The last thing ever recorded by '22'. A demo for the Steve Martin Single. The album can't be bought online anymore although I still have a few floating around. PM me if you'd like a physical copy.
This pieces is about disruption of concentration. To a certain extent, it's also intended to practice what it preaches by displaying a characteristic of the ‘barrier’ in question. Those barriers are split into movements: 1 Irresolution 2 Interference 3 Impulsivity The first movement was performed by Zhenya Vilk. Movement 2 and 3 are digital renderings. I still haven't managed to get this piece performed in full.
By Martin Keary, copyright 2014. For Guitar, Violin, Viola and Cello. Performed at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland in 2014. It won the Claxica International Guitar Festival award in 2015.
This piece is based on the concept of ‘newness’ in art: an idea loaded with more connotations and expectations than any other I can think of, and one that I have a complicated relationship with since I constantly feel it exerting pressure on my visual and musical work. With this in mind, NEW is intended to ‘practice what it preaches’ by embodying what I think are the most interesting characteristics of the idea of newness in the 21st century: the uncomfortable link it has with novelty, technology and self-promotion; how it can fill a work with promise and excitement or conversely, cheapen it. And ultimately - when you consider that an ostensibly ‘new’ work is really just the latest re-shuffling of a collection of innumerable historical influences - how unattainable it is.
This is my first complete visual music study. The idea was to present individual elements that gradually combine to make a larger whole. This was done as research to prepare me for 'NEW' (2016)
In this video, we discuss the use of transitions in music and look at a few examples along the way, some of them good, some abysmal.
In this video, 'How to Cover it Badly', I look at various ways that ‘Hallelujah’ is covered by taking a look at Jeff Buckley, Leonard Cohen, Ed Sheeran, Bono and a range of other musicians from YouTube, Pop Idol and The Voice. I explain various aspects of the song by investigating its lyrics and the underlying structure that makes it tick! Along the way, I get a bit mean too!
This is a video about transitions that composers use in musical composition. I look at a few examples that were created to bridge the gap between songs (Amon Tobin) and movements (Beethoven). At the end, I give a detailed account of music I wrote for a game called Thrust 30, which includes a fairly complicated transition.
This video takes a brief look at the subject of Sonification (AKA Parameter mapping or Audification) and how it is used for better or worse by scientists and musicians around the world. Some people (including those at NASA and CERN) have created sonifications for Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Space. Others have looked inwards, focussing on things like social causes and sonifications of well known events. Some of it is good. Some of it is awful!
In this video I explore the deficiencies of products claiming to help teach young babies about music by focusing on popular musical toys and youtube channels. Along the way I make reference to two brain development studies and one interesting experiment by the well known YouTuber, Rick Beato.
In this video, I describe a common problem with the way guitarists cover popular songs by using open chords far too regularly. The trouble with open chords is that they often ignore important melodic and harmonic features. Hence, zombie chords. So dull they sound dead. It's spooooooooky!
The Last Jedi soundtrack was pretty underwhelming. Why is this? In this video, I introduce the concept of reification and use it to assess the entire Star Wars canon (as of early 2018). Why is the music of The Last Jedi so less impactful than the music of the original Star Wars Movies? What is being lost?
A brief introduction to the music of Cardiacs and the history of their frontman, Tim Smith.
One of my favourite systems for writing complex harmony. I first look at Stravinsky's famous Petrushka chord along with examples of Polytonality and use them to propose a two-key method that can afford the user a lot of harmonic variation. This does not necessarily only apply to modern classical music but also to general song writing. Although this is an advanced harmony lesson, I'm hoping non-musicians can enjoy the video too.
In this video, I discuss interface design and music software by focusing on Propellerhead's flagship DAW: Reason 10. I look at how they adjusted to the ever-changing audio production landscape over the last 18 years and the painful choices they needed to make in order to succeed. I conclude with a few software design principles.
This is a response video to 'Why is Modern Music so Awful' by Thoughty2. It's the most viewed video on the topic of popular musical decline. It's a complete rehash of the study: 'Measuring the Evolution of Contemporary Western Popular Music' which came out a few years ago. My response calls into question the importance of the musical properties being discussed: harmonic complexity, timbral diversity and loudness and I also point out some basic logical flaws too. All in all, Thoughty2 has done a terrible job of informing the public and I'm attempting to do my part in order to set things right. So if you're a music fan or a person interested in alternative music who thinks the world is moving on without them, you may find some solace in this video.
This is a recording of a live performance by Isabelle O'Connell's at Luther House, Dublin on 11th October, 2018.
Earlier in the year, I released a video called 'Eurovision 2018 - A Musical Misadventure' which was issued with a taken down notice by Eurovision.TV, who didn't like the criticism and decided to strong arm me with threats of lawsuits to shut me up. While I figure out how to deal with this, I thought I'd upload the ending of that video, which was a song that encapsulated all the tropes that I noticed in the entries for 2018. It sucks... enjoy!
In this video, I take a detailed look at the design of Avid's Sibelius - a popular music notation application. Sibelius is the embodiment of what not to do as a user experience designer and this video covers a range of examples of inappropriate design patterns and bad user interface choices. Then I go insane. This really is one of the great examples of breaking all UI design principles and every UX design principle too. It's like a design bull in a musical china shop.
I reveal my picks for the top ten worst Christmas songs ever to haunt the human ear. This ain’t no generic top ten playlist though: some of this Christmas music is pretty obscure. It's 2020 baby! Why did I just say that? Anyway, what’s this about? I’m a composer and music theorist? Why am I lowering myself to this? Why indeed! Because I wanted to make something small for you to enjoy while I finish a much larger video. And also, because I enjoy garbage. And also because I like you. Are you seriously STILL reading this? Give me £20.
In this video, I discuss aleatoric music, specifically the combination of looping and chance. To begin, I look at how the technique has evolved – including developments in modern composition as well as the use looping software and hardware. Later it then goes on to look at the use of aleatoric technique in video games too. To illustrate this, I look at games such as Lumines (most consoles), Flower and Flow (Playstation 3).
This is a UX & UI design review of the music notation software: MuseScore, which has become increasingly popular over the last few years. In this video I look at three things: the visual appeal of its UI design, the usability of its navigation and how it compares to Avid’s Sibelius when it comes to notation finesse. Since the company was bought by Ultimate Guitar in 2018, it’s beginning to look like a serious competitor, especially since it’s open source and free to use. Download it now and see for yourself! This review focuses solely on the recently released MuseScore 3, rather than MuseScore 2, which is no longer being actively developed. This is the second part of my notation software comparison series. The next application in line for review will be either Notion, Dorico or Finale. I’ll let circumstance dictate which! Sibelius get a few mentions in this video. I couldn't not talk about them!
In this video, we look at the composition techniques used by Shostakovich to create music (Symphony no 5, Symphony no 7, String Quartet no 8, etc.) under the scrutiny of [BAD MANl] during the period of Socialist Realism and 'The Terror'. How could he express his sadness and outrage as a composer in the Soviet Union, without losing his life for doing so?
In this video I explore how corporatism produces soulless music, some of which is amusingly awful! I also explore how tech and oil companies with dubious business practices use music as part of propaganda campaigns to convince the public that they support ecological activism. With some music theory thrown in along the way, I also compose a few kinds of different corporate styles to show the various tropes that exist. Some of it is blundering nonsense. Some of it is a little more sinister. All of it is garbage. Enjoy!
In this video, I break down the UX/UI design of Steinberg’s Dorico - an increasingly popular music notation software that competes with AVID’s Sibelius. To help me look at how the experience has been designed, I test it out on real musicians and documented my own experience trying to compose in it too. Is it seaworthy? Does it float? Well... yes it does... but there be jank in them there waters...
In this video I describe how I wrote intro music to parody the abysmal American anime, RWBY (the intro song is for Hbomberguy's video: "RWBY is Disappointing And Here's Why"). In the video, I discuss the anime songs and tropes that I decided to parody, followed by an explanation of my song writing: how I sketched out the harmony, recorded and mixed the parts and wrote the lyrics. Oh, anime lyrics are a funny thing... At the end, you can hear my lovely anime song in all its glory! The music isn't copyrighted, so you can have it for free too!
The Piano Trio is one of the most popular chamber ensembles in classical music. In this video I discuss how composers write for it and why it's difficult. Along the way, I look at one of my own compositions along with examples (with sheet music) from Telemann, JS & JC Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Ravel, Rachmaninoff, Schubert, Clara Schumann, Tchaikovsky, Shostakovich, Andriessen, Morton Feldman, Gordon McPherson, Donnacha Dennehy, Jonathan Harvey, etc. I also describe my own writing process too, drawing on a great performance of my work by the Fidelio Trio.
This video covers how I designed a music notation font for MuseScore 3.6, in collaboration with my friend Simon Smith, a professional engraving expert. Apart from MuseScore's 5 million users, this font is available for free for anyone to download and use. Along the way, I also discuss the inspiration for our font: an application called SCORE, created by Leland Smith.
The use of stock music on Reality TV (Gordon Ramsay & Kitchen Nightmares, America's Got Talent, The Bachelor, Married at First Sight, etc.) has become more blunt over the last 20 years, constantly reusing the same tropes to present a simplistic, highly reified portrait of people & animals. Misrepresenting the world. In this video I break down the most common musical tropes used across various types of Reality TV comparing them to similar tropes used in nature documentaries to show how manipulative and unsophisticated they are.
Audacity is the world’s most widely used audio editing & recording software. It is free and open source software (FOSS) and maintained by an amazing community. In this video, I’m announcing my own involvement in the project, which I’m very excited about. For those worried about MuseScore (an open source notation & music app that I also lead): don’t be. I’m not going anywhere!
In this video, I review the Unison MIDI Chord Pack, which is advertised as a revolution for beginners who want to produce great music or great beats. It's not.
Musical elitism is a vast topic that touches on aspiration, historical legacy, class, gatekeeping, education, snobbery, wealth, privilege, classical music and popular culture. In this video I take a broad look at all of these.
MuseScore 4 is a complex music composition app for Mac, PC and Linux. Its predecessor (V3) was enormous and incredibly hard to overhaul. In this video, I take you through that process: how we built the team; how we made design decisions and how we improved its playback & engraving quality. Come experience the pain with me!
Many people feel that western notation makes it unnecessarily hard to read music. If we want to sight read, learn music theory or just practice an instrument, surely there's a better way? Right? This has been a hot topic for almost 1000 years... AND I PUT IT TO BED RIGHT HERE!
I used to love and rely on Facebook. But over time it began to change in strange and unexpected ways and I fell out of love. Then they acquired Instagram and became Meta and morphed into the company that went far beyond what anyone could possibly have expected. It's worse than you think.
Finale: once the industry-standard of music notation software, now a cautionary tale. In this video, I explore how it slowly lost its crown through decades of missed opportunities - eventually leading to creative collapse due to various bureaucratic intrigues, unforeseen technological changes and some of the jankiest UI/UX you've ever seen. This marks the final part in my series on interface design and notation software, which had previously looked at Sibelius, MuseScore and Dorico.