Welcome to Marz's music page. So what's this page all about? Well, this is where I'll cover things in my life that are music related. Such as my music, and music I like. First off let me tell you some more about my music. I've been composing music for quite a long time. My actual first composition was done when I was around 14 or 15 years old. Nothing really. Just a Pop-type song. After that I really didn't compose much. I have also been involved with music since I was 8 years old. That's when I started those dreaded piano lessons. I actually enjoyed it most of the time, but I was notorious for not practicing between lessons like most kids. For about 4 years I also took up violin. It seemed like such an easy instrument to me, and I kind of regret not being able to continue with it. I still have my violin and it's probably still in tune;)

All through high school I continued with piano. Once I graduated, I stopped taking lessons as I moved away to go to college, and never thought I'd need to take anymore. For the next year I pretty much forgot music. But after about a year I started getting antsy. I got this crazy idea that I wanted a keyboard. A professional synthesizer more specifically. I didn't want one of those "idiot" keyboards that they sell at Wal-Mart. I wanted something that sounded professional. So I saved my money. During that time I shopped around for a keyboard. I went to various music stores to research what was out there.

I had almost decided on a Roland Alpha Juno. It was a sweet synth. Had great sounds, a good feel, and was reasonably priced. Then one day I went to Alamo Music in San Antonio. I told the salesman what I was looking for, and just wanted to play some more on the Roland:) He showed me this just released keyboard called the ESQ-1. It was produced by an American company called Ensoniq. I thought that was pretty cool as most synths were made in Japan. It had everything I needed plus the one thing that all other keyboards in that price range at the time lacked, an on-board sequencer. The demo song just wowed me. I still have it saved on disk somewhere so I can load it up once every couple of years to listen to it.

I was sold. I got the keyboard shortly before going back up to college. Over the next few months I played with my new toy. I was afraid that I would grow tired of this $2500 toy, but I never did. I actually spent more time playing with that than studying for college. I had already had a bad Spring semester the year before, and things weren't looking any better. After my second year of struggling, I decided to go into what I knew best. Music. I didn't join a band. I actually changed majors from Astronomy to Music. Astronomy? Well, I was a pretty technical guy,and still am. I was very inspired by Carl Sagan, and wanted to by the next one. I.E. a rich astronomer:)

Well, I finished up my music degree. I concentrated on electronic music. That's the music with really wierd sounds that only other musicians appreciate. Kind of like wierd modern art that only artists can love. The last two years of college were much better than the first two. Did I continue with music? Well, not in the sense of it becoming my profession. By then I was very hooked into working for the newspaper, and liked it too much to quit to become a starving musician. Plus I worked nights there and it was impossible for me to really join a band.

So basically over the years I've composed for myself and friends. My music is mostly Pop/Dance/Techno. I compose it to my tastes. If someone doesn't like it, oh well. I'd like to know if they don't like it rather than by told they do. I will take constrctive criticism, and may change a few things if I think they are good points. But ultimately it's what I like that goes into the music.

OK, so how do I get to hear your music? Well, if you look below, you will see 6 song samples you can download in zip format. Each song sample is approximately 30-45 seconds long and is a .wav file, not a midi file. Just little snipets of some of my stuff. Due to space constraints, I couldn't make them longer. I also had to sample them at 14k resolution to keep the size down. I would have loved to uploaded the 28k samples, but those were way too big. Each archive also has a readme file in ASCII format. If you like what you hear, then let me know. So enjoy.

I've been pretty inactive musically lately. I finally made that tape with music. I've only sent out a few copies. If you sent me a blank and have not gotten a copy, rest assured that I still have that blank tape and have been extremely lazy about making a copy. The original is not the highest quality and I've been dragging my feet on either re-doing it, or just leaving it as is. I have resumed playing Blues recently when possible. One of my goals for the next few months (currently May '99) is to compose more too.

Update - 3/21/05:

Well, there really hasn't been too many more compositions since '99. I've upgraded my computer and got rid of one synth (not working and not worth fixing). I've resampled almost all of my music into mp3 format. Below are the links to those files. They are organized by "album" then song. Click on the song to have it stream, or to download either Right click (Windoze) or Option click (Mac OS).

Here are the files! :)

XXX

No it's not x-rated :) This is basically a "Greatest Hits" compilation I put together when I was 30 years old. A few of the songs were composed during that year.

• Babylon 5 - A song that uses samples from the TV show B5. Each section is associated with a specific character.
• Cirrus - Something that made me think of Cirrus clouds after it was done.
• Flux - Another one of those titles that just "came to me"
• I Just Wanna Be President - A political satire on Bill Clinton. Uses samples from various sources. The Bill Clinton sample is from some caller into the Rush Limbaugh show. Note the use of a sax sound to also connect to Slick Willie.
• It Began In Africa - Title from the song. Sample lifted from an old Amiga MOD file (kind of a precursor of mp3's).
• Married Woman - An extended version of a song I wrote for a video presentation for the launch of Married Woman magazine.
• Mr. Blackjack - While writing this one it made me think of Blackjack. At the time I was pretty damn good at the game.
• Now Today's Xian - Based on the main sample. Samples from The Simpsons and TBN.
• Smokey Lovin' Sunshine - Combination of 3 songs - Smoke on the Water, Gimme Some Lovin', and Sunshine on Your Love.
• Techno Spy - Made me think of Spy Movies.
• Technolympics - Song written for a TV Guide Winter Olympics issue video presentation.
• The Shadow - Not really meant to be a song about the radio serial The Shadow, but it kind of fits.
• Total Kaos - One of my early songs. Still living in Austin and it's based on a single patch from my VFX that cycles through all of its samples. Also was going to a nightclub called Kaos at the time.
• Warp Factor 9 - Made me think of Star Trek.

Music for a Virtual World

Some of the songs here are named for games put out by Virtual World Entertainment Group. Some of the others are from other projects, but I had put the entire collection together for a tape I had submitted to VWE.

• BattleTech - Just a general song. Sound quality is really muddy on the original. I have not gone into the sample to clean it up. You should be able to EQ this on your mp3 player to make it sound better.
• Marik Violet - My House and color. It is related to the BattleTech storyline. There are 5 warring Houses, and Marik is one of them. This song makes me imagine being in a BattleMech called and Avatar running around on the battlefield.
• Ottobahn - A course on Red Planet (see description below) that is very long and straight. Think about strapping a couple solid rocket boosters on a lawn chair.
• Red Planet - Another general song related to the now defunct Red Planet video game. It was a Martian Death Race through the mining canals on Mars. Players are in various sized vehicles similar to hovercraft. One of the big twists is that instead of a traditional track where everyone goes in the same direction, it's a course that has two ends where the players turn around to go the opposite way. Lots of head on collisions!
• Flux - see link above
• The Shadow - see link above
• The Orion Project - see link below
• Peter Gunn - not uploaded at this time

Cosmic Ocean

• Cosmic Ocean - What I would call one of my masterpieces. It's one long file, but has 4 sections. The original was just the first section. I created a computer graphics video using mandelbrots and a simple 3D space travel video. Later I expanded it to a 35 minute composition. Unfortuately I had corrupted the orignal music files on my Amiga and cannot recover them to put into a music sequencer. Luckily the only recording of the entire piece is a decent one. However, this sample is one of the first ones I did into my iBook and there is 60-cycle hum (ground loop) during the very quite parts on the piece.

The Orion Project

• The Orion Project - Yet another piece associated with a computer video. This one had somewhat of a storyline.

Symphony in Dmin

• Symphony in Dmin - My first long compostion. I would consider this my other masterpiece. Composed while pursuing my degree in Music at UT - Austin.

Various

• Dreaming Down the Yangtzee River - A New Age type piece that made me think of floating in a boat down a Chinese River.
• Midnight Raga - Kind of an experiment in Ragas since I was in an Indian Music class at that time.
• Sunset Over Monaco - A Jazz-type piece not uploaded at this time.

There are more songs, but I have not transferred them to my hard drive at home. Most of them are the much older songs. Some are not songs I really want to put out there. And some are really experimental college pieces.

All music is Copyright MVF Productions and may not be used without written permission.