Podcast Music Song Notes
There are no song notes for individual titles in the Podcast Music release, as has been the custom for previous releases. Below are some general notes regarding creation of the music for the Matt Brauer Podcasts.
The original 11 songs for Podcast Music were selected from many podcast backing tracks written and recorded over the course of 2008. Generally speaking, each of the podcast backing tracks was recorded one to two weeks before the subsequent weekly Matt Brauer Podcast where the song was used. (Hence the true publishing date for the music is the publishing date of the podcast). This is a bit of a departure for Blitch Bango, since previous music recorded for distribution was generally recoded in a two to three month stretch, with a particular focus on music that fits a similar theme or feeling. Mixing on previous releases was performed after song recordings were complete, so that all the songs in the group would have the same production and mix feel.
When Matt began podcasting in April of 2008, he wanted backing music that was acoustic in nature, light and cheerful, and desired uniformity from one podcast to the next. The decision was made to keep the production values simple and direct, so that music written over the course of several months would remain consistent. To aid in that consistency, the music was also kept simple. For the first several weeks, the backing music was limited to a solo acoustic guitar. However, Matt and Blitch Bango wanted to expand on what was being written and recorded to add interesting elements to the backing music, without being obtrusive to the podcast narrative. While the basic acoustic guitar backing was kept to remain harmonious with previous podcasts, percussion and melody were gradually introduced, still with a goal of maintaining light and cheerful music, and uniformity of production. While there were originally no intentions of releasing this music outside of the confines of the Matt Brauer Podcasts, the early decisions to keep the music uniform in feel and production has aided the ability to release such a collection.
The music presented in the original Podcast Music collection represented the latter developments of the podcast backing music, incorporating percussion, rhythm and melody; nearly all the tracks feature a single rhythm guitar, a melody/lead guitar, and hand percussion. Bass guitar and drum kits were absent by design.
After releasing the original 11, Blitch worked on many more pieces for the Matt Brauer Podcasts through the remainder of 2008, and 2009, following the same recipe (light and cheerful, acoustic guitars & hand percussion), with an eye on a future release of additional podcast backing tracks on the Blitch Bango website. However, as new songs were written, there was more desire to add bass guitar to the songs to result in something more harmonically complete. When new backing tracks began to feature bass in the mix, Matt & Blitch decided to revisit the older backing tracks and add bass (and some extra percussion) to them. Hence, the latest release became New & Improved! - the new being tracks 12 through 22, and the improved being the original 11 tracks remixed with bass.
I hope you enjoy the music as much as Blitch Bango has enjoyed creating it.
B.