Unplugged&eatingagrapefru (arc-unplugged.s3m)

 In the 1990’s, many popular musicians released albums under MTV’s “Unplugged” series. Most of them were just simply “Unplugged” after the musician’s name (e.g. Eric Clapton Unplugged). Some of them were expanded upon, such as Rod Stewarts “Unplugged...and Seated,” and Nirvana’s “Unplugged in New York.” I wanted to try making an acoustic-sounding song, so I affixed a suffix to it that was totally mundane and not related to composing music: “Unplugged and Eating a Grapefruit.”

In terms of repetition, this song is possibly my worst offender. I came up with an acoustic guitar sequence and repeated it through the entire slow part of the song. Without any variation. At all. With each new pattern, I’d just slap a new sample into the next column over and repeat THAT one over and over. I was just adding layers upon layers of repetition.

Cognizant of this, I decided to add a faster section to it, which is also repetitive but at least it was faster. It’s focused around the piano. Then I go back to the slower guitar section, and then return to the faster piano section, and then conclude it to thundering applause (MTV Unplugged albums were always live and featured audience applause).

Of course rather than change up the tune (which was what I did when I ran out of ideas but wanted to keep the song going) I should have actually come up with variations on the original theme, bridge sections, etc. But I don’t think I really had the skills for that at the time, nor did I know how to efficiently use my tracking software (I was transitioning from Scream Tracker to Impulse Tracker at the time).

After I released the song, Kalanaras later put together a music disk he named “Kalanaras Unplugged” with the subtitle “And eating no fruit whatsoever” so at least one person listened to this when I released it.
- arcturus