snow

Album update

We got about a foot of snow on Saturday, so I got off work all weekend and Monday.  Woohoo!  That was awesome.  Loved it.

It also gave me some time to work a bit more an my album, so here’s a little update on that as I get closer and closer to finishing this thing…

Some hours ago, I finished composing the last measures of a piece called A New Journey Begins which will be the last track on the album.  I have one more track to finish composing called Castle Sky.  That’s the one that’s over 15 minutes long.  I’m almost done; I just have to reorchestrate some things and compose an ending.

The album will be called Voyage of the Dream Maker, named after one of the tracks, and I think the name fits the spirit of the entire album.  It will have 12 tracks, over an hour of original music, most likely in the following order (you’ll recognize some of them from my YouTube channel, if you’re familiar with my YouTube channel):

1. Across the Kingdom
2. I Will Not Go Home Again
3. Voyage of the Dream Maker
4. The Secret Lullaby
5. Awaken
6. White Castle Waltz
7. The Dragon King
8. On the Edge of a Dream
9. Clockwork
10. Seeing Infinity
11. Castle Sky
12. A New Journey Begins

I can say with 90% certainty that the album will be available in May.  That might seem like a while (around 3 months), but that’s being gracious with myself; it might be out sooner.  I of course want it to be out as soon as possible, but I also want to be pleased with it.  Even after I finish composing, I want to go back through all the track recordings and tidy up everything as best I can, mixing/mastering, blah blah blah, whatever.  There’s the graphics for the jewel case and CD.  Then there’s the actual physical manufacturing and CD Baby processing.

And… that’s it, I guess.  So if you have to mark your calendars, I think May is a very safe bet.  Again, might be sooner.  Some of the process is of course out of my hands.

By S P Hannifin, ago

My good friend snow

My dreams and wishes came true today as we got over 8 inches of snow, allowing me to sleep in and stay home from my usual weekend job. And I get to stay home again on Sunday too. Woohoo! Thank you snow, I appreciate your kindness.

I spent the free time wisely. I slept (as I already said) and I worked on some music. I finished a 7-minute piece I call Seeing Infinity (Opus 58). It is the 10th piece completed for my upcoming album. I have two more pieces to finish up, so I’m hoping I will be able to have all the songs completed some time in February. One is over 15 minutes long, and it needs some (maybe a lot of) orchestrational editing and an ending. The other is much shorter, only 2 or 3 minutes long. It needs just a dash of orchestrational editing and an ending as well. So the melodies and structures and whatnot are all there, they just need a good polish. Then my album will be done, over an hour long with 12 pieces of music, some short, some longer, some in the middle.

Of course, then it will take another month or so to actually get the thing manufactured and processed by CD Baby. But that will be the easy part for me.

I guess that’s it for now.

By S P Hannifin, ago

Snow… and the Amadeus wigmaker

20 days until Christmas…

Didn’t do much today… I hardly ever do much on Saturdays, Sundays, and Mondays because of work (imagine how worse it would be with a full time job).  It snowed quite a bit today, but it was too warm for it to stick much to the road; it only got it slushy and annoying.  Now if it freezes in the night, the morning roads will be terrible.  Which stinks, because I need to go somewhere in the morning.

I uploaded a bunch of comics, so I’ll have enough content for Hannifin World to update everyday at 8 AM until at least December 22nd.  Isn’t that exciting?  Yes, it is.

Oh, I found something interesting on YouTube.  If you do not yet know, one of my favorite films of all time is Amadeus, the true story of Mozart’s murder.  In fact, I memorized Amadeus really well; I can recite it right now, and have you rotflol.  Anyway, it looks like the guy who played the wigmaker (in a short 30 second scene) has his own YouTube channel.  And he also uploaded some unused takes of them filming the scene.  He says somewhere that they shot the scene for around 7 hours, with him ad libbing his lines.  That’s a lot of work for about 30 seconds of film!  Anyway, it’s some really fun stuff to watch (if you’re an Amadeus fan, at least).

Oh, by the way, Amadeus looks fantastic on blu-ray.

Well, there it is.

By S P Hannifin, ago