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Notescast — 313 episodes

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Title
1

<b>FLFLAASSHFFLLAASSFHLFALS</b><br><br>Per this <a href="https://disquiet.com/20…

2

<b>Puzzle Lurching</b><br><br>I found a couple of half-finished tracks from a fe…

3

<b>Expect Delays, Karts</b><br><br>For <a href="https://disquiet.com/2026/06/11/…

4

<b>Expect Delays, Karts</b><br><br>For <a href="https://disquiet.com/2026/06/11/…

5

Michael Barone's (the host of <a href="https://www.pipedreams.org/">Pipedreams</…

6

<b>Save Time Online</b><br><br>For a <a href="https://disquiet.com/2026/06/04/di…

7

Onyx's Shut 'Em Down has almost the same chorus as Public Enemy's Shut 'Em Down.…

8

I did end up getting my Voice Memos off of my phone (let me know if you actually…

9

<b>Fanfare for the Slug</b><br><br>Made last week in response to a <a href="http…

10

I came up with one of these fantasy quest riffs.

11

The second piece was a lot harder. The piano had a high ring on a low C#, but he…

12

The piano recital went pretty well. I didn't record it well, but I at least reco…

13

<b>Intro</b><br><br>This week's <a href="https://disquiet.com/2026/05/14/disquie…

14

And to show they’re not snobs, the high school orchestra does a solid Indiana Jo…

15

Even the 7th and 8th graders played an adult-level Entrance of the Queen of Sheb…

16

There was also a performance of a Vivaldi concerto for two cellos. At least one …

17

I went to the middle school and high school orchestra and was a genuinely blown …

18

<b>Organ Engine</b><br><br>The <a href="https://disquiet.com/2026/04/16/disquiet…

19

This was a very cool-sounding bird.

20

<h3>Complete Digestion</h3><br>This <a href="https://disquiet.com/2026/04/09/dis…

21

I had to go through a big crowd of business guys, so I said “A.I.” repeatedly. I…

22

<h3>Kepler Kola</h3><br><br>For <a href="https://disquiet.com/2026/04/02/disquie…

23

I’ve had these three riffs for a song for about a while (maybe a year?) and a lo…

24

The middle school string ensemble really did justice to Jupiter at the festival.

25

Jupiter is coming along.

26

<b>Improvising Hive.</b><br><br>This is my attempt to jump back into the <a href…

27

Inspired by Bolt Thrower being excellent despite keeping it simple, I’ve been tr…

28

One of those up the scale riffs. Feels better to play than to listen to.

29

I’m a fan of the guy’s seventh chord warmup.

30

I'm calling this microtrack I just came up with A Short Life.

31

The guy sometimes just starts riffing mid-practice.

32

Kid intonation makes Hall of the Mountain King a touch scarier.

33

Avant Keyboard Cat

34

The guy worked out a major variation of Korobeiniki (Tetris).

35

Hey, a 15/8 groove.

36

Rests, the loudest part of the whole piece!

37

Trying Can Can with the full orchestra.<br><br>Watching these kids’ rehearsals …

38

Can Can, a work in progress

39

Sounds heard from the Longy bathroom

40

Maybe running a VPS is a bigger deal than I say it is

41

The guy independently discovered spiccato.

42

There’s some really big octave+ stretches for the left hand in Kakariko Village.

43

Piano store ambience

44

Here’s some riffs from my “Used Riffs” folder.

45

I made these digital/machine-type sounds with my nostril!

46

The 5th and 6th grade summer camp string orchestra consisted of:<br><br>- Four v…

47

Castlevania Rush E

48

Intense Chicago cicadas

49

Super Mario range challenge

50

The H2N is solid. I used it to record the guy's recital (he played Für Elise), b…

51

I bought a Zoom H2N handheld recorder from Goodwill, and I knew there was a risk…

52

We went to the <a href="https://necmusic.edu/events/brass-bash-andrew-mccandless…

53

Some nice hard rain is happening.

54

The guy is trying to learn Cave Story on cello now.

55

Dracula’s Recital

56

These high schoolers warming up have a really mature tone.

57

Egg Stackers<br><br>I wrote some filler music this morning. Even though it’s pur…

58

Some sounds from our house

59

We now have two trumpets in the house! Hooray for affordable plastic trumpet tec…

60

I thought I came up with this riff, but it sounds very familiar.

61

The guy can play the Mario 3 Airship BGM! (AKA, Mars, Bringer of War, Jr.)

62

Jingle Bells!

63

Trumpet is happening!

64

Deflating packing material

65

I accidentally recreated a version of the Super Mario Bros. Starman theme, but I…

66

Who knew a bowl with water in it could be so cool?

67

Thumb on mug handle: It’s not a bad sound!

68

I haven't done the Disquiet Junto for a while because I've been spending my musi…

69

Hey, if you says "skiss" then play it backwards, you get "six."

70

Two-handed Tetris progress continues

71

The sadness of Russian blocks dropping wafts through the house

72

There’s a graveyard’s worth of riffs that haven’t worked out for this Mario Kart…

73

Two-handed Tetris underway. I tried playing this on guitar. I am totes not used …

74

Another Rush E wipeout. There’s progress, though.

75

The sound of the sea!

76

Porting Tetris to all platforms

77

Starting on the Tetris

78

Middle school strings at this camp are tight. Maybe more impressive is that they…

79

Elementary/middle school guys already sounding better than last May.

80

We Will Rock You, Despite Having Started Band Two Weeks Ago

81

Electric toothbrushes sound extreme.

82

Taking a shot at Rush E.

83

Solid boat horn sounds happening here.

84

Parkour near-encounter

85

What if the Super Mario theme got slower with every beat?

86

For long video meetings in which there’s pressure to have your camera on, I’ve s…

87

I brought this back from my parents’ basement: The Boss HM-3, dubbed “Hyper Meta…

88

The left hand part of the Super Mario World Bonus Room theme is starting to happ…

89

The Entertaining begins.

90

USA

91

The guy continues to enjoy transposing things to be extra low.

92

Having a tough time deciding if these riffs go together.

93

I noticed I had some songs, Kart and Hamburger, that I started in January (!). I…

94

Bonus Cat enjoys life.

95

The riff in <a href="https://laurieanderson.bandcamp.com/album/big-science">From…

96

Some casual dungeon triads.

97

Kids were hyped up about the high school band playing some stuff from Barbie! Un…

98

Elementary school horns all end up sounding like kazoo. (I do think this is res…

99

Hey, different sides on the Dutch oven have different pitches.

100

Kids learn Iron Man in school now! So I can jam along, as long as I roll with th…

101

We went to Thunder Hole twice, once in the late afternoon and once at night. Nei…

102

Some combination of birds, frogs, and bugs at Acadia makes a polyrhythm at night…

103

I think I fixed the Notescast podcast feed.

104

Cathédrale Marie-Reine-du-Monde et Saint-Jacques Bell Time

105

Now that I have two game jams to do, I’m writing some late eighties style riffs …

106

Multi-audio

107

Multimedia test

108

Test

109

This is L-Amp, a good and weird piece to start the music releasing year with. I …

110

When they were in my head, I imagined these riffs would go together, but possibl…

111

The guy has taken to transposing songs to really low and really high registers.

112

This is Phase the Blood, a short piece I put together in response to the <a href…

113

The guy got to be on the grand piano today.

114

I thought of a cool start for solo. If I could, I would then shred after this bi…

115

OK, Flying Fortress (fixed)! I introduced last-second arrangement mistake while …

116

Here is Flying Fortress. I originally wrote one of the riffs on guitar and was p…

117

I impromptu’d up a Wesley Willis style thing about leg problems.

118

Shifting both hands at the same time is a lot for a kid.

119

This is a bird. Nature is weird.

120

This is my tribute to doing things, Doing Things. Making dinner, taking a walk, …

121

The guy’s piano playing is getting dramatic.

122

I may have to tone down this jazz<br>odyssey some.

123

I mostly do not work on metal songs because I don’t have the riffs, nor do I thi…

124

<a href="https://jimkang.com/smallfindings/episodes/small-finding-is-back-with-m…

125

Well, I’m gonna be on the antidepressants now. I think my depression (by which I…

126

This chord progression, when transplanted out of Zelda, can easily end up soundi…

127

This is Signals in the Valley, which I made with <a href="https://github.com/jim…

128

Unsure if I can make more out of this, but I find this not hilarious.

129

This is my rearrangement remix of Subbubbling, which I <a href="https://smidgeo.…

130

This is Moving Walkways. It's a tribute to moving walkways throughout the United…

131

Here is The Orb, Ascending. No one said ascending was going to be easy. (There's…

132

Working up from the bottom

133

I didn’t quite capture it, the acoustics of the Tufts music building’s lobby is …

134

Accidental stealth mission

135

This is Imagined Scandinavian Dance. I thought this sounded interesting, so I re…

136

Cicada waves

137

I tried to continue the pump up downstairs with more of the Pikmin match, but it…

138

The guy has put on some Pikmin march to pump himself up for the first day of sch…

139

The only thing I did for music programming today was get Scramble to <a href="ht…

140

This is Scrambled Plea. It turned out less musical than I would have liked, whic…

141

Bonus is at the vet. A hard day for him has started.

142

On surly garage guy

143

Alex gave me a guitar. It’s a Fender Squier, so I feel free to mess it up. The f…

144

Impromptu soundtrack for <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/for-the-love-of-go…

145

Today in inappropriate beats

146

Shoe and cat pee

147

I wrote (most of) a song that’s mostly in 15/8 that I’ve been trying to play up …

148

I wrote this on the plane while barely able to hear what I was writing. I don’t …

149

This is Ghost Banquet Speech and Award Presentation. It's a dungeon synth piece …

150

My looping tool is working enough that I can make obnoxious stuff like this now.

151

Music perception is weird and will always be weird. This riff sounded great when…

152

I tried to come up with some riffs via jamming, which is always ill-advised. I w…

153

Parents Just Don’t Understand Clapping.<br><br>(Ah, I guess that was a little me…

154

I regret to inform you that I've started building another <a href="https://githu…

155

Made a chill loop for me to have on while I do things like putting away dishes.

156

Guitar mistake minutiae!

157

I meant to try to fix my mic, and I finally did it! Actually, it turned out to n…

158

I (laboriously) jammed up a couple of riffs last night, then rerecorded (and rev…

159

This is Middlesex Fells. The song, not the forest preserve. It was made using a …

160

I have a decent start on a space adventure song.

161

This piece is called In a Bomb. I wrote a crude <a href="https://github.com/jimk…

162

This is The Sound of Carrying On No Matter How Terrible It Gets.<br><br>That's t…

163

Here's Pressures Accumulating, a piece for (synth) strings, trumpet, and drums. …

164

I came up with this riff, which I think is pretty good, but then I realized ther…

165

I recorded this sick riff I thought while walking in Davis Square. I thought no …

166

I had to go to Nashville for work. There’s a bird outside my AirBnB that sounds …

167

I implemented sliding between pitches instead of ending an event and starting a …

168

So, this is Grow Together with the Miasma. I put it together for this <a href="h…

169

The train hut man

170

Here is some Sunday comfysynth for you. It is called Rabbit's Shop.<br><br>I had…

171

This ending was Too Much.

172

I figured out how to make something like NES dialogue sounds, and I spent a whil…

173

Assumptions about house occupants

174

Finally generated some low end for Flooding. Here's a sample, though I don't kno…

175

Here is Landing. Parts of it were originally made for a client, but they found i…

176

I tried it out, and I think strings and drum kit can work together.

177

This is Eighth Gear, for which I brought back my <a href="https://jimkang.com/mu…

178

A live look at what’s in Alfred’s Basic Piano Library Lesson Book Level 1B. Also…

179

This is The Uneven Staircase, which I did for the Disquiet Junto challenge #567.…

180

The classic sounds of Lego sifting

181

I started working on metal riffs again. The problem is, you have to come up with…

182

I fit one more loop into Looptober: A Ninja Weighing the Pros and the Cons, whic…

183

This didn’t fit the song, but I liked these chords.

184

Tech talk: Pixels and subpixels. Tried to make a Small Findings segment, but the…

185

Sometimes, I think I’ve come up with a riff, but it is actually a riff I used to…

186

This Looptober loop is called Outcropping of Death. Wonky end-of-day chugging an…

187

Today's blatantly Metroid-inspired Looptober loop is Corridor. It was done relat…

188

Today's Looptober loop is Preparing Lapsang Souchong. It has a sample I recorded…

189

This is Stockholm, which I made for Looptober. It's actually three 3.5 second lo…

190

I spent quite a bit of the day trying to make a FFT decomposition tool with JUCE…

191

I’m going to enter the Wikimedia audio logo (AKA jingle) contest. This first att…

192

I'm trying this out as my exit music. I think this will be heard less often beca…

193

Unfortunately, I have to use Zoom several times a week, like everyone else. So, …

194

At one point, I got the idea to put the kind of grunting exclamations you find i…

195

Here is Tower Climb, a song that may help you if you are ascending platforms whi…

196

Blind taste tests: Not a silver bullet!

197

While trying to come up with the solo for another song, I made this commercial j…

198

In some ways, I liked this “just put in whatever you got solo” but had to cut it…

199

Ever think you remember a song, then don't realize that you don't until you star…

200

Imagine some dialogue about time crystals or something going on during this riff…

201

I think these chords are EmDim7+6, F#mDim7, G2, E4. But also it might not be wo…

202

This keyboard solo is too busy, but it’s getting there, I think. Even though it’…

203

Via a bug, I accidentally generated this monotone, which I think has interesting…

204

The basement in the new place is all bare walls with barely anything in it. It r…

205

This is Howling, a piece I made accidentally when I messed up an app that I'm us…

206

Pikmin and street crossings. There’s a lot of street noise in this one, I think.…

207

Not sure where I’m going with this, but I’m getting a lot out of this Dsus4 (wit…

208

This is my summer jam, Pyroclasmic Slooch. I'm not an avid listener of summer ja…

209

In an earlier version of the summer jam, I accidentally drifted off into some ki…

210

When you can’t quite remember the desert music from Super Mario Bros. 2.

211

This attempt at adding solos to this piece was bad, but entertaining!

212

I started writing something to generate a solo for a piece I'm working on. It's …

213

Once in a while, I think I’ve thought of a great riff while running, so I record…

214

Vanishing for the sake of real estate

215

Driving with cats

216

The guy kept complaining about having to do his writing assignment, and while I …

217

I stopped in at Halal Guys Chicken and Gyro, and I was impressed that they were …

218

Some rain crackle from this morning.

219

Sidewalk tiles, enjoyment-productivity fallacies

220

7DRL pre-gaming

221

For the "minimal viable music" Disquiet Junto prompt, I made Hull Ruptures, whic…

222

What powers Hat Day, al.

223

Weather in the ones! At least once.

224

Here's The Wizards' Enlightening Conversation. (The name of the song is The Wiza…

225

This is Two Robots Loitering at Guitar Center.<br><br>I wrote it via <a href="ht…

226

The difficulty of figuring out what matters and what doesn’t.

227

I got a <a href="https://www.behringer.com/product.html?modelCode=P0ALL">small m…

228

This is Winding Down. I didn't use the Synthruary prompt because I was short on …

229

My second Synthruary song is Message from Afar. It's another low song. I made a …

230

This is Energy Ladders, a piece that I recorded by triple-tracking myself playin…

231

Mild garage caper

232

Porting code and Ship of Theseus-ishness.

233

Thoughts loosely related to the book How to Move to Canada.

234

How my heat saving is going.

235

I heard Rush at the grocery store. Also, I thought about the appropriate level o…

236

This is called Inchoate Burbler. It uses a lot of low, low frequencies. I actual…

237

The audio entries for this blog are now available as a podcast! Point your podca…

238

This is 2022-01-01, both the song and today's date. We thought this phrase was c…

239

What’s actually real in Pikmin?

240

This is another dungeon synth piece, though it's a bit different from the previo…

241

This is Searching the Bogs, a song I wrote in response to a <a href="https://dis…

242

This is Centipedes of Many Sizes, intended to be a theme for a creepy situation.…

243

Brain wastefulness

244

Rain and visibility

245

This week's dungeon synth jam is called Walk Around the Pond Three Times, a name…

246

Some accidental industrial music from a not-quite-right Pure Data patch.

247

Here's another dungeon synth piece, albeit a more upbeat one: Midnight Feast. I …

248

Random school walk encounters

249

Work you can do with just your head.

250

Messing up in Pure Data sometimes yields fun results.

251

This is a dungeon synth piece named Illuminated Corridor. This is a rare-for-me …

252

Some thoughts after talking to a tech union organizer today.

253

The other kind of letter writing.

254

Water apparatus commotion

255

Taking the time to read things slowly.

256

Epipens, not knowing what’s going on with prescription coupons.

257

No title

258

I tried to do a song really quickly using my homemade vocoder and some haikus. T…

259

I tried my channel vocoder out on more signals, and I'm pleasantly surprised tha…

260

Oldness

261

Some instinctive genre policing thoughts from me.

262

This is called Europa, and it was mostly made on buses to and from the airport a…

263

This was a good bus speech.

264

This song is called You Must Explain the Delta Variant to Your Parent and Resche…

265

I made this altered soundscape, which I call "Closing" (you can see why in the m…

266

Coming up with things sometimes sucks.

267

Barbaric Silence is my entry for the Disquiet Junto <a href="https://llllllll.co…

268

Trying to get back on the song-a-week horse. Here's Io Buggy, a stoner metal tun…

269

Wu-Tang is for the…dads, mostly.

270

De-ambientizing

271

Observing objects in person

272

Here’s a Small Findings segment I tried to record while walking to the store. It…

273

On how expressing fan camaraderie can be awkward

274

I’m going to have to bail on this week’s song-a-week. Here is the demo I thought…

275

The guy wrote a song today. (My song for the week started a couple hours ago and…

276

This week's song is called Advice and Healing. I used Animal Crossing samples an…

277

Effort required by song-a-week: More like two songs a week, amirite

278

I made a dungeon synth song for this week's song. It's called Village's Edge.<br…

279

Lego planning, one of the problems with last-minute composition

280

This song-a-week song is Sky Ghost Farewell Fugue. I was trying to make somethin…

281

The Adventure of Getting a Donut is this week's song-a-week. (The guy named it.)…

282

While trying to come up with something, I played this. I know it’s some terrible…

283

Samorost labor relations

284

I'm going to try Ludum Dare this weekend, so I had to do my song a week early. I…

285

No title

286

Sheep blast

287

This is my first song-a-week entry, called Get Up Eat Breakfast Get Dressed Go t…

288

I think I’m into these stacked half steps.

289

On aggressive vs. natural podcast editing

290

Narrating my street crossings with unclear ethical advice.

291

I was messing around with Deezer's source separator, and I made this mash-up of …

292

Trying out some organs.

293

I got my old GI-20 working with my phone. I can now use a guitar to create MIDI.…

294

Here’s a riff I imagine going along with some Ninja Gaiden cut scene involving r…

295

Having to make your code uglier

296

fstab, over committing.

297

A bit of a musical car crash: Tried to play Altar of Sacrifice and a little of J…

298

A bit of a musical car crash: Tried to play Altar of Sacrifice and a little of J…

299

Some ghost sounds

300

Special classes

301

Surprise round of Diplomacy

302

The best day of your life concept

303

The waning of playground time

304

Weather report, keyboard nonsense.

305

The first day after February break and maybe dropping Svelte.

306

On the unverifiability of some auto repairs

307

I got my new used phone today and was reinstalling apps and came across ThumbJam…

308

I have tried to come up with a French horn line, but I have no idea what to do w…

309

No title

310

If I ever make a video game, this could be some character’s leitmotif.

311

Things taking a long time, part 1000000

312

Drop off thoughts.

313

I accidentally recreated the Still DRE beat while trying to make music for a CRP…