Spinning Tops Video

I have begun learning video-editing using Blender 3D —supplementing the 3D modeling that I have done using Blender. This is the second “ForeverSpin™ spinning-top video” I made as a learning exercise last year.

In addition to bronze and platinum ForeverSpin tops, this video uses three (3) iPhones (6, 12, and 14), and also a bike-cam. All of the cameras were on stationary-overhead arm-mounts. You can see these at the beginning of the movie on the “footage” taken by the bike-cam. I make brief appearances at the beginning and ending of the video —to spin the tops and to then hopefully mostly disappear —until the end, when I reappear to stop the cameras one by one.

In the Blender 3D app I learned:

  1. To align three (3), and then four (4) video files using their audio track’s visual waveforms to synchronize the videos.
  2. To switch between camera views.
  3. To mask-out unwanted portions of a video, though I did no masking in the accompanying video.
  4. To shift and scale video from its original format.
  5. To render the resultant composite-videos and audio into a “proper” and as-small-as-needed streaming format, which is important for sharing a project such as this.

Finally, a couple of less “technical” lessons I learned were:

  1. Don’t let the cameras take pictures of each other.
  2. Stay out of the picture.

The accompanying music is “Arubian Nights,” one of the sketches/compositions from my 1998 production, “Girl Songs And Other Sketches.” I selected this particular piece because its length fit “just right.”

I hope that you enjoy.

Remembering Eddie

Charles Edward Smith (“Eddie”) was my friend and I loved him. Everyone who knew him felt the same way. To me, he was a nearly perfected soul and I trusted him and his word as much as my Father’s. During our years of work together (2009-2019), I took a multitude of pictures of him and the project that we were working on together —transforming my childhood home into my vision of heaven on earth.

During all that time, I never saw him angry. And, I was never unhappy with him in any way. His kind and sweet spirit washes over and through me at times —specially when I am alone on Green Mountain. I imagine that Eddie would have been uncomfortable with my originally intended words about him —words of public praise that would have otherwise been my tribute.

When Eddie left us prematurely in January 2020, my vision became clouded. I wrote this musical sketch, while playing the piano in the early days of 2020 after he died. I originally planned a much larger production than this one. My intense emotions and feelings of loss caused me to stop and start this project three times since beginning in 2020.

My continued love for Eddie, and my desire to lift his memory have driven me to share this. This one’s for Eddie. I miss him every day.

The Popcorn Man

“The Popcorn Man” (TPM, henceforth) is an example of a project that I started and stopped multiple times —first beginning to arrange its music and draw the accompanying cartoons in July, 2019 —and, now finally posting it in Feb. 2024.

My cartoon rendition of TPM was inspired by one of the Mario Brothers. I drew it first in pencil, and then used brush-pens to fill-in the colors. I scanned that to use as a basis for redrawing it as an outline-drawing using Inkscape.

It was during my first year of piano lessons from my Mother that I encountered the “Popcorn Man” song. For reasons unknown to me, the song was really appealing and made me want to play it —over and over… I don’t remember my Mom asking me to move on from playing this song, but she probably should have. Maybe it was her voice I heard, telling me in Feb. 2024 —to move on and share what I’ve done. So be it.

John Thompson First Grade Method Book

It is odd that I played TPM at all. I remember only a couple of the pieces preceding or following it in the “John Thompson 1st Grade Method.”

Additionally, I wrote in a previous post that my first song was “ABC” and “ABC” is definitely is NOT the first song in the 1st John Thompson Method. Before searching to find the John Thompson First Grade Book that contains #34, “The Popcorn Man,” (TPM) I falsely remembered there being a picture of the “Popcorn Man” with the music. I see now that he was imaginary and only in my mind.

While I reacquainted myself with this song, I realized several things about it:

  1. It was the first piece I learned that changed keys, twice in fact.
  2. It was the first piece I learned that used a “D.C. al Coda” to create a song with ABA form.
  3. That it is one of the few pieces in the book that does NOT have an illustrative picture on the page. This picture introduces a new hand position.
  4. Staccato notes are used and notated without having ever previously introduced them, that I could find…
The Popcorn Man, #34 in the John Schaum First Grade Method Book
The Popcorn Man Sketch-Score by SMOjr.

My arrangement of TPM is in 12/8 meter, is syncopated and incorporates several bass-line, melodic, harmonic and rhythmic variations — hopefully for your listenening amusement.

Harmonic variations include diatonic, chromatic and circle-of-fifth progressions. Additionally, harmonic selections include chord-qualities: diminished, augmented, altered chords of various types and quartal-harmonies.

Kurzweil synthesizers optionally feature a pitch-ribbon that can be used to inflect the pitch (pitch-bend) like a guitar does with a whammy-bar, a steel-guitar does with its pedals, or a synthesizers does with pitch-bend wheel or knob. While I was arranging and performing in preparation for recording pitchbend in certain parts, I significantly advanced my proficiency with the ribbon.

I hope that you enjoy my arrangement of “The Popcorn Man.”