Sonically Sound

Welcome Conbust Attendees

2011-03-03T20:37:00.000-08:00

Welcome to those of you coming from the Conbust 2011 website! Thank you for visiting and I look forward to seeing you at the artist alley as well as at the SJ Tucker show. I will be an opening act that night so I expect to see all your bright and smiling faces, eh?

I've been neglecting you guys...

2010-11-29T19:43:00.000-08:00

So I've been busy and things have been crazy and I stopped updating the blog. My bad. I've written a few more songs for the Daily Dose of Awesome and I'm working with my friend to start a pretty rad band. That's pretty much all I got to really say about that stuff.

Here's something I wanted to share but wasn't sure if it was too private. A few months a relationship I was very involved in ended. Sucked, but that happens. In order to cope and what not I wrote a suite of songs. A lot of it's very personal and more meaningful than usual so I'm hesitant to share it on what I try to keep a professional site, but it's quite possibly my most emotional content and I really would like every one to hear it. So here is the link to the play list
http://www.youtube.com/user/SeanCallahanMusic#p/c/93CC412E655D7041

Daily Dose of Awesome 15: Amiee

2010-10-19T18:57:00.000-07:00

My friend has been asking me to write her a song for like 3 years so I did.

Daily Dose of Awesome 14: Zelda Dubstep

2010-10-18T20:11:00.000-07:00

Daily Dose of Awesome 14: Zelda Dubstep

Kind of self explanatory. I took a more trip hop approach to it by the end so if you don't like DubStep trying skipping to 2:03

Daily Dose of Awesome 13: Metroid Theme

2010-10-18T19:55:00.000-07:00

My Growing Studio

2010-09-12T13:15:00.000-07:00

The title's a bit facetious, but check it out! This is my current set up:

Time Crunch

2010-08-29T12:43:00.000-07:00

Time Crunch
Sean Callahan (Justice3000)
147 BPM 5:41

First time I've written dance music I actually enjoy since highschool.

The Big O

2010-06-29T17:54:00.000-07:00

Watching the second season of two of "Big O" is like getting punched in the face for 22 minutes at a time with the expectation that I'll get a decent tasting sandwich eventually. An expectation put forward by the first season because it was so blasted amazing. I suspect mainly because this was one of the first animes the company started using computer inking. Computer inking allows us to make a higher quality product in the same amount of time it would take to make the earlier product. An unfortunate effect of today's corporate mentality is that when we are afforded these tools we don't increase quality, we increase quantity. It's problematic. However this does not excuse the music for becoming intolerably lack luster. It is almost as if another composer attempted to emulated the original composer's work and cranked out these soul-less shards of sound. Or perhaps even worse, that the original composer attempted to recreate the music from the first season only to discover his first works were pure luck. Perhaps I'm asking too much of an anime I didn't directly fund but it kills me to see an anime from my youth - that was beautifully rendered with classic means - go the route of safe redundancy effectively nullifying it's original points of interest.

Daily Dose of Awesome?: Uhm, NOTHING!

2010-04-14T09:28:00.001-07:00

Okay okay okay, I know I haven't done anything since Thursday. I have no excuse, however I may have a cover of a certain Beatles song uploaded either tonight or tomorrow night.

Daily Dose of Awesome 12: Title Screen

2010-04-09T21:28:00.000-07:00

Daily Dose of Awesome 12: Title Screen

Okay, so I decided on Fridays I'd upload a song from my past that you may not have heard yet.

This song came about at 3-5am at a friends house entirely by accident in 2005. I don't remember writing it. I didn't save it. It was just sitting there on the screen when he woke up and played it. It may be my favorite song I've ever written.

Daily Dose of Awesome 11: Not a very complex idea

2010-04-09T05:24:00.000-07:00

Daily Dose of Awesome 11: Not a very complex idea

This song means absolutely nothing at all.

2010-04-08T07:21:00.000-07:00

Daily Dose of Awesome 10: Callahan Rising

A little trance to stretch my dance muscles.

Daily Dose of Awesome 9: Mario DubStep

2010-04-08T07:20:00.000-07:00

Daily Dose of Awesome 9: Mario DubStep

This is actually a slight remix of an old classic I did back in the day. I reworked the bass instrument and the mastering for more of a dub ideology. That being said there I still need to work on the cut, I'm losing a lot of the sound range because I'm pushing that bass too hard.

Daily Dose of Awesome 8: Punch Out DubStep

2010-04-05T19:15:00.001-07:00

Daily Dose of Awesome 8: Punch Out DubStep

Song written entirely because my friend and DJ Supreet whom I have not seen in years requested it when were dramatically reunited at Anime Boston. And when I say "dramatically reunited" I mean we both forgot the other's name :-P

Daily Dose of Awesome 7: Why would you think that

2010-04-05T19:12:00.000-07:00

Daily Dose of Awesome 7: Why would you think that

I tried to upload this on Thursday of last week, didn't realize it failed until today. Sorry about that guys.

Daily Dose of Awesome 6: Foreshadowing

2010-04-04T12:21:00.000-07:00

Daily Dose of Awesome 6: Foreshadowing

Sorry I took a few days off for Anime Boston. Going to try and write a song tonight ^_^

Daily Dose of Awesome 5: Kick Her Art Out

2010-03-31T09:23:00.000-07:00

I'm too sick to think right now. Guh...

Daily Dose of Awesome 5: Kick Her Art Out

Daily Dose of Awesome 4: I Know You Know

2010-03-29T20:17:00.000-07:00

Daily Dose of Awesome 4: I Know You Know

A happy synth-pop song that could have been written in the eighties (I'm starting to see a trend...). Originally I was going to do an homage to Bruce Haack's Electric Lucifer, but instead I wrote something happy for those of you who need cheering up on a Monday ^_^

Daily Dose of Awesome 3: Looking to the Stars for Answers (Part 2)

2010-03-28T10:02:00.001-07:00

Daily Dose of Awesome 3: Looking to the Stars for Answers (Part 2)

Okay, this song is the second part of a two part piece. For those of you saying "Gee Sean, sound like you kind of phoned this one in". yeah, I wasn't feeling it too much. Oh well, I'll do better tomorrow. I tried to think about Vangellis and Jean Michelle Jarre to sort of represent the 70's synth movement.

Daily Dose of Awesome 2: Looking to the Stars for Answers (Part 1)

2010-03-27T17:02:00.000-07:00

Daily Dose of Awesome 2: Looking to the Stars for Answers (Part 1)

Okay, this song is the first part of a two part piece. I didn't think I could finish the second part for you today but it will be done tomorrow, kay? I tried to think about Vangellis and Jean Michelle Jarre to sort of represent the 70's synth movement.

Daily Dose of Awesome 1: An Established Practice

2010-03-26T22:11:00.001-07:00

Daily Dose of Awesome 1: An Established Practice

I'm starting a fun new thing. Every day I'm going to write a song and post it here and on youtube.

I wrote this song specifically to annoy people who hate electronic music. I had the 80's in my mind when I start doing the instrumentation.

2010-03-19T20:26:00.000-07:00

So I figured out how to correct the "can't stream music" problem, YOUTUBE! Yeah, here are a few tracks off my album that I'm releasing April 2nd at AnimeBoston. You can find me and the music in the artist alley ^_^

"Heritage: The Boy With Two Swords" is a concept album by Sean Callahan as sound track music for a theoretical game

Also I'm thinking of doing like a song a day every day for you guys. I'll probably start it when I finish the art book that goes along with the album.

Sunshine Has Got My Back

2009-11-23T20:59:00.000-08:00

Trying to get a streaming player to work, any one have any suggestions? Imeem cuts everything down to clips and I really want to give you full tracks. Either way a new track is on the right called Sunshine Has Got My Back, I hope you enjoy it.

What I've been up to these past weeks

2009-11-09T01:34:00.001-08:00

Revisited trip hop as a composer. That stuff is easier to write than my own name.

Currently in love with Pandora. Diversifying my electronic music understanding.

Came up with a solid show concept I'm going to develop to produce in the next two years. Still in the early idea phase of it. What eras are most important since the Victorian era?

Working with my sister on a song about Cyborgs. She's writing the words, I wrote the music. One can only hope it gets finished. Lyrics usually don't make it to my collaboration songs.

Wrote a Goth Rock song. Still working on the stupid lyrics. My friend suggested I write about goth girls, I think he has a good idea but I fear people thinking I copied MC Frontalot (Much better in concert than on CD, but damn good on CD. Not a bad guy either, met him at AB08.)

Been on the look out for artist alley tables at AnimeBoston10 since I do the whole draw-art-for-money thing. Not that it's terribly obvious. I don't take a loss at cons any more, but I still only do it for fun.

Been playing this amazing game my friend made called Breach (link to come once I have the URL). It's a rad multiplayer role playing game.

That's about it.

I hate NAMBLA

2009-10-28T03:51:00.000-07:00

Also, I hate NAMBLA and am disgusted by it's existance. It's just another group for antisocial behaviour.

Beatnik Rockabilly Show

2009-10-28T02:08:00.000-07:00

So I heard the song Ain't No Rest For the Wicked on the radio a long time ago and remember thinking "That's pretty good, wonder who wrote it. I hope they write more good songs." Today I found out its Cage The Elephant that did that song and a number of other decent sounding tracks. Their sound rather reminds me of Beck when he still sounded unique and wasn't just making noise. Although I suppose that's rather unfair to Beck. I liked about half of his recent album but it destroyed my opinion of his technical ability to use production as an art form. His song Youthless broke production rules that hurt ears that work properly. Seriously, the chorus goes into a frequency that wastes speaker range and makes dogs bark. I guess he could argue it was because it was a 60's concept album but I would say even that is debatable.

But Cage The Elephant started me thinking about beatnik rockabilly music. Often I think of starting a stage show based on a music concept. My first idea for a stage music show was "The Origin of the Justice3000". Essentially a Rock/electronica opera about how three scientists created an army of peace keeping robots and mother computer to govern them. Unfortunately (or fortunately depending on how you view things) the mother system interpreted justice as a black and white system and believed in immediate punishment to offenders of the law. The three scientists had slightly different morals and sought to correct the programming however were thwarted in their attempts and integrated into the system. It was roughly an hour and a half worth of material I designed but the music didn't seem to truly jive. Of course, I came up with the concept over two and a half years ago and was still infatuated with trip hop so it only stands to reason my juvenile musical theories would shine through. I intend to revisit the idea eventually when I have more resources since the production itself required a lot of cool lasers and stuff. I mean how can you avoid lasers when you're making a show about robots?

So as I was saying, beatnik rockabilly show. How rad would it be to have a stage show about motorcycles, pompadours, leather jackets and hot chicks in post WWII fashion? 'Super rad' you say? I concur and any one who disagrees is a communist! But what's the concept? Where is the story? We can't just make a rock opera out of nothing man! And I refuse to even think about what John Waters would say! Our concepts don't see eye to eye. You know what, we better pump it up to psychobilly. I'm not taking the risk of not making this super awesome. I guess the real challenge would be making electronica influenced rock and roll that I can reliably perform while riding a motor cycle and smoking a cigarette. Do you guys have any ideas to contribute?

Wendy Carlos's Response

2009-10-19T13:35:00.001-07:00

Well cats and kittens, I got a response e-mail to my letter to Wendy Carlos. Unfortunately, she is too busy for me to meet and learn from and she also did not criticize any of my music however she did take the time to write me an e-mail. That was super duper nice of her and it just shows how cool of a person she is. No matter how some-what odd she publicly may appear, she still took the time to write me a letter and goddammit if I won't defend her every time some one says negative (although, I guess I already would any way but the vigor has increased!). So if Ms. Carlos does read this blog: Thank you very much for your response. I will take your words of wisdom to heart and I sincerely appreciate the time you took to respond.

For those of you just dying to find out what she said, here ya go:

"Gee, thank you for your thoughtful message and generous comments.

Please don't assume there is ANY "standard" way to learn an art. All of us find our own paths. I'm not sure that I really learned much that helped me, in formal classes. I suspect all decent artists are "self-taught." Only way to custom-fit the things you happen to need, without wasting too much time and effort to learn what you'll never need. What formal teaching arrangements, classes, mainly provide is a motive to stick wi[th] it and study. And you can persist w/o such artifices. Take the risks of following your own unique curiosity, try what seems "interesting." Stick wi[th] what grows deeper, ditch what is found to be superficial, or not worthwhile. And have the courage to discard 95% of what you do, be a ruthless blue-pencil editor, always trying to find the best possible solution for every step, gladly replacing hours/days/weeks of work if something better occurs to you later. In the end good art, all of it, is a matter of CARING, isn't it? The techniques can be learned, trial and error, but the motivation is within you. That and the matter of talent, which of course is beyond our control, and always has been that way.

Anyway, as you assume, this isn't really possible for me, not at this time. And I certainly do wish you sincere good luck."

Seriously, how awesome is that? She took the time and gave a great standpoint. Wendy Carlos == totallyFreakingRad!;

Daft Tron Disapointment

2009-10-13T04:43:00.000-07:00

Often when I see jokes at the expense of what is generically called "techno" I feel inherently offended. It wasn't so long ago that I was immersed in the world of Electronic Dance Music (EDM from this point forward, I SHAN'T REPEAT THIS EXPLAINATION!) focusing on the perfect hypnotizing arpegio, the soothing pad and the ripping lead. In all of my music a lot of the principals I learned while writing trance and house have carried over and lead my work to have a more diverse feeling that I feel gives me a bit of a signature sound. So when I see some one pseudo-bashing what used to be the music I wrote I feel that I must reunite with my dance/electronica brethren and shout loudly "WE WRITE MUSIC GODDAMNIT!". Unfortunately, when I go to support EDM I run accross examples of why we get so much negative attention. I hear the dreck that passes for music and I feel myself agreeing with Mr. Munroe. Which leads me to the true issue that has been bothering me for the past three monthes: Daft Punk scoring TRON Legacy

Obviously I am a fan of Wendy Carlos so my first pick would have been her. Unfortunately we all know how long it takes for her to actually compose a score which lead to half of TRON's soundtrack to be arranged by an outside composer and performed by an orchestra. This may have been a contributing factor in her exclusion from the film as it appears she was not approached at all. So Ms. Carlos is out, who else could fill this position? Should we get a composer that uses synthesizers and is reflective of not only the times but the general emotions we are attempting to convey or should we get a name that every one knows? They chose the commercialist stupid option.

For the record, I like Daft Punk. They write fun dance music. I have been known to get my groove on to the Discovery album and a great deal of my 2007 music was influenced by the Human After All album. All that aside, Daft Punk is terrible at conveying emotion. It appears to me their music writing process is basically "Hey, that sounds cool, let's put that in the song" and they do that until they have a finished product. This is the Beach Boys way of music and a stupid way to score a film.

Multiple people have claimed Kraftwerk would be an acceptable choice, this is also a flawed theory. Again I like Kraftwerk (with all my heart forever and ever) however as Krautrock they tend to repeat the same thing over and over again in pursuit of essentially ambient noise for the subject matter. Tangerine Dream might be an appropriate choice however they have rather successfully avoided being a true electronic band for the past 20 years, I'm pretty sure they wouldn't regress for the sake of Disney. Vangellis sounds either like a real symphony or like the 80's so he's not a real good pick for this one. Jean Michelle-Jarre no longer sounds unique nor does he have any name recognition in the states any more. Michael Kamen is dead (sadly far too soon). At this point there are only two good options left: Rob Dougan and me.

Sure, I'm being a bit egotistical, but seriously I know how to write music with the sound that is necessary for the situation. I feel no hinderances when I use synthesizers because I know exactly what sound I want. Rob Dougan has proven himself to use contemporary electronic stylings as well as emotional builds with the ability to avoid sounding specifically like synthesizers. Really, they should have picked one of us.

Disney, don't you dare disapoint me with TRON Legacy, I won't forgive you this time.

Email to Wendy Carlos

2009-10-12T18:54:00.000-07:00

I just send an email to Wendy Carlos in hopes of actually getting to talk to her. Part of that process is to make sure my music is available to listen to so here is a nice list of tracks for every one to hear:

Countdown
Justifying Death and Excelling At It - The Ballad of Alex Brune
Looking Up
Raving with Rabun
Sleeping Through a Summer Rain
To Slay a God You Must be Rad
To Slay the Rad You Must Be God
With So Much On The Line You Would Leave It To the Androids

Also, for all you curious as to what I sent her, here is the email:

Dear Wendy Carlos,

I have been a fan of your music since I saw Tron and quickly began collecting records of your music any where I could. Recently I started looking up my musical heroes and found your website which proclaimed to the world "Hey there, I'm still here!". This was great news to me since the last time I had heard about you was in reference to Peter and the Wolf.

I know it's a bit of a long shot since you seem pretty busy and obviously you are a famous composer and I'm just starting out (well, six years starting out, it's a long process when you teach yourself from a foundation of grammar school band class) but I would like to meet you so that you can teach me how you make music. Of course I recognize that this is a big request but how else can I truly learn how you make music? If anything I'd like to just be in your studio to watch you work.

If nothing else I would appreciate if you listened to some of my music and critique it. On my website (sonicallysound.blogspot.com) you will find a list of links to my music. If you have the time please listen to it and tell me what you think.

Thank you,

Sean Callahan

Wish me luck guys!

First movement

2009-10-12T16:28:00.001-07:00

Ah, the blog. A tool I ignored for the better part of the past 3 years in a defiant attempt against being just like every one else. It was really only a matter of time before the desire to force my every day thoughts and opinions to the masses of the internet overcame my better sensibilities. Well, since I'm here I may as well make the most of it.

My name is Sean Callahan and I enjoy writing music. I enjoy writing music so much so that all I ever think about is music and Star Trek. Sometimes I even think about writing music for Star Trek (It's all horns for the TOS carry overs and all synth strings for any thing out of TNG). Since 2003 I have been composing songs and since 2006 have written sound tracks for plays, video games and independant movies and released 4 original albums. Sure sounds impressive, doesn't it? Really it's been nothing but an upward battle trying to get my music better than my small pond surroundings only to find that there are little to no venues for my work. I stopped releasing albums after freshman year of college and began just writing music for the sake of getting better and looking to write primarily sound tracks.

I feel that the purest intent for music is to evoke emotions. Chopin knew this, Paul McCartney knew this, Stravinsky knew this. Whether we are aware of it or not a good song will affect us emotionally and an intelligent composer will have planned this. The general public is either not willing or intelligent enough to buy a record for the sake of experiencing emotions through sound. They will buy the rap album with compelling lyrics, or the metal album with impressive guitar skills, but they will not sit down and listen to Philip Glass pull them through a mental roller coaster. One place every one is expecting to be emotionally guided by the music is the soundtrack for films, television, and video games. Would Once Upon a Time in the West have been the same without the baritone guitar and harmonica? How much tension would there really have been in Metal Gear Solid without those percussive pulses? Miami Vice, 'nuff said. Hollywood knows the importance of a good soundtrack which is why John Williams, Danny Elfman, and Elliot Goldenthaal are still receiving steady paychecks. A hundred years ago a composer would seek an orchestra to play their music, today I seek the opportunity to write for films.

I am aware that wishing for an amazing job of composing music all day every day is roughly as effective as eating air for dinner which is why I am taking all the steps I know to learn as much as possible and meet as many people as possible so I can finally achieve my goal. Next year I hope to go back to college for Music Composition. Right now I will continue to write music to keep sharp but I would also like to meet the following people and spend a day with them so I can learn how they do what they do:
Wendy Carlos
John Williams
Tangerine Dream (never sure who is in it these days)
Daft Punk
Danny Elfman
Trance Emerson
Paul McCartney
Philip Glass
Jean Michelle Jarre
Beck

Preferably I'd go on an international adventure meeting them all and every one in between so I can learn the most about music.

So before I leave you I will link you to the song I wrote yesterday, hope you like it!
With So Much On The Line You Would Leave It To The Androids