D. Lee Jackson

Words and Music

Two Commissions and a Surgery

Posted on Written by Leave a Comment

The time for my cervical spine (a.k.a. neck) surgery rapidly approached, so I took advantage of it and made swift progress on two commissions, finishing both. That said, I would like to thank the two commissioners, Nick Robalik (“b-minor Breakdown”) and Steven Trinkl, Jr. (“Mike Alfa Charlie”) for engaging my services. I appreciate both of them very much!

Nick Robalik (Twitter: @PixelMetal) has given me permission to post a short excerpt of his commissioned work on this blog entry, so without further ado, here is a 34 second excerpt of his commissioned work, the “b-minor Breakdown”:

 

Now, not all of you may have been aware that I was going to undergo cervical spine surgery at the end of February. I did, for some very painful reasons, down my arms and into my hands. The surgery went off without any problems, but I’ve had a slew of post-op issues. The worst, which may have been hospital-inflicted (not sure), is a set of sores around both ankles. I’m having home health come in and do wound care on me three times a week to deal with them. They’re that bad.

Fortunately, none of my post-op issues are interfering with me working on commissions. I am being slowed a bit by my neck brace, though. It’s a bit difficult to compose when you’re being slowed down by a horse collar (my name for it) and you’d normally need to flick your head around to see the screen. Still, I’m getting used to it, so progress will continue. If you’re interested in commissioning me, please visit my commissions page and read over what I offer. Thank you!

Commissions, and a Fall in Winter

Posted on Written by Leave a Comment

Montrose.is/gamesTime to report on another completed commission! While nowhere near as complex as the Ereis Overture commission, this one was difficult on a completely different level. It involved rock & roll that mixed a 70s sound with modern electronic drumming at breakneck speed. Not an easy pair of sonic textures to blend, but in the end the client was happy with the result. (I can’t share the result, unfortunately, because it is for a game that is still under development. Sorry.)

Speaking of the client, I would like to extend my gratitude to the husband and wife team behind Montrose.is for commissioning me to write this piece! They have been the best pair of folks that I’ve worked with in a long, long time. I wish to thank them for putting up with my hit-or-miss compositional process in the start: I take a while to get rolling, but once I do, watch out! 🙂  Please pay their website a visit, and if you have some free time on Saturday nights at 9pm Eastern Time, please head on over to Montrose.is/chatting for some good talk and some livestreamed art! (warning: can occasionally be NSFW).

Now for some other news. You may have noticed me missing from a lot of the usual places on the internet lately (Facebook, Twitter, Scribophile, etc.). That’s because I had a rather nasty fall on February 5th, the Saturday after the big ice storm hit the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex. This was during the melting phase. I thought I’d heard rushing water outside our house, so I put on my shoes and jacket and went outside to investigate. I didn’t make it one step out before I slipped on black ice on our concrete patio. I fell forward and landed face first, hard. I had no phone with me, and I was in one of those, “I’ve fallen, and I can’t get up” scenarios (I’m old, plus my knees hurt), so I crawled from the patio into the house and then onward to the living room to get my cell phone. I had to have Google call 911 for me because my glasses were so badly bent and scraped/gouged that I couldn’t see to dial the number (I’ve got a Google Pixel 6, so thank the maker for “Hey, Google!” built-in). To make a long story short, I wasn’t badly injured aside from some soft tissue damage, but my glasses were almost totaled. I’m lucky they didn’t shatter, but I can barely see through what’s left of them.

I managed to pull everything together and do work on my commission for Montrose.is, but that’s about all I was able to handle without getting a major headache. I’m still on hiatus from everything else, save for this blog entry (and for the next commission, on which I’ve already started work). Once my $400 lenses (you read that right – $400) come in, I’ll be fully back online. Until then, I’d appreciate it if you’d spread the word about this blog post for me across the social networks. Thanks in advance for your help!

New Commissioned Single Out Now

Posted on Written by Leave a Comment

Ereis Overture Single CoverThanks to commissions, it’s time to announce the release of a new single! This one is dropping today (Friday, January 28, 2022), and it’s the result of a client by the name of Mr. Peter Campi, who wanted music that sounded like the works of composer Miklós Rózsa, with a little bit of John Williams tossed in. Mr. Campi wanted something that evoked the sounds of the sinister side of the Roman Empire, but in an outer space setting, all within 3 1/2 minutes. Not an easy job to fill.

The end result is a work that I’ve named “Ereis Overture.” I will let you guess at the meaning of the word “Ereis.” The overture pushed me in ways I’ve never been pushed before. First, I had to unleash the forces of a pair of virtual instruments I invested in last year but have never used until now. These instruments, created by Aaron Venture, were his Infinite Brass and Infinite Woodwind virtual instruments. They’re quite the powerful beasts, and I fear I haven’t tamed them – I’ve only managed to get into the same arena with them, thanks to the help of a new piece of hardware, the TEControl USB MIDI Breath Controller. I also had to learn how to use the percussion part of another virtual instrument library, that being the Sample Logic Virtual Ensemble Trilogy. (Fortunately, I caught a break when it came to the strings – they were supplied by the Mighty Roland SC-88Pro.)

I wasn’t alone on my journey through this piece, thank goodness. This time, I had a special beta team helping to guide me as I wrote and produced the overture. This secret group of folks, who I call the Night Hawks (in homage to the late drum corps out of Houston with which I marched in 1984), worked with me on the project for several weeks, and they were incredibly helpful. I’m recruiting new members for the Night Hawks as I transition into work on my next commission. The recruiting is taking place in my Facebook discussion group.

Anyway, Ereis Overture is officially out on Bandcamp! I hope you’ll purchase a copy, but if you’d like to hear a preview, here’s a player for your listening pleasure: 

Parts Bought, Commissions Still Open

Posted on Written by Leave a Comment

TechnologyReaction to my announcement of limited commissions being open has been astounding. PCGamer first picked up the announcement, then USA Today published an article about it! As a result, I got quite a few e-mails about commissions, and have since signed agreements to do several of those. In fact, I’ve already finished my first commission, and I’d like to thank the commissioner, Fernando Calvo Schiappacasse, for trusting me to get the job done!

If you will remember, I was opening commissions primarily so I could finish buying parts for a computer build.  Well, thanks to what I’ve done so far, along with an eBay sale of some excess laptop RAM, I’ve been able to buy the remainder of those parts! The last part, the motherboard, was purchased over the weekend and is en route. I’m extremely grateful to finally be able to do this.

Does this mean that I’m going to close commissions, now that I’ve bought my parts? Not by a long shot. There are end-of-year bills to pay, and I need to boost the household income. There are also other items I’d like to buy for the finished new Music Computer, like a breath controller for composing more lifelike brass and woodwind parts with Cakewalk for Bandlab. So, for the foreseeable future, I will be keeping commissions open.

Once again, if you are interested in a commission, please drop by my Commissions page. I look forward to hearing from you!