Gruber

In My Melancholy - Sheet Music

Sheet music attached for In My Melancholy! Very happy I was able to FINALLY find a place for it on Songs of the Past 

My Fickle Friend - Sheet Music

Sheet music attached for My Fickle Friend! Out of all the songs from Songs of Past, it’s the one with the most influence from contemporary jazz piano.

This song took a long time to write. It started with my “chord factory” in Ableton �...

New Release! - Songs of the Past EP

Very excited to announce that my first EP under the moniker “Christopher John” has been released!  You can listen on most streaming platforms:

• 2022-09-26 14:00:09 +0000 UTC View Post

Reminiscence - Sheet Music

Attached is the “official” sheet music from my composition Reminiscence (which you can hear on most streaming platforms)

• 2022-09-19 14:01:01 +0000 UTC View Post

Forest Firefly - Sheet Music

Attached is the “official” sheet music from my composition Forest Firefly - available on most streaming platforms including:

• Appl...
  2022-09-12 14:01:03 +0000 UTC View Post

September 2022 Gruber Update!

Tl:dr – New releases coming, jazz articles coming, Always here to answer questions and help solve your music problems!

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Hey everyone!

We got a new puppy! This is Lizzie. 3-pound, 4-month old yorkie puppy.<...

New Music - Dreamers

I love thinking about how different listeners will perceive the same thing differently.

How do you hear the first few bars of this song? Where’s the downbeat?

One option:

2022-08-23 02:00:02 +0000 UTC View Post

New Music - Drifters

Solo piano with piano percussion and sound design!

New Music - Ward Lock

This composition is all about the interlocking of various rhythmic relationships.  The main piano ostinato is written in 5/8, but made ambiguous by the lowest note occurring on the 2nd eighth note.  This ambiguousness is furthered with t...

New Music - Pluie Lyonnaise

This is my third rendition of this composition. The original was chiptune and called “Bot Online” from my Pico-8 album The Last Bot.

Secondly, Myriad3...

New Music - Next Time

Years ago, when I was first learning how to use Ableton, I created all of these 2-voice compositions using very harsh square waves. Most of them never left Able...

New Music - Studies in Red Hotness

Heavily inspired by Squarepusher’s My Red Hot Car from one of my favourite albums Go Plastic.

Inspire...

New Music - Been Here Before

This is the first "jazz trio" inspired track I've written. I like how it ended up - despite all of the electronic manipulation, it still has a feel of a traditional "jazz ballad."

You're hearing acoustic bass, plus brush/cymbal sounds sample...

New Music – Comfort in Chaos

This track is based on Pico & Chill’s Ambience #3. These Pico-8 ambiences have been really difficult to compose in Ableton.  My general workflow for ...

New Music – That Place We Go

As I’ve been thinking about “minimalist lo-fi,” I thought about how I could explore more interesting rhythmic cycles.

For this track, I transcribed the first track from Dawn of MIDI’s album 2022-06-26 13:00:05 +0000 UTC View Post

New Music – Below, from Above

This track is based on another ambience from Pico & Chill (#2).

Generally, the goal of these compositions is to create two different musical zones and...

New Music – Way Through It

Minimalist lo-fi anyone?

The main feature of this track is a sample of a wind turbine that has been separated into three parts: Metallic clicks, high screech pings, and a constant hum.

Admittedly, it’s not really lo-fi, I’ve been p...

New Music – Last Call

Still exploring the lo-fi genre.

I’ve never liked thinking and writing based on genre.  But it’s going to be necessarily for the next little while as I try to meet and connect with other artists and listeners.  It’s also nice...

June 2022 Gruber Update!

Tl:dr – Lots more music coming; Always here to answer questions and help solve your music problems!

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Hey everyone,

Levi update! – cute as heck

2022-05-29 13:00:05 +0000 UTC View Post

New Music – Inside the Lights

This is another ambient track, except inspired by some of the ambient music I wrote for Pico & Chill.  I thought it would be interesting to try and recreate some of the ...

New Music – City Kid

Every now and then, I hear music from a movie or show and I say to myself “I could write that!” I make note of it and find it again if I need inspiration.

In this case, it was a scene from Euphoria. The clip was only 20 seconds long, so ...

New Music – Somewhere Not Here

This composition follows the same experiment as the previous track: listen to something once, write down everything I hear, and then trying to recreate a similar vibe.

In this case, it was some Ben Prunty music from his Faster Than Light OST...

New Music – But Not For Sza

I’ve been trying an experiment where I listen to a song once, write down everything I hear, and then try to capture the vibe in an original composition.

This is based on the song Good Days by Sza. There’s only so much I could extract on ...

New Music – C’est What

More in the lofi vein.

I’ve always been interested in how sampling can create staggered, non-linear phrases.  So, for this track, I sampled myself improvising at the piano.  I created hundreds of ‘piano bits’ and assembled th...

New Music – Night Walker

More Lo-Fi!

I took a different compositional approach with this one (which won’t be apparent from just listening).  I finished reading Making Music – 74 Creative S...

New Music – Smooth Talker

Months ago, I discovered Kiefer’s music, which serves as excellent examples of jazz piano + electronic production/composition (probably also categorized under “Lo-Fi” music...

New Music – A Conversation with Time

Another reactive piano! This one is much more complex than the previous composition.

This came about by imagining what it would be like yelling in a large space, like a cathedral, but instead of hearing back a predictable echo, you hear back...

Pico & Chill Animation

Look at what zep did!!

This was done for the YouTube release of Pico & Chill.

Very thankful for this EXTREMELY cute animation (but also cerebral and self referential right!?). Attached is a Pico-8 cart which accompanies one of the ...

New Music – Out with the Old

This composition is the first in a series of “reactive pianos” I’m experimenting with in Ableton.  While improvising at the piano, the MIDI information is being fed into multiple different channels with different instruments and effects...

The Chromatic Scale and Fingering Maps

In the last few months, I’ve been writing about how jazz pianists play fast runs.  This has encouraged me to revisit and update my article on ‘fingering maps’ and how they relate to idiomatic gestures, economical motion, and playing in ...