This episode comes from the Youtube livestream on 10/2/2025. Things started off a bit more somber today as I was thinking about the passing of my Aunt who lived to 91, and had a very full rich life. Perhaps that also informed some of the nostalgic feeling of the other pieces. I kept thinking that there was almost a 50’s ish sound to the progressions, despite some of the more modern effects. The first piece used minimal effects, and then I progressively used more. Additionally I’m using a different percussion setup that I’m still learning, thus some more random percussion sounds that get thrown in there, especially in the fourth song with some accidentally on purpose DJ hype sounds. I think I really hit my stride in the fifth song, and really like the sort of eastern textural things that start to happen. I recently composed a new piece for string quartet, and I can hear some of the influences of working on that composition here, as it’s the telling of the Japanese folktale Kaguya-hime, the Moon princess, and I use quite a bit of tremolo in the piece. I could be wrong but I think the tempo steadily increases with each piece, and the final piece is very upbeat and is a fun poppy song. I used the whistling effect here to capture the hook that I kept hearing, and I think it works really well, and sets a nice base for more layers to weave in and out. The livestream commenters were especially ‘vocal’ towards the end, and the encouragement always seems to add some new energy to my playing. Thanks for listening, I appreciate it!