Unnamed new tune

After finishing annotating the In Flames tune in my last post, I turn my attention to a commission on behalf of a friend.
He bought my offer of a new and original work of music written in his honour.
I have taken the last five lunchtimes to write this as yet unnamed ditty:


Obviously this is a nasty beepy midi version so all the usual provisos apply. I will record it in due course. My home computer is currently in bits so this could take some time.
The tune itself is a bit of a homage to one of my favourite bands Cardiacs, and the solo works of their main man Tim Smith. Tim, who is a musical hero of mine, is currently very ill following a heart attack. The tune itself has a tinkly music box theme which runs through the whole thing. This is a nod to Tim's solo work "Sleeping with the Snake" on his "Oceanland World" CD, and also the rhythmic patterns on "Wireless" on Cardiacs amazing album "Sing to God Part 1". It mimics the band's psychadelic pop style, without their punky edge. I'm going to go instead for soft falsetto pop vocals in the style of Icelandic group Sigur Ros when I do the recording. I haven't written lyrics yet.
The music box motif is also a direct rip off of an In Flames tune, the name of which escapes me at the moment. I am perfectly prepared to admit when I've plagiarised other people's work. I see no problems with doing that. I think my song writing stands alone as original even with borrwing other people's ideas wholesale.

Back again

Not touched this in ages. Suffice to say my busy lifestyle got the better of me and I failed in my challenge. Such a shame, it was all going so well.
Anyway a little update, mainly because I wanted somewhere to put links to my latest works - midi versions of some (not so) popular tunes. If someone makes me aware of a copyright breach here I'll gladly withdraw these files, but I think they are sufficiently different as my own transcriptions to not be wading into that particular legal minefield.
I've sent the last few lunch hours at work transcribing Man Made God by In Flames for my band - just to make it easier for me to learn and remember the arrangement. It's also very good discipline doing these transcriptions. Listen to a nasty embedded midi rendering of this here:


The tune is an extra instrumental bonus track on some versions of their very old album Colony. It's going to be a challenge reducing those multitracked parts to a simple playable arrangement, but that's always a problem when bands do big lavish studio productions.
I did the transcription in my usual tool, Noteworthy Composer. the raw file is here. Look it up to download/play around with this.

Incidently I have a new band since my last post here: Andraste. We play folk metal. A very popular genre contrary to what you may believe.