another song...

06-04-2024 ♪ category: misc

So... I've been working on this song off and on for a while now and I've finally finished it! But now I'm not sure if it sucks. I can't pinpoint any one thing that I'm unhappy with, it's just kind of.... boring. I'm not opposed to just scrapping it tbh. So if you have a spare minute to listen and any thoughts to share, let me know! (Don't worry, I'm not gonna post the whole album before its done lol.)

The GUITAR

18-02-2024 ♪ category: misc

I love playing guitar!! I really really do. I started playing guitar about 5 years ago now. So not that long, but a good chunk of time I think. When I first started I was entirely self taught, I just learned chords of Beatles songs. After about a year of that I took guitar lessons for a bit but honestly didn’t get much out of them, so I went back to just teaching myself. That was fine for the basics but I gave up pretty quickly anytime I tried to learn any more complicated techniques. A little over a year ago I started taking guitar lessons again and wow I have learned a lot from them! I have definitely improved a lot since starting guitar lessons again. I’ve started learning lots of more technical stuff (finally learning how to sweep pick!). Not only that, but I really really enjoy guitar lessons! They are genuinely the highlight of my week! Maybe a little sad but it’s the truth. Plus I have an awesome guitar teacher. He’s in a band that’s actually pretty good too. I’d love to tell you what the band is called but then you would know where I live and I am Not Cool with that. Maybe one day if I move cities. I know guitar lessons seem kind of lame but they really re-ignited my love for guitar. I don’t know a lot about the gear side of guitars but I am just a huge nerd when it comes to playing guitar. I love just sitting down to play scales and exercises over and over again to a metronome. Of course I love learning songs too but the “boring” parts of learning guitar are not boring to me :D

Oh also random little anecdote: I’ve never really liked Avenged Sevenfold, to be honest I even dislike them a little, but my guitar teacher really likes them so I’ve learned a few of their songs. I still don’t really like them but I have learned to appreciate that they have some cool guitar parts (I really like playing the solo from buried alive).

HAPPY NEW YEAR (AGAIN)!!

09-02-2024 ♪ category: misc

The lunar one this time! I'm a day early but I'm bored right now so whatever. Also my laptop is broken and this one of the few productive(ish) things I can do that's web based (so I can do it on a different computer.) So Yeah happy new year! If ur wondering, I'm half Chinese, and I no, I do not speak chinese, but I'm learning!

ARG! FRUSTRATED!

03-02-2024 ♪ category: misc

I'm so frustrated with music lately. In the last 5 months I've only written 4 songs that are any good. I know that I don't have to pump out songs like a machine but normally I write way more often than that. I've just been so uninspired and most of all miserable. I just can't seem to do anything good lately! And I don't know how to get out of this slump! I keep saying that I'm just gonna take a break from writing music but at this rate I pretty much have and that didn't help. It just made me feel shitty and useless! I've tried working on different projects! I've tried discovering new music and inspirations! I don't know. It's less the quantity of songs that I'm upset about and more the quality. I just haven't written any songs that I'm excited about. There's some that are okay, they're catchy, they feel good enough, but I don't want to settle for "good enough". I want to be excited about music again. Nothing's Unexplainable With The Power Of Science was so easy to write. It didn't feel like ripping songs from my brain, it felt like they just happily walked out. Not so much now. For the first time ever I have a direction that I want to go in for a new album but I can't seem to capture it. I just feel like I'm not trying hard enough and if I wasn't so lazy then I could make something good.

Sorry I just needed to rant a little.

Maybe it's just my stupid brain making everything seem worse. Here's the most recent song I've recorded, please tell me what you really think of it. Please be brutally honest. If it's trash, TELL ME!

Anxiety

27-01-2024 ♪ category: misc

I don’t think I’ve really talked about before but I’m sure it comes as a surprise to no one that I’m a pretty anxious person. Well sort of. I don’t really have an issue with just like… general anxiety, like getting anxious about life and random stuff, but I have a really hard time with anxiety of the social variety. I was a pretty shy kid, but at some point talking to people became just so much worse than it had ever been. Now I have to psych myself up for like 15 mins before I go talk to someone lol. There are some days where I don’t want to leave the house because the thought of going outside and interacting with other people is just too much.

That’s why people who act like anxiety is just a quirky personality trait really piss me off. I understand that people use humour to cope with stuff but I think there’s a difference between coping and trivializing. This is partially just my own problem, but a couple of weeks ago I had the worst panic attack of my life during a bio lab and I didn’t want to tell anyone because I thought they would think I was joking! I know that’s stupid but I hear people joking about panic attacks so often that in my irrational state of mind I thought my lab partners would think I was joking if I told them why I was standing completely still and not helping. So I just ended up leaving the room and sitting on the floor of the hallway until I could breathe again. But yeah that sucks! I’m stupid for that and I know it’s partially just my fault but it really sucks that it’s even something to worry about in the first place.

Social anxiety makes navigating the outside world a little hellish to be honest. I find ways to get around it, like finally giving up on eye contact and communicating through email and notes instead of talking, but obviously doing those things make me seem a little weird. It would be nice to be normal.

Emo

14-01-2024 ♪ category: misc

I may not look very emo anymore, but I am still emo at heart 💔

The thing is though, I used to absolutely HATE being called emo. I started wearing black clothes and eyeliner in 7th grade, then BOOM! I started getting called emo. Even though all I wanted in life was to look like Gerard Way, I still hated when other people called me emo. Mostly cuz they meant it as an insult. But it wasn’t really that bad, it was only occasionally that it was actually hurtful. Once somebody just yelled “EMO!” at me from their car, that was funny.

Anyways eventually I just started embracing the label, because why shouldn’t I? I love emo music, emo fashion, stupid emo hair (I finally got some stupid emo hair for a while which you may remember…), excessive eyeliner, I love all of it. I don’t think it’s cringey at all. Sure there’s the whole thing about being melodramatic and sad, but that’s just because most emos are teenagers. All teenagers are melodramatic whether they’re emo or not. So I just gave in and wore all the black jeans and band tees and chokers and eyeliner that I wanted to! Of course I didn't really look as cool as I thought I did but oh well.

Like I said before, these days I don’t dress very emo at all. I still wear black skinny jeans of course (I refuse to wear wide legged jeans I am much too short for that) and band tees, but I also like dresses and cute pink frilly things now :) Ironically though I probably listen to more emo music now than I did before. IDK what the point of this is! Just wear whatever you want, be cringe and be free! XD

Jeremy's new skeleton (soon-ish)

11-01-2024 ♪ category: misc

Guess what? I'm working on making a new skeleton for Jeremy! A whole life-sized (about 5'8") skeleton for Jeremy to live in! It's made of lots of different things; wire, papier-mâché, store-bought clay, homemade clay, styrofoam... yeah! I'm actually pretty close to being done, all I have left to make is the tibias, fibulas, carpals, tarsals, metacarpals, metatarsals, phalanges, and of course, the skull. It's very exciting, not just for Jeremy, but for me too because I'm a huge nerd about human anatomy so this is really fun for me. I'll definetly post pictures when it's done, actually I'll probably post a video about it!

Scars and stuff that comes before them

28-12-2023 ♪ category: misc

Warning: I’m talking about cutting and I’m not holding back.

So as you may know if you’ve listened to our music, I cut myself. I have since I was 12 (I won’t say how many years that is but I’m sure you can guess.) Like most things, it started out small. Just scratches. But now most of my body is covered in scars and I honestly don’t plan on stopping any time soon because I like it too much. I know I shouldn’t say that, because it feels like on the internet you’re always supposed to say “I’m working on getting better” but that would be a lie. Whenever I stop for a while it’s never voluntary.

I have a weird relationship with my scars. I love them, but I also hate them and feel like I’m going to be ugly forever and no one could ever love me etc. etc. But regardless of how I feel about them they’re here for the rest of my life. That’s why I’ve started wearing t-shirts and shorts again. I avoided it for a long time, but I’m just so sick of constantly hiding. I started wearing t-shirts to school and just trying not to care. I don’t know what people think of me now, luckily no one has said anything to me yet. Though I did hear one guy say, “she used to be so normal”. But whatever, I’m so over trying to be “normal” and trying to hide the stuff that’s wrong with me. I wish I could be the sort of person that thinks of my scars as a reminder of what I’ve been through, but it’s not what I’ve been through yet, it’s what I’m still in the middle of. Beside my scars are often bandages.

I don’t know why I’m writing this, I just want to be completely honest. I think this is just part of my life now, I don’t think I’m ever going to overcome it.

Happy Holidays!

24-12-2023 ♪ category: misc

Merry christmas and happy holidays from Sour Note Symphony! I can't wait for christmas to be over! (also first picture of Unspecified omg)

FUN FACTS

17-12-2023 ♪ category: misc

Fun fact #1: Our band name comes from a song lyric. I kind of wish it didn’t because I don’t really like that song anymore lol. But if anyone can guess what song it is I will give you a virtual high-five. It also follows the tradition of 3-word band names that the pop-punk and/or emo (no I Do Not wish to debate anyone on what “real emo” is so shut up) “music sphere” seems to have. (ex. My Chemical Romance, Pierce The Veil, Sleeping With Sirens, All Time Low, Fall Out Boy, Boys Like Girls, Four Year Strong, Jimmy Eat World, Taking Back Sunday… I could go on and on.)

Fun fact #2: Jeremy killed a man in 1976.

Fun fact #3: Unspecified’s home planet is Jupiter! The average temperature there is -145℃, so they find even the coldest Canadian winter day pretty warm. That’s why they always dress like a dad on vacation (unless they’re trying to hide from the Area 51 guys…)

Fun fact #4: The very first song I ever wrote (Something’s Wrong) is still on the Auxiliarycord youtube channel. It is not good at all but I’ve kept it up for some unknown sentimental reason I guess. There’s a lot of old songs that I took down but that one has stayed even though I am embarrassed by it.

Only Trichromatic

24-11-2023 ♪ category: misc

I never said anything about this and I probably should! I have another website called onlytrichromatic.neocities.org! I host all the other stuff I make there (stuff that isn't music). There's a dress up game, a comic, and some other miscellaneous drawings. Check it out if you want, I just changed the whole layout a little while ago! The soundtrack for that site is also on our Bandcamp.

The Most Underrated (3)DS Game*

11-11-2023 ♪ category: misc

*I don’t actually know how popular this game is and it is certainly not the MOST underrated game but I don’t see it talked about enough whatever blah blah blah

There is a series of games on the DS and 3DS called Style Savvy (or Fashion Boutique in PAL or Girls’ Mode in Japan) and I LOVE it! It’s a pretty simple dress-up game that would be pretty easy to write off. Based on a first glance the games look a little like shovelware, but trust me, they are good. There’s four games in the series; Style Savvy (2008/2009), Style Savvy: Trendsetters (2012), Style Savvy: Fashion Forward (2015/2016), and Style Savvy: Styling Star (2017) and I would like to talk about them all because they’re cool. All of the games feature your character gaining ownership of a boutique in some way, and the main gameplay is helping customers by picking out items and outfits for them. In all four games, you also have to stock your boutique by purchasing clothes at the buyer’s centre/exhibition hall, and can change your avatar’s hair and makeup, and can enter fashion contests. There are other features specific to each game but I will talk about those later! All the games have something of a story, but none of them are really anything to write home about so I won’t be talking about them much.

BTW, obviously these games are no longer in production and Styling Star never saw a physical release in North America (and the eShop is permanently shut down /(ㄒoㄒ)/~~) so just pirate them honestly. I bought two of them from the eShop for ~$30, so if you don’t wanna pay the same amount for a used copy on Ebay just pirate them. ANYWAYS:

STYLE SAVVY

The original! Ironically, the last one I played. It’s unique from the others because it’s the only for the DS rather than the 3DS, so the graphics are in a much different style (not just because of the resolution) and it’s also vertical! I think it’s neat. Being on the DS also means the clothing is more unique because of the models aren’t reused in the other games, but there are also less clothes overall. Though there’s one thing, in all the other games the music is great, in this one I turn off the music because it’s so annoying. Being the first game in the series, there isn’t much to do and there are some annoying quality of life things. The main gameplay is running your boutique and entering fashion contests. The fashion contests are annoying just like they are in Trendsetters (I will explain further later), but I don’t think this game is worse, because it has a certain charm that Trendsetters lacks. I don’t know, can’t explain.

TRENDSETTERS

This one is the first one I played, but I will be honest, it’s the weakest game in the series. It is by no means a bad game! But I found this one to be the most repetitive. The reason for this is because the main marker of progress in the game is the fashion contests, which would be fine, but the way you’re ranked in the contests makes them pretty boring. In order to win especially the later contests, you have to match the colour and pattern of almost every piece of clothing, making for some pretty ugly and boring outfits. So there’s really no creativity in that part of the game, it’s just finding matching clothes. The boutique part of the game is on par with all the others, and it lacks anything else to do. The one thing it does have over the other games it men’s fashion though! In Trendsetters you’re able to stock men’s clothing in your store. None of the games are really anything special in terms of characters and dialogue, but this one I find particularly bland. Emmylou (your shop assistant) is very annoying.

FASHION FORWARD

I think this is the best one. And I’ll tell you why! Fashion Forward has the most to do in it BY FAR. Aside from the normal boutique managing, you can also work as a hairstylist, a beautician, a model, and a fashion designer. And you can design rooms that people will rent from you! It didn’t just add new jobs, it also added lots of new locations that can be travelled to by train. The map is split into sections which makes the world seem a lot bigger. Also, the fashion shows still exist in this one, however they aren’t ranked. Instead of winning the shows, you goal is to sell tickets for the shows. Fashion forward has the best graphics in my opinion, the UI is less cluttered, and the map is done in a way that looks like little dollhouse miniatures. There’s a reason for that! I know I wasn’t gonna talk about the stories of the games, but this one is unique in that the game isn’t set in “the real world”, but instead you’re sucked into an alternate world by a doll that comes to life. I don’t know how to better explain it, just play the game. Oh! And another thing that makes this one unique, in the other games you unlock new makeup and hair colours by just buying them, but in this one you have to take pictures of different locations in the game and show them to a character called Rainbow, and she’ll unlock new colours. It’s kind of weird and kind of frustrating sometimes, but I think it’s cool.

STYLING STAR

This is the final game in the series… unless Nintendo makes one for the switch…? They probably won’t. Anyways lots of stuff from Fashion Forward is kept in this one. The hairstyling, makeup, and designing stay (however the fashion designing is just for fun in this game, in Fashion Forward you take commission from brands) There are also a couple of new features! Nails are added and men’s fashion comes back from trendsetters. But you can’t stock men’s clothing in your store, you just help out at another store across the street. The biggest change is that the fashion shows are done away with entirely, which I am totally on board with. Styling Star also has the most story in the game. In addition to just selling clothes, you also help several characters in their careers to become singers and models. There are three main characters each with their own storyline. I think the characters have the most personality in this game as well. The story is nice because it makes the game a little less repetitive and adds events to the game. Oh, it also adds the ability to fully decorate your boutique instead of just choosing premade interiors. But it’s really not that great, it’s just kind of annoying and expensive. There is one last quality of life update which I think is important. In previous games, if the outfit on you mannequin didn’t match the theme of your shop, customers would complain about it and never buy it, but in Styling Star customers will buy any style of outfit from the mannequin regardless of your shop theme. I know I said Fashion Forward is the best, but this one is a VERY CLOSE second, it’s really good.

So that is my completely pointless review of all four Style Savvy games (*^▽^*)

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

31-10-2023 ♪ category: misc

It's Halloween!!! I love Halloween, it's the best day of the year. Here's mine and Jeremy's costumes!

Of course you could also add some of our spooky songs ;)

Oh and also we've got halloween stuff on bandcamp now! Have a good Halloween!

Piracy >:)

07-10-2023 ♪ category: misc

Everyone does it, don’t feel bad. Is it moral though? I’m not sure, but it won’t stop me. Honestly I think there’s nothing morally wrong with piracy when there isn’t any way that the copyright owner could even make profits off of whatever you’re pirating. Ex. pirating an old Nintendo game that isn’t available for purchase anywhere anymore. That’s not an unpopular opinion though.

ANYWAYS! Tldr; piracy is probably okay. All you really need is a decent antivirus (windows defender is probably fine… I run EVERYTHING though virustotal.com first just to be safe) an ad/redirect blocker (I use uBlock Origin, it’s great), and common sense, and it’s also probably safe. I won’t put any piracy links here (even though I’d really like to) because I don’t want to violate Neocities’ TOS, and I’m no piracy guru or anything, I don’t know anything that isn’t common knowledge. I have nothing else of value to say… So are the best things I’ve pirated!

• What We Do In The Shadows (2014). A very good movie that I wouldn’t have watched if not for 123movies. It’s a mockumentary type of film. I’d recommend it if you like vampires, but not the serious kind. Werewolves not swearwolves.
• Fantasy Life (3DS). It’s an RPG with really cute graphics and pretty simple gameplay, which are both good things in my books. I played this game on Citra (emulator) at first cuz I was too scared of hacking my actual 3DS and breaking it somehow, but now I’ve done it and it’s much better to play on hardware it was meant for, shockingly! It’s really good! I think I have >50 hours on it at this point. Oh and I found the DLC for it too which is awesome.
• The Beatles’ entire discography. Burnt it onto a CD (or at least my dad did lol, I was like 10) and it accompanied me on several road trips. Also sparked my entire interest in music I guess. I ♥ youtube to mp3 converters (when they don’t come with malware)

There’s also another entire series of games called Style Savvy for the DS+3DS but I’m gonna write a dedicated post just for that so get ready lol.

Rhythm games!

30-09-2023 ♪ category: misc

They’re really cool! I don’t remember if I’ve ever mentioned this but rhythm games are the whole reason I got into music! The Beatles Rock Band (sort of like guitar hero) specifically, it led to a 2 year long obsession with the beatles and that’s why I wanted to learn how to play guitar! I heard that some people think rhythm games are a bad way to introduce people to music but I whole-heartedly disagree. I don’t really get what could possibly be bad about it! To this day I still really love rhythm games. I’ve played:

• Rock Band
• Rock Band 2
• Rock Band 3
• Rock Band 4
• The Beatles Rock Band
• Green Day Rock Band
• Guitar Hero LOR
• Guitar Hero WOR

(except for RB4 these are all ps3 games so they’re very cheap!)

(PS I wouldn’t recommend RB3 or 4 because the first 2 are a lot better IMO)

There are some good mobile ones too that I’ve found

• Voez (no ads! Can be extremely difficult!)
• Cytus (I didn’t actually play this one for long but it has a more unique gameplay and some very good songs!)
• Sweet Sins Superstars (very cute artstyle, pretty easy in comparison to the last two. Has a lot of ads but I just go into airplane mode)
• Muse Dash is also pretty good but I can’t play it because I find the UI very overwhelming

So yeah needless to say I love rhythm games! Honestly I’ve discovered some of my favourite artists, and if not artists then some really good songs, from rhythm games. I love RX Bandits now and I found them from Guitar Hero. Conventional Lover by Speck and New Kid In School by The Donnas are 2 really good songs from Rock Band 2. And Keep It Up by Uma from Voez is a very good song in a way I can’t describe.

Oh one more funny thing there’s this band called Bang Camaro, they have songs in RB 1,2 and 4. And I don’t even like them that much but I just think about them a lot because currently there are 20-something people in the band!! For reference they make like arena rock type of stuff it’s not like they’re an orchestra. And the reason for this? Gang vocals. Why do they all need to be part of the band though?? It’s just really funny to me XD. They take up space in my brain. (plus their songs are fun to play on RB)

I don’t know what my point is I just wanted to talk about stuff that I like.

pretty gifs!

11-09-2023 ♪ category: misc

So as you may have noticed I like to collect little images. Stamps, blinkies, favicons, other little gifs that hurt my eyes to look at. So I thought I'd share some of the places where I've found some of my favourites!

binhardt.neocities.org - tons of little pokemon gifs

Bonnibel's Graphic Collection - lots of cute stuff

glitter-graphics.com

Mike's Graphics

blinkies.cafe - make your own blinkies with templates!

Betty's Graphics

I will probably edit this post later and add more!

Music videos

23-08-2023 ♪ category: misc

So we have a new music video today! Exciting! This is definetly the shortest time between the album release and a music video. I never actually plan on making music videos, I just make them when I want to. Honestly I mostly made this one (Hey Tiger) because I needed something to keep me busy so I wouldn't just think about doing something stupid all day! (If you catch my drift.) I hope they are enjoyable to watch. I feel kind of vain making them since I'm just kind of filming myself... I wish I could do more elaborate videos but I don't have anywhere to go and I don't have anyone to even hold the camera. (That's why it's always just a still shot. My camera man is my phone taped to a pile of boxes on a stool.) The Fangirl music video was a little more interesting because I went outside and had a friend help me with it. But I'm too embarassed to do anything like that in public again and I have sort of lost touch with that friend...

Anyway sorry I kind of went on a tangent there. I hate filming them and I hate editing them, but somehow I still enjoy making music videos! Maybe they're a little vain, but I think the visual aspect of music is an important part of it. Or it at least adds to the experience :)