Kevin Penkin. My Music

Demo for new experiment. NOT FINAL VERSION.

It's a 13 min, minimalistic, orchestral cannon based on the 3 opening chords from "Sky Barnet". The interesting thing is that the repeated melodic phrases are all at different lengths, thus when you're around 6 mins in you can hear how they all are "weaving" in and out of each other.

EDIT: FINAL VERSION COMPLETE! This link does not work anymore.

Very nice indeed! the sound is mastered perfectly or so it sounds. :)

You have the dramatic sence of the anime.

Sky Cannon is FINISHED!:) CLICK HERE

Description:Sky Cannon is a 13 min, minimalistic, orchestral cannon based on the 3 opening chords from "Sky Barnet". The interesting thing is that the repeated melodic phrases are all at different lengths, thus when you're around 6 mins in you can hear how they all are "weaving" in and out of each other.

Did a piece last night/this morning from 11:30pm-3:35am. Something to do haha. I I felt like trying to merge organic instruments with soft electronic ones, then breaking into Drum n' Bass (assuming I actually did Drum n' Bass haha) then into some 80's style synth stuff then back to the first part to finish . I don't know haha. Something to keep me going.

Surprisingly enough, I was thinking of John Denver's "Annie's Song" while I wrote this, so I guess I have tried to create the same sort of spirit as that song.

Let me know what you think!

Peace of Mind.mp3 - File Shared from Box.net - Free Online File Storage

Another one for tonight! :P

"4 in the Water" is an electronic impressionistic piece, composed around the thought of water, but also compositional devices such as 4ths and the Octatonic/Whole-tone Scale. Enjoy!

4 in the water is a pretty strange piece.

I liked most of it but maybe the intro was a bit long.

Sky Cannon was pretty great too. It may sound a bit dry/midi but great arrangement and stuff.

Meditation on an old, virtual piano covered in small synthesizers and reverb..mp3 - File Shared from Box.net - Free Online File Storage

New piano improv haha. This one has 2 very different worlds about it. I have a scene, but I also want to have a certain amount of sophistication to the music itself, so the story was made up after the piece was made, and also I have a concept behind the music itself. So what would be normally based around the story, is not the source material. If that makes sense haha.

STORY

"A little girl in a garden in Japan in the early 1950's. She is picking the flowers when a businessman comes into the field and talks to her. After that, she eventually falls, motionlessly into the into the flowerbed and the flowers she was collecting fall out of her hand. After that you don't see her anymore, all you see are her flowers."

MUSICAL CONCEPT

OK. It all started with last Thursday. A Taiwanese composer called Kueiju Lin showed her music in a workshop and I guess I found it very easy to connect with her for some reason. I looked at her music and her process and it was so sophisticated, and she had perfect pitch as well! So i have started thinking about using my ears more and not just focusing on conventional Japanese game and anime conventions and even not focusing on just the harmony at all, but more the produced sound itself. So I'm not focusing on what specific notes I am hitting, but more, what an approximated hit on the piano can do for the texture, color and the feeling produced. I am trying to create a spectrum where I can control what my listeners are feeling. So it's still based on what i like to focus on, which is emotions, but trying to go deeper into that spectrum. This is a subject I feel I could probably take to a PHD level, eventually, and I am slowly turning towards that idea. But that's why i want to put emphasis on this new piece, because it's combing those emotional conventions I like about BGM music, but then you can mess around with things. Example at 2:29. i just focused on the approximated sound parameters, not the actual notes, and used my perfect to bounce new ideas out of what sort of "surprise" my hands created when i played that chord.

I've come up with a formula for my style. Well, at least one of them. I create a solid ground using a convention like melody or chord progression, but a decent one like the ones you find in my preferred genre of music (Japanese BGM), then when i feel i have the listener captivated I break down that convention. Using methods such as approximated chords take the listeners psyche on a spin (so to speak). Then when i truly have their minds, bring them back with the same convention, but played better and variated in a way where it sounds like you have known it your entire life. Or something like that ><. But some of it, like this new piece with a name that's way too long, can just be pure improvisation, and for a score, all i can write down is the source material, and approximations on how it can be played and a blueprint on how the piece can be evolved.

I need to know. What I just explained. Sid it sound good to you? Sophisticated etc? That was the main reason for me being highly depressed after that workshop on Thursday when I saw that composer, because of how much i admired her and how far, far i was away from even her line of sophistication or ideas. So to of at least of made a step forward would make me very happy, heh. To say the least.

This is really well done.

-2 thumbs up-

Not much else to say in my opinion.

This is really well done.

-2 thumbs up-

Not much else to say in my opinion.

Thanks ^^

HOLY!!!! I CREATED NO IMPUT!

Ok. So no input is where you take the output (to your speakers for example) and rout them back into your imput, thus creating feedback. It is explained in this amazing

Anyway, I decided to actually try this for myself. So, I routed the output into my input on my soundcard, but, nothing happened. So, I opened up Logic and routed the new output through an audio track. Still nothing. THEN I put reverb on the audio track inside logic, and BAM! I HAD FEEDBACK! I then used the EQ on Logic to have some control over the feedback. Then, all I needed to do was open up a secondary piece of software to record the improvisation. (Audacity worked perfectly!). After I had recorded the improvisation I exported from Audacity into a WAV file, which I then put back into Logic so I could compress it and enhance the sound. Then, I exported one last time. I call this "Electronic Whales" because I found a way (about half way through) to make a sort of moaning sound that reminded me of whales. Thus, electronic whales. This is my first piece of ambient music, so I'm very proud! ahaha.

Enjoy. Recommend listening with the lights OFF! Oh, and I can't guarantee this won't damage either your ears, or your speakers. This has frequencies that the human ear can't hear so you might feel pressure building up around the inside of your ears. Actually, there is one point where I felt a pretty intense amount of pressure on the sides of my head, so maybe don't listen to it in one go. I hope you enjoy it, but you have been warned! ;)

CLICK HERE!

Hey Kevin. Very good stuff going here, and congratulations on having so much work to show at your age. I've just been listening to a few of the pieces on your blog and it's quite obvious you have talent (which in my vocabulary means you've definitely put in some work into your craft!). I will say that I'm not a big fan of the rewrites, no offense. They are quite good as pieces on their own, but I think it's hard to imagine these films and video game sequences with music other than their original soundtracks - especially when they are so recognized as such hallmark soundtracks. And I would agree with what someone had said previously about stepping out of bounds a little bit. It's obvious that you have a thing for piano in your work, which is great, but does start to get a tad predictable at times in the way that it's used. I don't know if you're much of a Masashi Hamauzu fan, but I would definitely suggest him as someone to look at for incorporating piano - he's excellent (at least in my opinion). But all that aside, you've done some great work here and I know you'll grow to become even better in the future! Good luck to you!

Woah, I think I listened to almost everything on your blog... sure took a while. Some pretty good stuff there. Sounds very Japanese. My only complaint is that some melodies seemed recycled from pieces/songs from other composers.

@ Max - Woa. Good timing! I was about to reply >< Thanks for listening to all that music! It means a lot! Regarding the complaint, where? haha. Thanks!

@ Murr - Hello! Thank you for the response! That's ok about the rewrites. I knew what you said before I did them haha. Yes, of course I know Masashi Hamauzu. He's amazing with the piano. If you listen to the piece above your post (http://www.youngcomposers.com/forum/314447-post35.html) and also this one about that one (http://www.youngcomposers.com/forum/313106-post32.html) then you'll hear something very different haha. Thank you for your kind words!!

you've got some really nice pieces on your website!!! I havn't had a lot of time to check your website, but I liked Ujus... Just the singer wasn't very accurate, or at least it sounded like it.

you've got some really nice pieces on your website!!! I havn't had a lot of time to check your website, but I liked Ujus... Just the singer wasn't very accurate, or at least it sounded like it.

Hey! thanks! She did her best and she'll only get better, but she's still young ^^ Thanks again!

@ Murr - Hello! Thank you for the response! That's ok about the rewrites. I knew what you said before I did them haha. Yes, of course I know Masashi Hamauzu. He's amazing with the piano. If you listen to the piece above your post (http://www.youngcomposers.com/forum/314447-post35.html) and also this one about that one (http://www.youngcomposers.com/forum/313106-post32.html) then you'll hear something very different haha. Thank you for your kind words!!

Ah yeah. I definitely liked the second one with the old virtual piano. For some reason it reminded me a little bit of "Hope" by Kow Otani from the Shadow of the Colossus soundtrack. Very reflective and a bit unsettling. Nice work!

Ah yeah. I definitely liked the second one with the old virtual piano. For some reason it reminded me a little bit of "Hope" by Kow Otani from the Shadow of the Colossus soundtrack. Very reflective and a bit unsettling. Nice work!

Thanks! Kow/Koh/Ko Otani is one of my idols. Shadow of the Collossus. AMAZING ><

Hey guys! I did a MAMMOTH update on my website. It would be great to get some feedback. Like making sure I didn't do any typo's etc haha. Hope you like it!

WAAPA Musicians Blog Kevin Penkin - Japanese Soundtrack, Sound Art and Contemporary Classical composer.

Kingdom Hearts Theme Rewrite! >< Feel free to listen/watch ^^

http://www.youtube.com/user/happyramenstudios#play/user/6DE50F316E786347/14/tCJ5V_VgzEA

Good stuff good luck keep it up!

Thank you ^^ Need to get better >

Hey Guys!

For a portfolio, I'm writing out Sky Cannon. It would be great if someone could look over the score to look for mistakes.

Thanks! Enjoy!

PS: You can get the audio file here.

Sky Cannon.pdf

I forgot to post my another piece ><

Depictions of Everyday Life.mp3 - File Shared from Box.net - Free Online File Storage

It's for virtual piano, fretless bass and effects mixer. I'm performing it live next Friday at my school This is just a midi demo, but I will have a "human" version next week.

The piece is about playing a repeating a single line, and then the effects mixer fades in different sorts of delays, reverbs, distortion and tape echoes. These lines are just midi, so they'll just repeat, but the key is musicianship. The players will be able to improvise based on these fundamental lines and depending on what effects are being mixed in. Eg, you can do a cool spill on the piano when the tape echo is on to get a cool echo-spill effect.

The piece is called “The Depictions of Everyday Life” because of how everything is repeating, but is slowing changing.

The depictions are intriguingly different. Only reason why I kind of didn't like it was because everything was so slow to change... lol

Haha. Well minimalism isn't for everyone >< I did a few more things too.

Friends of Indonesia - So basically, through the awesome powers of facebook I have made about 6 new friends all from Indonesia haha. One of the students asked me to write HER a song, but she meant love song so I could do that. So I quickly responded with "hey, how about I write a piece for ALL my new Indonesian friends!? haha)

So yea haha. The piece is for 9 xylophones and uses the psycho-acoustics concept. Basically there will be so much happening that your brain won't be able to listen in on all of it, so it will automatically focus in on certain things. What it listens to can be determined by the range of pitch. So when your brain is listening to the piece and making certain patterns out of what it can organize, when the piece slowly descends then your brain will start focusing on other things that I can organize. So you will start to hear different patterns within the sound. Enjoy! (Sorry for the long explanation ><)

Warp Lapse - Not a longer explanation. I finished a soundtrack so I decided to do a pop song last night Obviously I haven't recorded the voice yet with the lyrics (In Japanese), so I have a synth for a substitute (the one that sounds vintage!). However do try to imagine a nice voice there instead haha. Enjoy!

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