After years of prodding by the Google and Blogger folks, I finally updated to one of the new templates. Looks good and works fine, but mainly I decided it would be nice to capitalize on the available views for mobile devices.

Additionally, there is a follower gadget. If anyone has a strong feeling against this for privacy or other reasons, please comment or send an email.

Thanks as always for listening!

Zurich radio station Lora will be featuring the music of my "Petal" project in a broadcast of the "So21" art music program, hosted by Akita Yra. Several Petal tunes will be mixed in with works by acoustic ecologist Gilles Malatray of Des Arts Sonnants , whose work we highly recommend. This should be a real treat! Tune in to radio Lora at 95.7 in the Zurich area, or follow the internet stream from the station's website this Sunday, January 8th, between 21:45 and 22:30 Swiss time.

A little later than usual with this one. Sorry - everything was on schedule for a November release when a series of technical issues forced me to abandon multiple recording sessions and dump an entire work in progress. I'm still hoping to salvage that one, as the tune was really nice, but I'm equally pleased with the current song, Enchantment . This was a mostly improvised piece, with the chord progression and the melody just kind of falling together instantly. Very simple and spacious.

The binaural beat is 6Hz, which is right in the middle of the theta range. As usual around Christmas, I wanted to put out something relaxing and meditative. I think this fits the bill very nicely. Check out the lossless version at http://www.petalmusic.org/beats/

Enchantment

I added a Binaural Banjo Podcast musician/band page to Facebook. Not sure right now how to link to it here, but a search in Facebook for "Binaural Banjo" will get it done. Any Facebook users out there, please spread the word by heading over and adding a "Like." Thanks!

Still keeping to a roughly two month release schedule, here's a new tune with a 10HZ alpha beat. Nice for active listening or relaxation without getting too mellow. The lossless version will be up shortly. Never fear to check it out over at:
http://www.petalmusic.org/beats/

Also, I've been enjoying some side activity recently that I'd now like to grow, if possible. Thanks to some enthusiastic listeners I've been pleased to fill a few requests for customized Binaural Banjo releases. These include CD ready collections of tunes written and recorded solely for the buyer, along with original artwork. If anyone out there is interested in such a thing, please email for details.

In the meantime, thanks again to everyone for listening and for the positive feedback!

Ivory

It has been my intention to remaster some of the old Binaural Banjo tunes and post lossless versions up on the new site. Unfortunately, audio production has been a learning process for me and many of the available songs don't profit from remastering. I can't say right now how many will actually make it up to the lossless site.

So far, the best remix has been Evergreen , which has always been one of my favorite episodes. The lossless version features a bit more treble, so the guitar and banjo both come across more clearly while a lot of the low end noise has been cleaned up from the original. I'm pleased with it, and hope you will check it out:

Evergreen , at Binaural Banjo Lossless

This one is a drone piece, with a 6Hz binaural beat. There's also a bit of synthesizer in the mix, which I rarely use but in this case I wanted to bring the binaural beat more forward in the mix. The synth drone helps to blend everything together smoothly.

I think the last real droney piece I did was Advent , which was something like two and a half years ago. Normally I try to go for a bit more structure, but this time around I wanted something that could serve as a relaxation piece. I think it works, and hope you'll enjoy it. As usual, the lossless version is available at: http://www.petalmusic.org/beats

MP3 here and also available through iTunes or other RSS readers:

Ocotillo

A new episode, a mere two months after the last one. The dust is settling from the move and the new job, and it's nice to finally have some dedicated music time. I hope to be able to keep up this kind of schedule for a good long while.

8Hz beat on this one, which overall is just a laid back, simple pentatonic thing that moves from string ideas to droning ones. I admit I was hoping to add a bit more of a melody, but everything I tried just got in the way so I left it as-is. As always I hope you like it.

The lossless version is already up as well. Too big, I think, to host through iTunes but available for download at http://petalmusic.org/beats/

Get the mp3 version here:

Mirach

Thanks entirely to the hard work of the Drupal folks, there is now a site for lossless versions of Binaural Banjo tunes. Right now the whole thing is totally vanilla, but Soledad is up and ready for a right click and download. Get it here:

http://www.petalmusic.org/beats/

I will be adding some older tunes to the site, but I probably won't put up everything. Evergreen for sure, along with whichever tunes are most popular by download count. If anyone has something they'd really like to get in lossless format, please leave a comment.

Also, if you do drop by the site for a listen or download, please leave a comment. I'm interested in seeing what kind of traffic I get. Aside from improving the look of the site, Drupal makes it easy to include features like forums, newsletters, etc. Depending on the uses, I'd be interested in including all that as well.

After a long hiatus, I'm very pleased to get this episode out there. This is not the tune I mentioned starting last week - that one turned out to be like math and I decided I wanted something simpler and more laid back. Soledad fits the bill perfectly, with a 4HZ binaural beat to complement the easy rhythm and straight-ahead melody of the tune. Please enjoy!

Not much else to say. I've been living in the desert for six months now, and the vibe may be creeping into my music. It will be cool to see how things move forward.

Also, coming soon, a new site for lossless versions of Binaural Banjo tunes!

Soledad

The ambient release that I've been talking about for so long is finally out, and available at the excellent Earth Mantra netlabel.

As I said in an earlier post, early mixes of several of the tunes were released as Binaural Banjo episodes. Even so, a lot was added along the way and I think the release versions will still sound fresh.

In podcast news, I started laying down tracks for the next Binaural Banjo episode yesterday. Hopefully within a week or so there will be some new music ready for download!

The full length, called Up From Here , can be downloaded from:

http://www.earthmantra.com/release-detail.php?id=166

This podcast still gets a lot of visitors, and download counts are pretty high. I'm glad for that, and wanted to post a quick update to explain the lack of activity over the past few months. Basically, I took a new job and moved my family cross-country back in September. That was a time intensive process in itself, but I also took a part time online job to help with the expenses, and that is something I'm still doing. So there just hasn't been much time to do anything besides practice and try to keep my chops up.

However, the part time gig will be up in another month or so. In the meantime, I was able to finish the mixing and mastering for a full length ambient release. That will be out on the Earth Mantra netlabel sometime soon - several of the tunes on the release were posted here as early versions or works in progress, but hopefully the full download will have some appeal. I'm happy with it and looking forward to getting it out there.

As always, thanks for hanging in there!

I was working on this tune for an upcoming ambient release - it was mostly guitar and electric piano - and decided it would translate really well as an episode for the podcast, too. In fact, I like this version so much that I will probably use it rather than the piano arrangement on the full length, which will hopefully be out in another month or so.

The drone in this one is pretty dense, and a lot more forward in the mix than I've been doing for some time. I don't think it gets in the way of the melody, however, which also harkens back to earlier episodes in that it's simple, slow, and somewhat repetitive. But unlike some of those older episodes, there's a counter melody and I think the interplay works well enough to keep the song moving. So in many ways this song is a return to things I used to do a lot, only with an ear towards making the whole thing work better as a song and not simply a meditation.

Which brings us to the important detail - the binaural beat is 12Hz, which should be good for relaxation without causing drowsiness or too much zoning out. It's another SBaGen drone, and it's also more forward in the mix this time.

I hope you all enjoy it.

Epiphany

Sorry for the lack of new music lately. I have two or three songs written which are all good candidates for the next podcast, just have to get the recording done. Thanks for your patience.

For now I'm just posting to let you know that the site has been inundated with comment spam recently, so I added a captcha/word verification step to the comment pages. It's an extra step, but hopefully will reduce the spamflow.

Donations are still accepted!

The binaural beat in this one is 16Hz - I don't think I've done any beta wave episodes in a while. Of course, I haven't done any episodes at all since last fall, but the majority of the tunes tend to have more relaxing alpha beats or the 30Hz "marijuana" frequency. That's how it seems to me, in any case. So I figured it was time for something a little more invigorating.

Additionally, while I previously encoded the mp3's using LAME via command line, I've now opted to use Audacity encode the mp3 in stereo, rather than "joint stereo." Perhaps there will be an improvement in the entrainment experience.

Enjoy!

Solace

Spring of this year will mark four years of Binaural Banjo podcasts - not bad. In all this time it has been my pleasure to be involved in the Creative Commons movement, and I'm pleased with the feedback I've received. The number of subscribers continues to grow - I think the direction the music has taken for the past year or two is a good one, and I hope to continue creating similar episodes.

Now, as something of an experiment, I've added a donation button. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please feel free to donate. For all who may choose to make a donation, thank you very much.

BUT - please feel free not to donate, as well. I have often toyed with the idea of accepting donations, but always rejected the idea as being contrary to the spirit of the Creative Commons music. Curiosity about e-commerce has finally won out, and donations can be made from either of my Blogspot pages, as well from my main website. However, regardless of whether anyone donates or not, I will continue to work on the Binaural Banjo and to release free music through this and other venues. Above all else I thank you for listening.

I should say right away that this is a dark one, and includes some features that I typically try to avoid or minimalize in Binaural Banjo episodes. But for what it is, I think this week's tune is powerful and I'm glad to be sharing it here. It is a very good representation of what I'm working on in general these days, which is a continuation and refinement of the ideas behind my last full length release, The Last Season .

Without going into what would probably be too much detail, there's not much else to say. The tune is a very simple melody that fades into a drone and then fades back in. The binaural beat is 10Hz, and I've gone back to using SBaGen to generate the beat. I thought a moderate beta frequency would go well with the tune, and possibly make the listening experience a mellow one. There is also a synth drone, which I rarely use but in this case helps add some bottom to the more ambient section of the piece. Like I said, I think the whole thing works well - I hope you will, too.

Lament

When I originally started this podcast, part of the experiment at the time was to see what could be accomplished using banjo only. For the first year or so, I would have an occasional guest instrument, but by and large every note, drone, sample, etc. was banjo derived. I don't know if anyone listening now has been with me since then, but it's enough to say the results were very hit-or-miss (with probably more misses than hits...).

Recently, someone somewhere has been avidly downloading one of those early episodes - Pthalo - and it got me wanting to try another all-banjo production. So the new episode here is once again almost all-banjo, including the binaural beat. The beat is 4Hz, and was generated using an ebow and a de-tuned banjo. Basically, I recorded two tracks with the ebow droning on the 4th string - between takes I recalibrated the tuner by 4Hz and used that to retune the banjo.

Unfortunately, I was not happy with the outcome using just banjo because there was quite a bit of pick noise. Equalization took care of a lot of that, but in the end I added a track of white noise to try and "absorb" some of the pick noise. The result works pretty well - you won't hear noticeable static - and though some pick noise still comes through, it's a big improvement. I do hope you enjoy it.

Prussian Blue

I mentioned in the notes for Magog that I was working at that time on some ambient material for an acoustic-drone release. That project is now finished and is available for download from the wonderful Earth Mantra netlabel. I really encourage everyone to check out some of the other releases - everything is free to download, and the music is exceptional.

The release is titled The Last Season , and can be downloaded here . There's links to the release site and a few comments at my webpage , as well.

Another 30Hz episode for you this time - a return to the marijuana frequency, and musically a return to a motif based piece. I had actually hoped to do more with the spacey, droning bit at the end; bring it out sooner and keep it going longer, but after repeated listens this way worked better even though it's more repetitive. I believe it's also more relaxing.

The binaural beat is very subdued in this piece, also. I'm still using SBaGen to create the binaural beat drones, and the frequency analyzer that I use did pick up the beat in this tune but it's very faint. This is somewhat at the request of a handful of listeners who have contacted me about bringing the music out more over the drones, which I agree is a good idea and have tried to do with the last several pieces. If it's too faint, however, please feel free to email a comment. Otherwise, enjoy!

Rose

This episode is not aptly named - "Magog" is a place or a demon or some such associated with the apocalypse, and this tune is about as far from apocalyptic as it could be. But the actual title was kind of long and cumbersome to attach to an mp3, so I left the working title intact.

The song is actually called "We Never Spoke of the Plans We Never Made." That's not really cheerful either, I suppose, but it's part of a new ambient project I'm working on which aims to combine songwriting with soundscaping in ways that I haven't done before (or even really heard from others). The aim is to create a lot of contrast and try to have the overall project be coherent.

But that's a work in progress, so doesn't bear much description. What does deserve mention right now is that I got a new mixer, which has been a benefit in many ways. Helps me work faster, get some high quality reverb for a decent room feel, and most importantly really reduces the noise I was getting from using a mic without a decent preamp. So the sound will hopefully be noticeably better than most of the other recordings I've put up.

The binaural beat is really subdued here - the volume is way down, and the frequency is 4Hz. But it is there - you'll be able to pick it out during pauses - and it works pretty well. I was giving it my final listen before posting last night, and it put me to sleep.

We Never Spoke of the Plans We Never Made ("Magog")

For those who don't follow my other podcast, I wanted to post here about a new page dedicated to my dark ambient music. Under the name petal , I've put out three full length releases through a couple of netlabels.

Grad school has kept me from doing too much in terms of content, but there are links from the main page to free music, and some tidbits elsewhere for anyone interested in scoping out more information about netlabels and online music resources. For those who like the alpha and beta beat series, as well as tunes like Intermezzo and Tristeza , you might also like the dark and drone oriented stuff available here:

petal website

I've listened to Snowlight a couple of times since publishing it, and I'm sorry now to say I just don't think it's that good. Nothing is really wrong with it as a song, but I just tried to do too much and the finished product seems confused and muddled. By itself that's okay - several of the songs I've posted here suffer similar faults. It's all kind of experimental. But my final semester of grad school begins this week and I'd hate to think of going four or five more months without putting up anything new, and having Snowlight be the tune that new subscribers are going to hear, or having anyone who happens on the site download or play what is probably the weakest tune in a long time.

So while hopefully it won't be four or five months before anything new is posted, I'm much more satisfied with this week's song, Victory . It's simple, the drones and reverb are way in the background, and overall it's just a more pleasant listening experience. I will say there was a high end hiss in the acoustic guitar track that I could only get rid of by means of some heavy filtering. I've listened a few times to the mp3 and I think it's okay, but if anyone out there thinks there's too much low end in the final mix or if there's any noticeable static please leave a comment and I will post a remastered version.

Thanks again to everyone who has stuck with it. This one makes for a decent payoff:

Victory

What can I say? Six months between episodes is a lot longer than I would have liked, but while grad school was not all that difficult this past semester, the work was piled high. The tune for this episode was actually started back in September - I got the basic guitar and banjo tracks down, along with a little bit of drone treatment, and that was it until last week. It's weird to go back to a song after so much time, but all in all I think this one is a nice followup to Nodaliste .

In any case, I hope everyone likes it. I'm not sure it justifies a six month hiatus, but with a 2Hz beat underneath it should make a nice addition to the set of holiday episodes I've done in the past. That is, when things start to pile up and you've got five minutes to yourself, a good listen may help to de-stress.

Snowlight

First thing, I should come clean about an error in my binaural beat synthesis: I was researching the effects of some higher frequencies and I saw that, in fact, 30Hz produces alleged marijuana effects. Unfortunately, I've been publishing episodes with 20Hz beats and mistakenly claiming that 20Hz is the herbal frequency...

I realize that this all may not be exact science to begin with, but I have had listeners who hit this podcast after searching for digital drugs and I'm sorry if they were misled. Hopefully for those folks the music was worth something in itself.

So, this week's tune does indeed come with a 30Hz beat. Please enjoy, and if anyone notices a difference feel free to comment or fire off an email to let me know.

The tune itself is one that took on a life of its own. I like it, but I had something definite in mind for how I wanted it to sound and the final result is nowhere near my original plan. Somewhere along the way, this 70's style, instrumental-light-rock anthem vibe kicked in and I just ran with it. So it's kind of a fun tune, maybe not something anybody will want to calm themselves down with but hopefully entertaining and a little cheeky.

Nodaliste