase of local talent here in Southampton, and sometimes talent from further afield too.

 
This is my third appearance in a balcony session and usually get roped in to play keyboards or cajon at the last minute for other people. Not that I mind, it’s very enjoyable. Aside from that I’ve been helping out in the sound department too, setting up the live audio feeds and working alongside the budding yet highly professional volunteer film crew who work incredibly hard on their filming and editing.

So yes, this is a little teaser I filmed yesterday as a sort of behind the scenes recording. The actual balcony session is in the queue to be edited and then it should be uploaded sometime within the next two months.

Click here to check out other balcony sessions from SoCo Music Project

Thank you for reading

My keyboard must be feeling neglected at the moment, I haven’t used it since the start of the month. That’s all about to change though. It’s 2:40am. What a great time it is for composing some music, and what better music to be composing than Hip-Hop.

Yes, I’ve been discovering more and more great Hip-Hop tracks lately, and it has really gotten me in the mood to create some of my own. Even though I’m not quite up to scratch with getting the right tone and feel, I’m working on it.

If all goes well, I’ll put the track forward to be a possible Bear Face Boot song (don’t know who Bear Face Boot are? I’ll be writing an article about them in the future).

Until then, have a great day!

I’ve just migrated the site to a new server since I started getting lack of bandwidth messages on the previous one. Hopefully this one can keep up with the traffic.

“…Traffic? What traffic? You haven’t even mentioned that your site has been released yet!”

Okay, yes, I haven’t declared the site open yet because I’m just fixing a few little things here and there, and I plan on releasing it with a song. That reminds me, I haven’t uploaded a song in a long while… {:/ That and I haven’t actually composed a song in a long while either. I’ll get on that soon.

For now, I bid you a good day.

Cheers for reading!

Welcome!

Ah, it’s been so long since I wanted my own web site and I finally have one. Crafted by my own three hands and a little help from WordPress for the backend. Not too shabby.

There may be more features and extras to come soon, but for now, feel free to have a look around and spread the word.

Don’t forget to check back often for new news, blogs, and delicious music, or if you’re the web savvy type, add this RSS feed to your readers: http://widthofem.com/feed/

Bye for now!