Music

I play the pipe organ and the piano, occasionally sing, and even more occasionally compose video-game-style music! My YouTube channel has recordings of arrangements I've written of many hymns (eventually I'll have a separate page on this website for those).

The rest of this page is dedicated to the video game music I produce under the alias Synthmaster Lumpy. I also have a SoundCloud page, but I no longer update it.

Recommended listening

This is a short list of the tracks that I think are the best.

  1. Windmills... in Space!
  2. Recycling is Fun
  3. Glimmering Pavement
  4. Plausible Geometry
  5. Let's Godot Swimming
  6. Storm in the Valley
  7. Gravitational Conflict
  8. Ligatures In Space
  9. Walkin' Lucas (He's a Fish)
  10. Mountains In Space
  11. Battle in the Cathedral (Remastered)

2021

Let's Godot Swimming

April 2021: The soundtrack for Pool Trouble, a game I made for Ludum Dare 48. The game is about getting to the deep end of a multi-story swimming pool, and I used the Godot game engine to build it.

2020

Plausible Geometry

December 2020: I upgraded to the "All Plugins" edition of FL Studio during a recent sale, and made this track to try out some of the new plugins. I tried to make more use of syncopation to get a better groove, and I think it worked!

2018

Glimmering Pavement

February 2018: I started writing this on my phone during the bus rides home from work, and then moved to my usual computer workflow after I had a few ideas. In lieu of a better animation, I've just done a screen capture of the playlist in FL Studio.

2017

Swimming in Circles

April 2017: The soundtrack for Something's Fishy, a game I made for Ludum Dare 38. I wrote this in about two hours, and then spent an additional 20 minutes after the submission deadline adding an actual ending and cleaning things up very slightly. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out given the time limit, but I don't think it's as good as my other recent tracks.

2016

Storm in the Valley

August 2016: Based on the Gerudo Valley theme from Ocarina of Time. See the description of the YouTube video for more information.

Ligatures in Space

January 2016

2015

Battle in the Cathedral (Remastered)

October 2015: I made the original Battle in the Cathedral using LMMS instead of FL Studio, but I was never quite happy with how the final mix turned out. So I exported the individual instrument tracks and mixed them again in FL Studio, yielding this.

Windmills... in Space!

February 2015: Based on the Song of Storms theme from Ocarina of Time. See the description of the YouTube video for more information.

It's from a Davideo Game

February 2015

Shearing the End

February 2015

Three Instruments

January 2015: https://imgur.com/6gzSeVe

Battle in the Cathedral

January 2015

Strange Music (loop)

???

2014

You're a Hero (Instrumental)

January 2014: for Whosical the Musical at SwampCon 2014. They didn't end up using this one, though.

Capes and Crepes (Instrumental)

January 2014: for Whosical the Musical at SwampCon 2014. This was a very silly song about heros liking breakfast food. I was given the lyrics and then wrote this.

2013

Food Cart

July 2013: for Mideast Sidearm Hideaway.

Gravitational Conflict

July 2013: for Mideast Sidearm Hideaway. I finally finished the older track "battle music (rough draft)". I got a little bit carried away with the chords toward the end of the saxophone solo, and then the part after that references the melody and chords from "Black Hole" (but it's kind of difficult to pick out).

Black Hole

July 2013: for Mideast Sidearm Hideaway. The beginning of this track is intended to accompany a short (roughly 10 seconds) cutscene in which the black hole appears and steals some parts from your ship. The remainder of the track is a background music loop for the game's overworld.

Space

July 2013: for Mideast Sidearm Hideaway.

Can't Hold Us (instrumental backing track)

January 2013: I made this for a friend who was writing his own words to it. Dunno if he ever finished recording it. This could still use some improvement.

2012

Mountains In Space

July 2012: for the Minecraft Space Mountain video.

Tiny World

April 2012: For Think Green.

Recycling Is Fun

April 2012: For Think Green.

Death Error

April 2012: For Think Green.

Town Theme (orchestrated, draft)

March 2012: This is an orchestration of Joey Franco's town theme, which was originally written for piano. He's slightly upset because I messed up part of the chord progression. In my defense, I'm still planning to fix it if I ever end up working on this again.

The Game

March 2012: This is a piano duet. Sheet music is available.

The Game (chiptune version)

another theme

February 2012

theme

February 2012

Exploding Soda Machine (Notion 3)

February 2012: I was experimenting with the demo version of Notion 3. This is just a re-creation of my earlier track Exploding Soda Machine.

battle music (rough draft)

February 2012

Coat Hanger Stew

January 2012

2011

Background Music for the Approach

December 2011

Exploding Soda Machine

December 2011

The Village

August 2011

The Shop

August 2011: This actually doesn't sound at all like shop music. It sounds more like credits or menu music.

Christmas In July

July 2011: My first Christmas medley! Included tunes (in order of initial appearance—some overlap):

  • God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen
  • The First Noel
  • Il est né
  • Sing We Now of Christmas
  • Lo, How a Rose E'er Blooming
  • Up on the House Top
  • Jingle Bells
  • Do You Hear What I Hear?
  • Look Down (Les Misérables)
  • Carol of the Bells
  • Ding Dong Merrily on High

experimental memphis

July 2011: I tried this after listening to the soundtrack for Memphis (the musical) a few times. I was just going for a sort of gospel-y feel, I guess. This was tricky because the saxophone sample I was using only did short notes.

On The Clock (long version)

June 2011: This track is an extension of the older On The Clock that matches up perfectly with Ke$ha's Tik Tok. The added build-up section that starts about 2/3 of the way through is spiffy.

RandyRacer

May 2011: This is Randy Adams's theme song.

Les Misérables bows music loop

May 2011: This really needs to be re-balanced. Too much bass and horn.

Contest Entry

April 2011: Anthony Narciso, Jeffrey Narciso, and I had a contest to see who could write the coolest track in an hour. We constrained ourselves thusly: (1) must include a pitched instrument; (2) must include drums; (3) must be loudest at the end. I gave myself the additional constraint that all of my layers needed to sound good together. It turned out okay…

No Quest

March 2011

Norman's Theme

March 2011

Walkin' Lucas (He's a Fish)

March 2011: Written for David Troner's fish named Lucas. The ending (the last 17 or so seconds) is basically perfect.

2010

God Stress Ye, Merry Mentlegen

December 2010: You don't think Christmas music can be annoying? Think again!

God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen

December 2010: As far as I can tell, this is the correct punctuation of the title. I wrote this in response to calzoneman's God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen. The ending explosion is the same as from On The Clock. It just sounded right.

Surrogate Melon

December 2010

Surrogate Melon (extended version)

December 2010

Anthony Narciso, You Should Vote

June 2010: No comment.

On The Clock

June 2010: Written using the chords from Ke$ha's Tik Tok. I tried to hide this fact until the point in the middle where it becomes completely obvious.

Latin Prepositions

January 2010: Written for my high school Latin project. There's one obvious mistake in this, where I say the wrong translation for "post montem". That was a recording mistake that I didn't notice until it was too late to fix. Oh well. I'm also not a big fan of my singing.

Latin Prepositions (vocoder mix)

Latin Prepositions (instrumental mix)

Really old...

Sing We Now Of Christmas

December 2009: Just a chiptunified version of a standard four-part arrangement—Not very exciting. I think I was experimenting with Milky Tracker.

Chocobo Minor

???

cmbgmabb5

July 2009: This is named after the chords that I used—except I messed up and typed the wrong chords. "cmgmcmbflatcmgmaflatbflat" would be more accurate.

The Birthday Song

January 2007

January 2007

Raid The Bass (Required)

October 2006

Track 7

August 2006: I was experimenting with using LSDJ (in an emulator) to create the gameboy notes. Contains me awesomely saying a made-up word, "Fwazhoom!"

Find The Bass (Required)

August 2006

Ultimate Banana Landscape

June 2006: This is clearly a parody of the Mario theme music.

Over The Purple Rainbow

June 2006

Lumpy's Theme

April 2006

Lumpy's Theme (gameboy version)