All Episodes
Notescast — 325 episodes
<b>Wild Wilds</b><br><br>Per this <a href="https://disquiet.com/2026/09/10/disqu…
<b>Eventual Consistency</b><br><br>This is handmade <a href="https://llllllll.co…
There’s some confounding chords in the Link to the Past ending, apparently.<br><…
<b>Cat Vortex</b><br><br>The <a href="https://disquiet.com/2026/08/20/disquiet-j…
<b>Cursed Minus Worlds</b><br><br><a href="https://disquiet.com/2026/08/13/disqu…
<b>Richards's Allotted Break Time</b><br><br>The prompt for this one was <a href…
<b>Light Wants Out</b><br><br>In response to this <a href="https://disquiet.com/…
I periodically still try to find a third riff for this song. It’s sort of its ow…
<b>Crack of Stones</b><br><br>I made sounds in two ways here:<br><br>1. Hitting …
<b>Train Has Joined the Chat</b><br><br>I live near train tracks, and sometimes …
<b>Screened Pastoral</b><br><br>In response to this <a href="https://disquiet.co…
I <i>still</i> don’t have a third riff to go with these two riffs, so I thought …
<b>FLFLAASSHFFLLAASSFHLFALS</b><br><br>Per this <a href="https://disquiet.com/20…
<b>Puzzle Lurching</b><br><br>I found a couple of half-finished tracks from a fe…
<b>Expect Delays, Karts</b><br><br>For <a href="https://disquiet.com/2026/06/11/…
<b>Expect Delays, Karts</b><br><br>For <a href="https://disquiet.com/2026/06/11/…
Michael Barone's (the host of <a href="https://www.pipedreams.org/">Pipedreams</…
<b>Save Time Online</b><br><br>For a <a href="https://disquiet.com/2026/06/04/di…
Onyx's Shut 'Em Down has almost the same chorus as Public Enemy's Shut 'Em Down.…
I did end up getting my Voice Memos off of my phone (let me know if you actually…
<b>Fanfare for the Slug</b><br><br>Made last week in response to a <a href="http…
I came up with one of these fantasy quest riffs.
The second piece was a lot harder. The piano had a high ring on a low C#, but he…
The piano recital went pretty well. I didn't record it well, but I at least reco…
<b>Intro</b><br><br>This week's <a href="https://disquiet.com/2026/05/14/disquie…
And to show they’re not snobs, the high school orchestra does a solid Indiana Jo…
Even the 7th and 8th graders played an adult-level Entrance of the Queen of Sheb…
There was also a performance of a Vivaldi concerto for two cellos. At least one …
I went to the middle school and high school orchestra and was a genuinely blown …
<b>Organ Engine</b><br><br>The <a href="https://disquiet.com/2026/04/16/disquiet…
This was a very cool-sounding bird.
<h3>Complete Digestion</h3><br>This <a href="https://disquiet.com/2026/04/09/dis…
I had to go through a big crowd of business guys, so I said “A.I.” repeatedly. I…
<h3>Kepler Kola</h3><br><br>For <a href="https://disquiet.com/2026/04/02/disquie…
I’ve had these three riffs for a song for about a while (maybe a year?) and a lo…
The middle school string ensemble really did justice to Jupiter at the festival.
Jupiter is coming along.
<b>Improvising Hive.</b><br><br>This is my attempt to jump back into the <a href…
Inspired by Bolt Thrower being excellent despite keeping it simple, I’ve been tr…
One of those up the scale riffs. Feels better to play than to listen to.
I’m a fan of the guy’s seventh chord warmup.
I'm calling this microtrack I just came up with A Short Life.
The guy sometimes just starts riffing mid-practice.
Kid intonation makes Hall of the Mountain King a touch scarier.
Avant Keyboard Cat
The guy worked out a major variation of Korobeiniki (Tetris).
Hey, a 15/8 groove.
Rests, the loudest part of the whole piece!
Trying Can Can with the full orchestra.<br><br>Watching these kids’ rehearsals …
Can Can, a work in progress
Sounds heard from the Longy bathroom
Maybe running a VPS is a bigger deal than I say it is
The guy independently discovered spiccato.
There’s some really big octave+ stretches for the left hand in Kakariko Village.
Piano store ambience
Here’s some riffs from my “Used Riffs” folder.
I made these digital/machine-type sounds with my nostril!
The 5th and 6th grade summer camp string orchestra consisted of:<br><br>- Four v…
Castlevania Rush E
Intense Chicago cicadas
Super Mario range challenge
The H2N is solid. I used it to record the guy's recital (he played Für Elise), b…
I bought a Zoom H2N handheld recorder from Goodwill, and I knew there was a risk…
We went to the <a href="https://necmusic.edu/events/brass-bash-andrew-mccandless…
Some nice hard rain is happening.
The guy is trying to learn Cave Story on cello now.
Dracula’s Recital
These high schoolers warming up have a really mature tone.
Egg Stackers<br><br>I wrote some filler music this morning. Even though it’s pur…
Some sounds from our house
We now have two trumpets in the house! Hooray for affordable plastic trumpet tec…
I thought I came up with this riff, but it sounds very familiar.
The guy can play the Mario 3 Airship BGM! (AKA, Mars, Bringer of War, Jr.)
Jingle Bells!
Trumpet is happening!
Deflating packing material
I accidentally recreated a version of the Super Mario Bros. Starman theme, but I…
Who knew a bowl with water in it could be so cool?
Thumb on mug handle: It’s not a bad sound!
I haven't done the Disquiet Junto for a while because I've been spending my musi…
Hey, if you says "skiss" then play it backwards, you get "six."
Two-handed Tetris progress continues
The sadness of Russian blocks dropping wafts through the house
There’s a graveyard’s worth of riffs that haven’t worked out for this Mario Kart…
Two-handed Tetris underway. I tried playing this on guitar. I am totes not used …
Another Rush E wipeout. There’s progress, though.
The sound of the sea!
Porting Tetris to all platforms
Starting on the Tetris
Middle school strings at this camp are tight. Maybe more impressive is that they…
Elementary/middle school guys already sounding better than last May.
We Will Rock You, Despite Having Started Band Two Weeks Ago
Electric toothbrushes sound extreme.
Taking a shot at Rush E.
Solid boat horn sounds happening here.
Parkour near-encounter
What if the Super Mario theme got slower with every beat?
For long video meetings in which there’s pressure to have your camera on, I’ve s…
I brought this back from my parents’ basement: The Boss HM-3, dubbed “Hyper Meta…
The left hand part of the Super Mario World Bonus Room theme is starting to happ…
The Entertaining begins.
USA
The guy continues to enjoy transposing things to be extra low.
Having a tough time deciding if these riffs go together.
I noticed I had some songs, Kart and Hamburger, that I started in January (!). I…
Bonus Cat enjoys life.
The riff in <a href="https://laurieanderson.bandcamp.com/album/big-science">From…
Some casual dungeon triads.
Kids were hyped up about the high school band playing some stuff from Barbie! Un…
Elementary school horns all end up sounding like kazoo. (I do think this is res…
Hey, different sides on the Dutch oven have different pitches.
Kids learn Iron Man in school now! So I can jam along, as long as I roll with th…
We went to Thunder Hole twice, once in the late afternoon and once at night. Nei…
Some combination of birds, frogs, and bugs at Acadia makes a polyrhythm at night…
I think I fixed the Notescast podcast feed.
Cathédrale Marie-Reine-du-Monde et Saint-Jacques Bell Time
Now that I have two game jams to do, I’m writing some late eighties style riffs …
Multi-audio
Multimedia test
Test
This is L-Amp, a good and weird piece to start the music releasing year with. I …
When they were in my head, I imagined these riffs would go together, but possibl…
The guy has taken to transposing songs to really low and really high registers.
This is Phase the Blood, a short piece I put together in response to the <a href…
The guy got to be on the grand piano today.
I thought of a cool start for solo. If I could, I would then shred after this bi…
OK, Flying Fortress (fixed)! I introduced last-second arrangement mistake while …
Here is Flying Fortress. I originally wrote one of the riffs on guitar and was p…
I impromptu’d up a Wesley Willis style thing about leg problems.
Shifting both hands at the same time is a lot for a kid.
This is a bird. Nature is weird.
This is my tribute to doing things, Doing Things. Making dinner, taking a walk, …
The guy’s piano playing is getting dramatic.
I may have to tone down this jazz<br>odyssey some.
I mostly do not work on metal songs because I don’t have the riffs, nor do I thi…
<a href="https://jimkang.com/smallfindings/episodes/small-finding-is-back-with-m…
Well, I’m gonna be on the antidepressants now. I think my depression (by which I…
This chord progression, when transplanted out of Zelda, can easily end up soundi…
This is Signals in the Valley, which I made with <a href="https://github.com/jim…
Unsure if I can make more out of this, but I find this not hilarious.
This is my rearrangement remix of Subbubbling, which I <a href="https://smidgeo.…
This is Moving Walkways. It's a tribute to moving walkways throughout the United…
Here is The Orb, Ascending. No one said ascending was going to be easy. (There's…
Working up from the bottom
I didn’t quite capture it, the acoustics of the Tufts music building’s lobby is …
Accidental stealth mission
This is Imagined Scandinavian Dance. I thought this sounded interesting, so I re…
Cicada waves
I tried to continue the pump up downstairs with more of the Pikmin match, but it…
The guy has put on some Pikmin march to pump himself up for the first day of sch…
The only thing I did for music programming today was get Scramble to <a href="ht…
This is Scrambled Plea. It turned out less musical than I would have liked, whic…
Bonus is at the vet. A hard day for him has started.
On surly garage guy
Alex gave me a guitar. It’s a Fender Squier, so I feel free to mess it up. The f…
Impromptu soundtrack for <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/for-the-love-of-go…
Today in inappropriate beats
Shoe and cat pee
I wrote (most of) a song that’s mostly in 15/8 that I’ve been trying to play up …
I wrote this on the plane while barely able to hear what I was writing. I don’t …
This is Ghost Banquet Speech and Award Presentation. It's a dungeon synth piece …
My looping tool is working enough that I can make obnoxious stuff like this now.
Music perception is weird and will always be weird. This riff sounded great when…
I tried to come up with some riffs via jamming, which is always ill-advised. I w…
Parents Just Don’t Understand Clapping.<br><br>(Ah, I guess that was a little me…
I regret to inform you that I've started building another <a href="https://githu…
Made a chill loop for me to have on while I do things like putting away dishes.
Guitar mistake minutiae!
I meant to try to fix my mic, and I finally did it! Actually, it turned out to n…
I (laboriously) jammed up a couple of riffs last night, then rerecorded (and rev…
This is Middlesex Fells. The song, not the forest preserve. It was made using a …
I have a decent start on a space adventure song.
This piece is called In a Bomb. I wrote a crude <a href="https://github.com/jimk…
This is The Sound of Carrying On No Matter How Terrible It Gets.<br><br>That's t…
Here's Pressures Accumulating, a piece for (synth) strings, trumpet, and drums. …
I came up with this riff, which I think is pretty good, but then I realized ther…
I recorded this sick riff I thought while walking in Davis Square. I thought no …
I had to go to Nashville for work. There’s a bird outside my AirBnB that sounds …
I implemented sliding between pitches instead of ending an event and starting a …
So, this is Grow Together with the Miasma. I put it together for this <a href="h…
The train hut man
Here is some Sunday comfysynth for you. It is called Rabbit's Shop.<br><br>I had…
This ending was Too Much.
I figured out how to make something like NES dialogue sounds, and I spent a whil…
Assumptions about house occupants
Finally generated some low end for Flooding. Here's a sample, though I don't kno…
Here is Landing. Parts of it were originally made for a client, but they found i…
I tried it out, and I think strings and drum kit can work together.
This is Eighth Gear, for which I brought back my <a href="https://jimkang.com/mu…
A live look at what’s in Alfred’s Basic Piano Library Lesson Book Level 1B. Also…
This is The Uneven Staircase, which I did for the Disquiet Junto challenge #567.…
The classic sounds of Lego sifting
I started working on metal riffs again. The problem is, you have to come up with…
I fit one more loop into Looptober: A Ninja Weighing the Pros and the Cons, whic…
This didn’t fit the song, but I liked these chords.
Tech talk: Pixels and subpixels. Tried to make a Small Findings segment, but the…
Sometimes, I think I’ve come up with a riff, but it is actually a riff I used to…
This Looptober loop is called Outcropping of Death. Wonky end-of-day chugging an…
Today's blatantly Metroid-inspired Looptober loop is Corridor. It was done relat…
Today's Looptober loop is Preparing Lapsang Souchong. It has a sample I recorded…
This is Stockholm, which I made for Looptober. It's actually three 3.5 second lo…
I spent quite a bit of the day trying to make a FFT decomposition tool with JUCE…
I’m going to enter the Wikimedia audio logo (AKA jingle) contest. This first att…
I'm trying this out as my exit music. I think this will be heard less often beca…
Unfortunately, I have to use Zoom several times a week, like everyone else. So, …
At one point, I got the idea to put the kind of grunting exclamations you find i…
Here is Tower Climb, a song that may help you if you are ascending platforms whi…
Blind taste tests: Not a silver bullet!
While trying to come up with the solo for another song, I made this commercial j…
In some ways, I liked this “just put in whatever you got solo” but had to cut it…
Ever think you remember a song, then don't realize that you don't until you star…
Imagine some dialogue about time crystals or something going on during this riff…
I think these chords are EmDim7+6, F#mDim7, G2, E4. But also it might not be wo…
This keyboard solo is too busy, but it’s getting there, I think. Even though it’…
Via a bug, I accidentally generated this monotone, which I think has interesting…
The basement in the new place is all bare walls with barely anything in it. It r…
This is Howling, a piece I made accidentally when I messed up an app that I'm us…
Pikmin and street crossings. There’s a lot of street noise in this one, I think.…
Not sure where I’m going with this, but I’m getting a lot out of this Dsus4 (wit…
This is my summer jam, Pyroclasmic Slooch. I'm not an avid listener of summer ja…
In an earlier version of the summer jam, I accidentally drifted off into some ki…
When you can’t quite remember the desert music from Super Mario Bros. 2.
This attempt at adding solos to this piece was bad, but entertaining!
I started writing something to generate a solo for a piece I'm working on. It's …
Once in a while, I think I’ve thought of a great riff while running, so I record…
Vanishing for the sake of real estate
Driving with cats
The guy kept complaining about having to do his writing assignment, and while I …
I stopped in at Halal Guys Chicken and Gyro, and I was impressed that they were …
Some rain crackle from this morning.
Sidewalk tiles, enjoyment-productivity fallacies
7DRL pre-gaming
For the "minimal viable music" Disquiet Junto prompt, I made Hull Ruptures, whic…
What powers Hat Day, al.
Weather in the ones! At least once.
Here's The Wizards' Enlightening Conversation. (The name of the song is The Wiza…
This is Two Robots Loitering at Guitar Center.<br><br>I wrote it via <a href="ht…
The difficulty of figuring out what matters and what doesn’t.
I got a <a href="https://www.behringer.com/product.html?modelCode=P0ALL">small m…
This is Winding Down. I didn't use the Synthruary prompt because I was short on …
My second Synthruary song is Message from Afar. It's another low song. I made a …
This is Energy Ladders, a piece that I recorded by triple-tracking myself playin…
Mild garage caper
Porting code and Ship of Theseus-ishness.
Thoughts loosely related to the book How to Move to Canada.
How my heat saving is going.
I heard Rush at the grocery store. Also, I thought about the appropriate level o…
This is called Inchoate Burbler. It uses a lot of low, low frequencies. I actual…
The audio entries for this blog are now available as a podcast! Point your podca…
This is 2022-01-01, both the song and today's date. We thought this phrase was c…
What’s actually real in Pikmin?
This is another dungeon synth piece, though it's a bit different from the previo…
This is Searching the Bogs, a song I wrote in response to a <a href="https://dis…
This is Centipedes of Many Sizes, intended to be a theme for a creepy situation.…
Brain wastefulness
Rain and visibility
This week's dungeon synth jam is called Walk Around the Pond Three Times, a name…
Some accidental industrial music from a not-quite-right Pure Data patch.
Here's another dungeon synth piece, albeit a more upbeat one: Midnight Feast. I …
Random school walk encounters
Work you can do with just your head.
Messing up in Pure Data sometimes yields fun results.
This is a dungeon synth piece named Illuminated Corridor. This is a rare-for-me …
Some thoughts after talking to a tech union organizer today.
The other kind of letter writing.
Water apparatus commotion
Taking the time to read things slowly.
Epipens, not knowing what’s going on with prescription coupons.
No title
I tried to do a song really quickly using my homemade vocoder and some haikus. T…
I tried my channel vocoder out on more signals, and I'm pleasantly surprised tha…
Oldness
Some instinctive genre policing thoughts from me.
This is called Europa, and it was mostly made on buses to and from the airport a…
This was a good bus speech.
This song is called You Must Explain the Delta Variant to Your Parent and Resche…
I made this altered soundscape, which I call "Closing" (you can see why in the m…
Coming up with things sometimes sucks.
Barbaric Silence is my entry for the Disquiet Junto <a href="https://llllllll.co…
Trying to get back on the song-a-week horse. Here's Io Buggy, a stoner metal tun…
Wu-Tang is for the…dads, mostly.
De-ambientizing
Observing objects in person
Here’s a Small Findings segment I tried to record while walking to the store. It…
On how expressing fan camaraderie can be awkward
I’m going to have to bail on this week’s song-a-week. Here is the demo I thought…
The guy wrote a song today. (My song for the week started a couple hours ago and…
This week's song is called Advice and Healing. I used Animal Crossing samples an…
Effort required by song-a-week: More like two songs a week, amirite
I made a dungeon synth song for this week's song. It's called Village's Edge.<br…
Lego planning, one of the problems with last-minute composition
This song-a-week song is Sky Ghost Farewell Fugue. I was trying to make somethin…
The Adventure of Getting a Donut is this week's song-a-week. (The guy named it.)…
While trying to come up with something, I played this. I know it’s some terrible…
Samorost labor relations
I'm going to try Ludum Dare this weekend, so I had to do my song a week early. I…
No title
Sheep blast
This is my first song-a-week entry, called Get Up Eat Breakfast Get Dressed Go t…
I think I’m into these stacked half steps.
On aggressive vs. natural podcast editing
Narrating my street crossings with unclear ethical advice.
I was messing around with Deezer's source separator, and I made this mash-up of …
Trying out some organs.
I got my old GI-20 working with my phone. I can now use a guitar to create MIDI.…
Here’s a riff I imagine going along with some Ninja Gaiden cut scene involving r…
Having to make your code uglier
fstab, over committing.
A bit of a musical car crash: Tried to play Altar of Sacrifice and a little of J…
A bit of a musical car crash: Tried to play Altar of Sacrifice and a little of J…
Some ghost sounds
Special classes
Surprise round of Diplomacy
The best day of your life concept
The waning of playground time
Weather report, keyboard nonsense.
The first day after February break and maybe dropping Svelte.
On the unverifiability of some auto repairs
I got my new used phone today and was reinstalling apps and came across ThumbJam…
I have tried to come up with a French horn line, but I have no idea what to do w…
No title
If I ever make a video game, this could be some character’s leitmotif.
Things taking a long time, part 1000000
Drop off thoughts.
I accidentally recreated the Still DRE beat while trying to make music for a CRP…