Natural Tempo & Beat Count

I don't know if it's just me...it probably is, but I have what I call a natural tempo and natural beat count. As a drummer a maker of electronic music I always have a song or a beat going through my head. Sometimes it's someone else's song, sometimes it's something original. About 95% of the time if it is something original it's in a tempo between 180-200bpm. That's my 'natural' tempo range. I have no idea why, but when I get on my drums and play or when I'm at work doing random sciencey tasks I have a beat in that range in my head. I also have a natural beat count. On rare occasions I have a beat that's in 4:4 in my head. Most of the time, however, it's a beat with a count of 3 or 6...at a tempo between 180-200bpm. Seriously. I love songs and beats in 3:4 or mathematical variations thereof. Just check out my music page. Three of the songs on there are have a count of 3 or 6. (check out 'Prime' with a count of 23...oh yeah) Hard Jazz is the one that has beats closest to what's in my head. The first song that I heard that I can remember that was in 3:4, and that I realized had this count was the song 'Atlanta' by Stone Temple Pilots. The next one was Herbalisers remix of B Line by Lamb. These two songs were just the beginning of my natural swing towards 3/6 count music. So, I'm going give some links to my favorite tracks with this count or that includes it somewhere in the song (at least according to my ears). I say last part b/c I might post a Mastodon song and there are usually like 3 different beat counts in their songs...which is part of why they are awesome and have influenced not only my music production but also my drum playing immensely. ok, here we go:

edit: this turned out just to be a list of some of my favorite songs...the first five are in 3 or 6, but the rest are just awesome.

Stone Temple Pilots - Atlanta (an awesome live performance)
Lamb - B-Line(Herbaliser remix) (this is one the greatest songs ever)
Benea Reach - Sentiment (careful, this is Norwegian metal)
Flobots - Mayday!!! (has cuss words)
Mastodon - Mother Puncher (live)

Soundgarden - Never The Machine Forever (I'm adding this b/c it's Soundgarden and it's in 9:8)
Zao - Lies of Serpents A River of Tears
Zao - Kingdom of Thieves (this riff will eat you alive)
Switchfoot - Dirty Second Hands
Foo Fighters - Come Alive
Sevendust - Redefine
Sevendust - Rumble Fish
Midnight Juggeranuts - Into the Galaxy (love the bassline)
Incubus - Pendulous Threads (gargantuan groove in this song)
Run the Red Light - Side (another good bass line)

That's all I got right now. Enjoi

Neil Blomkamp & 'District 9'

I love movies. We do not get TV broadcasting of any type in my house (by choice), so get DVD's frmo Netflix and we 'rent' DVD's from the public library which has a large and always increasing catalogue of movie's and TV shows as well. I really love film. I love that it is a very complex form of communication. A director needs to be wary of the images and how things are filmed, of course, but also what music is used, what colors are used, how fast/slow the story proceeds. There is a lot to film, and teh more I watch the more I get into it. I say this because there is a movie coming out on August 14th that I am super-excited about, and the more I hear/read the more I want to see it.

District 9 is a movie written & directed by Neill Blomkamp who is the guy that almost made the Halo movie. I'm not giong to tell you what it's about. Just watch the trailers at Apple Trailers. Blomkamp has also directed some short films (District 9 is based on one of them). And that's why I posted, because I want to share a couple of them with you. I like Yellow more than Tempbot, but they're both pretty cool.

"Yellow"

"Tempbot"

Neill Blomkamp - Tempbot
by firat

New Toy!

So, we got one of our tax checks and we were due cell phone updates.  Well I got a new super-awesome-uber-cool-9000 Samsung Eternity.

It is freakin awesome.  This phone has a Wikipedia application for looking up stuff on wikipedia, and it's got (drumroll please!)...Monopoly.  Oh yeah, it has a monopoly game that is totally awesome.  And it takes awesome pictures. Check out this pic I took of Jude.

Yep, good stuff.  I can get on the web, check scores on ESPN, or WATCH highlights (as in video).  And it does well with phone calls too. :)