Dead air.  Not good!   As I was nearing completion of my epically long video for part 2 in my guitar pedal building series, one of the big items left on my to-do list was to find some appropriate thematic music for the section interludes.  Each of the 5 tutorial sections has a table of contents image that sits on the screen for about 16 seconds.   At that point in the project, each of these brief interludes was dead-silent.

I had this vague idea that I would compose some short piece of music, and then make five increasingly complex variations to play for each of the five increasingly advanced sections of the tutorial.   16 seconds is not very long- not long enough for a big composition, but maybe long enough for a short melody.  This idea lurked in the back of my mind for a few weeks.   A couple of aborted attempts just didn’t seem to fit the tone of the video- too perky, too funky, etc.

Inspiration arrived, as it sometimes does, with a new piece of gear.  So with brand new Les Paul in hand, and Jamman Delay looper and Vox Ice 9 under foot, I recorded the following series of melodies.  Each loop starts with a copy of a previous variation, and adds a little something.

I’m particularly fond of that last clip, even though it ended up on the cutting room floor.  It’s got this crazy riff in it – which may be just a little too complex.