Magic Water Instantly Freezes When You Pour It - How Is This Possible?! - A Simple Science Principle AltoonaYourPiano 2024-01-20 | As if by magic, when I pour this water it freezes into a slush mountain in the bowl while the liquid that doesn't from the mountain soon freezes into solid ice. How is this even possible? It's not as complex as you may think. There's a process called supercooling that allows this to happen. Liquids that don't have a nucleus or "seed" to crystalize around will remain liquid for far longer than ones that do. The freezing point of water is 32 degrees Fahrenheit, even salt can only lower the freezing point to 0 (that's how the 0 point of the older Fahrenheit scale came to be, it wasn't just some random number). Without a nucleus to seed around, it doesn't freeze until negative-55 Fahrenheit. This is a property present with all liquids and not just water, but you're most likely to observe this with water given the fact that the temperatures that allow it to happen are within the Earth's temperature range. The water also has to be a very pure water, so this won't work with ordinary tap water. You'll get the best results using distilled water or very purified spring water, but you may get it to work with less pure brands. However, something like Aquafina will give a most impressive result. Ideally, you want it to be outside and not your freezer since the botle will be jostled too much in the freezer and it'll be cooled too fast for it to give the kinds of results you'd like to see. With that said, I hope you enjoyed this fun and unusual science video of mine. I enjoy doing these.#science #winter #water #supercooled #supercooling
The Ruthless Chill Of The Dark And Frigid North Pole In The Dead Of Winter AltoonaYourPiano 2024-01-09 | Happy New Year! Is your 2024 going well so far? I certainly hope so! This is a new original song of mine with a very long title set at the North Pole. No, this isn't the fun and happy Christmas land of merriment and joy that we visited a month ago. No, this is the real North Pole, the one that's so damn freezing cold you can't feel your face. If you think the last song set on Hudson Bay sounded ice cold, well that's like tropical music compared to this freezing cold trek across a permanently frozen polar ice cap. The first thing you'll notice is it's dark! It's winter here and so there's not a hint of twilight. And there's nothing keeping it from getting super cold except the ocean. The second thing you'll notice is that it's colder than shit and windy as hell! In the real world, the north pole is actually not much colder in December and January than North Pole, Alaska usually. I decided for my song story to set it in a shockingly cold night there where the old records are annihilated. This composition is made to sound icy and dark at the same time, a harsh, dreary bitterness of cold with no relief. This piece unlike the previous one contains no festivity or joy, just a blistering chill and a pure unrelenting wind despite being set at the North Pole. Right now, we are heading into the deep freeze. It's snowing where I live, but much warmer than the North Pole in my song. Or even the candy one with Santa Claus and all of the eggnog. Today is January 9, a month after I recorded it, and what would have been my mom's 76th birthday but she passed away in March 2021, it's been hard rediscovering my musical passion, but I've been working at it. Now I think I'm finally back to creating songs again, it feels great to make music I can share with all of you. I hope you enjoy this freezing cold piece I'd created! And remember, no matter how shitty you feel this winter, at least you're not freezing your ass off at the North Pole!#originalsong #composition #winter #NorthPole #newrelease
The Unforgiving Chill Of Frigid Hudson Bay AltoonaYourPiano 2023-12-29 | Happy New Year! I hope everyone had a very merry Christmas! This original song of mine is the first icy midwinter song of the 2023-2024 winter season. It is also my unofficial New Year's song, even though it barely mentions the new year. As it's still the holiday season, I want to ease everyone into what I call my icy midwinter songs, so this is kind of a transition piece. It contains a mix of a festive holiday instrument set blended with an icy winter set but this composition is meant to evoke a blistering chill. The original winter song that I'm using to bridge the gap between early and mid winter is set on the coast of the Hudson Bay in Canada near one of its few lighthouses. Victoria came along for our date and was mighty surprised at how cold it was and how well I was handling things considering I needed a jacket and she didn't when she wore a sleeveless dress on Christmas when it was around the freezing point. I give a lot of information about the frozen Hudson Bay region but also give a reading of Snow Bound in the text, much more than usual. Quoting this poem by John Whittier in my icy winter songs has become a tradition of sorts. This icy setting was kind of perfect for easing everyone into my frigid winter stuff. There's also a lot of new and original artwork, including the aforementioned lighthouse and despite the bay being frozen, an animation of the lighthouse spinning. There's also some new and improved northern lights artwork that's a big improvement over the "neon bacon" shit I drew four years ago. That said, I hope you all have a happy New Year and enjoy this composition. This one is meant to ease you into the winter, it still sounds a little festive but the future original songs of winter won't. Included as well is a link to the full transcript of John Whittier's poem "Snow Bound" that I quote in frigid midwinter songs. Sorry if I'm slow to reply, feeling kind of shitty, I've been under the weather lately.Snow Bound:poetryfoundation.org/poems/45490/snow-bound-a-winter-idyl#winter #Christmas #NewYears #originalsong #composition
The Candy Cane Forest AltoonaYourPiano 2023-12-22 | Merry Christmas Eve Eve Eve! I hope you're all doing well today! This original song is my second Christmas song release of the 2023 season, it continues the story of dating Victoria as she's taken to a Santaland version of the North Pole where everything looks like Christmas and candy canes. Pink skies, lake of eggnog, peppermint snow, Christmas trees, giant candy canes, and a giant glass of eggnog all dot this landscape with a full-sized gingerbread house as the hotel or lodge. We see some old characters come back to visit to interact with Victoria in their own way. This is probably the happiest most fanciful of my song settings. I've been making videos set here since 2018 but this today is the first time I released one where it's actually snowing there, although it's just a brief snow squall. I may include more snowing scenes in the future in these types of lands. This composition itself is one from before I began with adding sleigh bells to winter pieces all the time, so they're absent. This piece was recorded on the old micro-genie but the recording equipment was more basic and so there's going to be a lot more background fuzz. With that, thank you all for watching and I hope you all have a very merry Christmas. If you're sad because you think once Christmas is over, so are winter songs, fear not! The winter fun doesn't end on my channel until March (and to some degree, it can persist into April). The next song will ease into my icy midwinter style with a sound mixing festive and jolly sounds with my blistering chill of frigid winter sounds, and then in January and February it's time for the deep freeze and then in March there's a style that I often call my "late winter" song style.#Christmas #winter #ChristmasMusic #originalsong #holidaymusic
A Joyous Festive Christmas Morning AltoonaYourPiano 2023-12-13 | Merry Christmas everyone! It's the first of two Christmas compositions that I am posting for the Christmas season. This original song uses bells to evoke a traditional holiday atmosphere of church bells and chimes, it's more of the kind of old school traditional sort of Christmas sound than a more modern or Santa-themed song. However, fear not, there's also a Santaland piece that'll be upcoming after this. This continues the story of Victoria and my character dating, it's cold like you'd expect in December with snow everywhere. Despite this, Victoria's perfectly comfortable in it dressing as she normally does, albeit with also a scarf to add a little warmth and a bit of elegance. There's nothing open as in the town itself, it's Christmas. I combined a lot of the Christmas art that I use most years with a few new slides that I made for this song. For those of you who like a more traditional, old-fashioned holiday sound, this is for you. To all of you who've supported me over the past three years, thank you so much! It has been a big challenge to continue with creating new music ever since my mom passed away almost three years ago. Since early 2021, I've relied a lot on my archives as I felt like shit, in fact I felt too shitty to come up with new song ideas, but I seem to finally be getting my musical mojo back. Maybe it took three years but I knew I'd come out of it, I've had musical dry spells so many times before, I knew it wouldn't last forever. The song story is both the continuation of Christmas stories from years past and the stories of Victoria and I having a bunch of fun adventures together as a couple. This contains a lot of lovey-dovey sentimental mush between me and Victoria in the second half, so be prepared for that. I don't let it dominate everything, though. Within the context of the story universe, she's one of the most realistic and normal of the characters, but in the real world, she'd be extremely wacky and quirky. And so with that, thank you all so much for watching and listening. I have at least two other songs planed for release in December and there's a whole lot of new songs in 2024 that you can expect. Have a wonderful holiday season!#Christmas #originalsong #ChristmasMusic #holidaymusic #MerryChristmas
Christmas Parade In Downtown Altoona, Pennsylvania - December 2, 2023 AltoonaYourPiano 2023-12-05 | Merry Christmas, everyone! This is the 2023 edition of the annual "Spirit Of Christmas" parade in downtown Altoona, PA. Unfortunately, I found out after the fact that they'd split up the Christmas tree lighting and the parade. Had I known this, I would have filmed the tree lighting the night before and filmed the parade the day after. This video is much shorter than the previous one I filmed as well because the parade is considerably shorter. I also didn't have quite as good of a vantage point to film as I had in the previous years. But I think I did a pretty good job. There were also different announcer personality types this time around than last time. I tried to capture everything but I also tried to trim away the slow parts to keep the pace of it somewhat interesting.Here's the 2018 parade for comparison:youtube.com/watch?v=qaWO6w0khs0You may notice some differences with the previous installment, namely that this was filmed during the daytime. The weather was also quite unfitting for a Christmas parade as the snow had disappeared. On the other hand, it was quite good weather for the baton twirling women, as they would not have to freeze in their outfits. The temperature was around 10 degrees Celsius, or 50 degrees Fahrenheit. More of an average day for November or April than early December, despite that, it was quite an enjoyable experience for everyone at the parade. Hopefully you enjoyed this, and be sure to read the comment that I'd pinned to understand a few other things, and also try to leave a comment!#Christmsa #parade #downtown #winter #Altoona
The Icy Wind Doth Blow AltoonaYourPiano 2023-11-27 | We're heading into that time of year where fall becomes winter, the browns and grays of late autumn give way to the white blanket and festive happiness of Christmas. This original song of mine is meant to capture the feelings of the seasons changing. The anticipation of Christmas yet to come as well as winter, when all the snow's fresh, exciting and new. The air is cold and it gets even colder as the song goes on. Unlike many of my previous songs, Victoria isn't in this song (except for a passing reference at the end). It's just me, the snowfall, and some trivia facts. Are you having winter weather where you live right now? What's the weather like for you? Are winters cold and snowy or is it just a cooler version of summer or somewhere in between? This can sort of be thought of as both the last fall song or the first early winter song. It is not really a Christmas song but it contains a bit of Christmas magic. Though if you want Christmas magic, just wait awhile. This piece was recorded on a vintage keyboard from the 70s so it has a unique sound, despite the title of this composition, there's no howling wind throughout this song, but there are a few Chopin references. See if you can figure them out!#winter #originalsong #composition #autumn #firstsnow
Bubble Light 2 AltoonaYourPiano 2023-11-23 | This is a brief video of a bubble light night light that I got for Christmas in 2020, one of the last Christmas presents my mom got for me before she passed away in March 2021. This is the second of two bubble light videos that I filmed (the other one was uploaded over a year ago). Sadly, the bubble light no longer works but I wanted to post the videos showing what it looked like when it did. Happy Thanksgiving! It's both a Christmas video and kind of my unofficial Thanksgiving video. I'm thankful for each and every one of you!#thanksgiving #Christmas #bubblelight #Christmasgifts #Christmas2020
Steel Wool + 9-Volt Battery = Fire AltoonaYourPiano 2023-11-15 | What do you get when you cross a wire wool pad and a nine-volt battery? No, it's not the setup to a joke, you already read the answer in the title. It sets the steel wool on fire which can be used as a great fire starter. It's not the safest of my experiments, so I recommend that you don't try this at home, but if you decide to do so, please take extreme caution and remember the lessons you heard from Smokey the Bear about putting out forest fires and preventing the fire from happening in the first place. Make sure you carry the steel wool and the battery separately and sealed away in their own container so they cannot interact with each other until you've decided. Avoid doing this on a windy day if possible. Take extreme caution at all times. Never hold both together in the same hand. Don't use an even more powerful battery for this, it'll burn up the steel wool before you got any good use out of it. I assume you want to know how it works, too? Well, the steel wool conducts the electricity from the nine volt battery, making a complete circuit. The metal gets so hot that oxygen by the steel wool ignites creating a fire. Ideally you want to separate the wire by a little bit, and also clump some of the steel wool together. I plan on doing a lot more of these science videos. Stay tuned for more! Thanks for watching!#science #experiment #fire #electricity #firestarter
Dreary Late Autumn Days AltoonaYourPiano 2023-11-08 | It's the middle of November and we know what that means. The leaves are off the trees, the ground hasn't been covered with winter snows that last all winter yet, and lots of cold rain. The sun sets early but the clouds make any stargazing nearly impossible. November is a drab, grey, dull brown, dark and depressing month, and this original song is made to capture that feeling. The cold dampness that cuts to the bone but also the warm coziness of being in your homes drinking a warm beverage. It's not all bad. In fact, as you'll find in this original composition of mine, there is a certain type of hidden charm to this otherwise miserable depressing time of year known as late autumn. The piece itself consists of a lot of minor key reprises of the fall harvest sound in the first half and then church bells mix in as it gets cold enough to see a little bit of the magic that's yet to come. The beautiful reds and golds of the earlier parts of autumn may be gone now, everything's hunkered down for the long, cold winter, but that doesn't mean there isn't anything to enjoy. In fact, I'd say quite the contrary. There's also some fun stuff that I've scattered throughout this original song and the music video. We may be having drab, dull, and grey brown November here, but a certain special someone in my life is enjoying a winter wonderland, and that actually plays a role within the story in the music video I made for this song. There isn't a lot of scenery change but there is a bit, there is some change. Reason being drawing all the raindrops to animate the rainfall isn't easy, but hopefully the story itself is engaging enough that it isn't that big of deal that half of the song takes place in a single location. It's getting close to an American holiday called Thanksgiving (I know most of my viewers are from outside of the US so likely haven't heard of it), but it's a big feast day held on the fourth Thursday of November. This also means that I'll be getting into something soon many here are looking forward to. Christmas!#originalsong #autumn #November #rainyday #lateautumn
Warm And Cozy Late Fall Nights AltoonaYourPiano 2023-11-01 | My newest original song (and it actually IS my newest recorded song) might seem an unusual choice for a post-Halloween song but usually this is a time of year where we start having big cozy meals, so I think it works. This piece I made blending a MIDI with sound effects of me cooking a meal. This is not only my first MIDI composition since 2021 but also the first time I blended in those kinds of sound effects. I think the final result works out really good. It's a fall-themed original composition but also this original song's story is set on Halloween night into November 1, and it also accurately reflects the reality of what I saw. It was cold on Halloween night and on the morning of November 1 we got some snow. Not a lot, and it technically never hit freezing, but one thing different is in reality it stayed cold all day and never quite warmed up. I gave a lot of characters prominence within this, including my story girlfriend, Victoria. Most of the character appearances happened within the first part of the song. The "post-Halloween, late fall, first taste of winter" composition is a bit of a tradition on my channel. If you enjoy this, please be sure to comment. I love hearing from you, and I love getting likes. I have a lot planned over this month, but I want to be sure it's stuff you enjoy. I have two or three songs as well as a science video. It's getting to the end of the time for a science video.
The Endless Darkness AltoonaYourPiano 2023-10-25 | This original song is my last Halloween song release of the 2023 season and in my opinion the scariest one of all. With this, I forego the normal Halloween tropes and try to create something that's genuinely scary, and some may find it veers into "the bad kind of scary" territory. Viewer discretion is advised. For those of you new to my channel, something like this might be a surprise. But I have a background in creating horror themed music in 2001-2004 and once again in 2011-early 2012. The song itself is spooky enough but I decided to go with second person horror narration. By the end, if you're questioning the reality of everything and having an existential crisis, then I did my job. This is a storyline based on recollections of night terrors, including the dreams that set them off. Granted, these kinds of songs aren't for everyone. Some people may find something of this nature to be far too disturbing or frightening to be appropriate for Halloween. Others may find it refreshing to hear something in the last week of spooky season that goes above and beyond the normal boo haunted house stuff. It's the kind of stuff that the ghosts and ghouls and the goblins would say is too scary for them. It all depends on what you want out of Halloween. This composition is designed to scare the shit out of viewers. It relies on psychological terror combining weirdness with danger. By itself, danger isn't scary, but combine it with unexplainable stuff and it suddenly is a lot more terrifying. This piece is designed to scare the shit out of viewers be it day or night, be it nice weather or shifty weather. Nowadays, given the current state of YouTube, it's so hard to find an original composition for the season. I'm doing my best to do my part. Hopefully you have yourselves the best Halloween possible. I always love hearing from you and hope that you'll have a great Halloween. Seasonal soundscapes are definitely my forte now. But I still like to dust off the old playbook for Halloween!#Halloween #Halloweenmusic #scarymusic #originalsong #spooky
The Haunted Hallway AltoonaYourPiano 2023-10-19 | Here's where the real fun begins. We're at the part of spooky season where I go from regular Halloween stuff to genuinely scary. This original song is set to a cosmic horror story I wrote about the event horizon of a black hole being destroyed by an alien race thinking only of self-preservation at all costs. I use the scientific facts of what would happen to an exposed singularity to make a story full of existential crisis. This original Halloween composition also is a kind of eerie piece of music that sounds a little bit like the sounds the black holes make. The name sounds like a garden variety haunted house type of a song so you may be surprised that the name of the piece relates to the dark and horrifying black hole themed story of my own creation. Here is a quick explanation. It's kind of a hallway to the future as space and time reverse, a light year, being distance, mimics time in this scenario because where turns to when and when to where. You don't wait for your future, you travel to it. It is probably one of my scarier original songs that I created. However, this is a super unlikely scenario and is based on a lot of speculative science. But the fact that this is actually possible is what's really scary. This isn't your average ghouls and goblins type of Halloween story, this is something different. You may not even at first realize what's so scary about this. Oh, and take a look at the center of the screen. I won't tell you exactly what you're looking at, but I'd recommend not taking it too lightly. The story eventually tells you anyways. I hope you enjoyed this unusual Halloween tale, to really get an understanding of what's going on, you need to watch the whole entire thing, front to back. I hope you enjoyed this dark Halloween song and story of mine! Be sure to let me know if you have any questions or are excited for the scariest one of all! During the Halloween season, the last song is usually the one to scare the shit out of people. I also tend to make those second-person narration type songs and videos. For those that don't know, second person talks to the reader or listener. It's probably the least common narration style for fiction outside of the Choose Your Own Adventure series.#Halloween #spooky #originalsong #blackhole #cosmichorror
The Pale October Moonlight AltoonaYourPiano 2023-10-13 | Happy Friday the 13th! It's not only Friday the 13th but also Friday the 13th in October, spooky Halloween month! And so, I decided a spooky original song of mine would be perfect for today! Not only is it a great song for Friday the 13th and Halloween, but also educational as well. It's a step up from the last song in scare factor, so if you though the last song was scary, be prepared! I made this original composition years ago, this piece was one of a handful of original Halloween songs that I never released until now. The moon footage is of the Hunter's Moon last year. I wasn't able to get enough footage to get a good moon vlog, so I decided to slow down and loop the video footage for a Halloween song about the moon and make it a music video instead. There thankfully weren't any shitty clouds that would have made this hard. This is one of my rare music videos that uses live action video footage instead of a cartoon world setting that I use in most of my songs. Unlike the first song of mine for Halloween that used organ, bells, and brass, this one uses an older synthesizer to really give it that old school eerie sound. The biggest thing of this that prevents it from being more than a step up in scare factor from the last song is the fact that there's very little horror involved in the music video. Although if I remember right it was cold as hell when I filmed like in the song. It's mostly educational like most of my songs. But don't worry, the third song will be a LOT scarier than this one, so if you're looking for something that is purely horrifying, that'll be where you begin to enjoy yourself. That one will be one where you go "holy hell, that's damn scary!" And the fourth one may scare the shit out of some people. Still, this one is a nice jump up from the first one, even if the scariest part of the story is how we could have frost. One thing I forget to mention is that in 2031, because it will be a blue moon in late September, it'll be the Blue Corn Moon, the very thing that Pocahontas was singing about (so it's a real thing, not just something in the movie to sound more poetic). Also, the blue moon can mean two things, the second full moon in a month or the third full moon in a season that has four full moons (because seasons usually have three full moons). And with that, I really hope you enjoyed learning stuff about the moon as well as my song! Sadly, no eclipse video, it was rained out! Damn it!#fullmoon #Halloween #FridayThe13th #originalsong #horror
It Was A Dark And Stormy Night AltoonaYourPiano 2023-10-06 | It's a cliche that's been parodied by now more often than been used straight. Snoopy from Peanuts (Charlie Brown's dog) starts many of his novels with that exact phrase before he gets writer's block (usually happens right after). I decided to for fun give a Halloween song this name. This original song of mine is my first Halloween themed release of the year. This is kind of a half autumn song and half Halloween song as it involves dark music and takes place during a thunderstorm at night. This piece employs a lot of minor key organ music with a few sound effects. It's kind of hard to tell but it actually was raining when I recorded the composition but the shitty tape recorder mic barely even picked it up. I'd aimed to hit record while it was thundering but instead I missed the boat by a few minutes. Shit! Still, I think it was a great Halloween themed composition. What do you think? That said, I'm planning on recording some more music later this year. I've got a decent archive of songs. This is the first of four Halloween themed original songs I'd composed that I will be releasing throughout the month. The first one usually is fairly mild, the second one is a bit more intense, and then later ones tend to be genuinely scary and with the last one I aim to go into a kind of scary that goes beyond normal Halloween and horror stuff and deliver real scares that scare the shit out of my viewers. I'm interested and curious to see what kind of Halloween stuff you're looking forward to. I don't have any Halloween based science videos this year but I do have something planned for November. Not exactly sure if I'll be able to release it. I'm also not sure just how much I'll be able to release musicwise during November. I'll be so damn busy with other projects. Also expect to see me switch over to Halloween theme in about a week. From mid-October through November 3, my channel will be in a Halloween theme. Be sure to let me know what you think of this song I did!#Halloween #HalloweenMusic #darkandstormynight #originalsong #experimentalmusic
Small Town Autumn AltoonaYourPiano 2023-09-28 | Happy autumn! This original song of mine was meant to welcome in the fall. In fact, when I designed the artwork, I had this song in mind but never got to posting it, so I went with Autumn In The Mountains instead. But this was the song this artwork set was originally designed for. I added in a bit of the farm so it also doubles as the grain harvest song. Naturally it begins with a brass band version of "Mirie It Is" like every original composition of mine set during the fall, but this piece is probably sounds far more like a farm grain harvest piece than a small town themed one like "Autumn In The Mountains". It also has some story sequels, like showing a date with Victoria instead of Mary. Those of you who haven't watched in a long while might be thinking "What the fuck is going on here? Who is this Victoria girl?" You've got a lot to get caught up on. If I love how these compositions of mine have a continuing storyline that began in 2019 and continues to this day. Although one could argue that my stories' storyline REALLY began in 2018 or even 2017 because I make callbacks to a song from 2018 or before every now and then. Technically speaking, the first of my songs that had anything resembling a story was in 2012 but those do not count by today's standards. Hopefully you enjoyed this autumn themed piece I composed, my next original song will be my last autumn song for at least a month but that song will have a much darker feel to it as it'll also be my first Halloween song of the year. October is for Halloween music. That said, hopefully you like this composition of mine. Feel free to comment as always. I love hearing from you. And hopefully you're having a great autumn.#fallmusic #smalltown #grainharvest #originalsong #composition
Fall Festival After Dark AltoonaYourPiano 2023-09-19 | Summer is almost over, and so here is an original song that's kind of both my last summer song and my first fall song. You'll notice a ton of autumn song tropes within this, including "Mirie It is" on brass, which I associate with fall. I have done several fall festival songs, including a subversion of this trope last year. This year, the fair's back and we get to see an old friend from the beach. Yes, that's right, Victoria visits the unnamed small town. This time she's in a more normal purple dress and not her beach dress and is sans straw hat, as she only wears it to the beach to the park in her hometown. And some of our old friends from previous songs come back to visit, including Mary as ticket booth girl and Ankhara as "holy shit she's damn good at carnival games" girl. And there's the world's nicest supervillain, Eris Featherstone. And there may be other characters who pay a visit as well. Hard to say. And unlike real life which can feature shitty weather, there's no shitty weather to be found here. It's perfect! That said, hope you enjoy this unique late summer and early fall themed composition that I'd made. I actually made the song years ago and just made the video this year. I have a lot of songs like this in my archive that are seasonal soundscapes I never got to use because my schedule was packed as hell and there was no space for them. Well, now's their turn to shine!#countyfair #statefair #originalsong #composition #festival
How To Make An Egg Float In Water - You Only Need One Ingredient! AltoonaYourPiano 2023-09-08 | Did you know that you can make an egg float in water using just a common household ingredient? Yes, it's true. I alluded to this trick in a previous song. You all unanimously answered my question asking if I should do a video on the egg floating in water trick with a resounding "YES!" And so, here it is! It's salt, just in case you haven't figured that out. I know I'm spoiling the surprise but 99% of people don't read the description anyway, so it hardly counts as a spoiler. Besides, most of you already know about this fun science trick, you'll likely recall elementary school days of a teacher explaining a simple concept like this and science working like magic. When you're a kid, visual science is about the coolest thing ever. It's like witnessing a way cool magic trick and the magician decides to break the rules just this once and tell you how the trick is done. It shows that kids do enjoy learning, it just has to be cloaked in fun and whimsy. You've got to give them a reason to care about the lesson. If you go into this explaining density and giving them homework on calculating different densities, most children will think "BORING" and not really care. But if you show them what looks like a magic trick, they'll want to know how you did it. Then you can explain that the egg is slightly more dense than water, so it sinks. But adding salt to the water changes the density and now the egg is slightly less dense than the salt water, and so it floats. This is the trick that is how you can float on the Dead Sea easier than on a freshwater lake or even the ocean. This, unlike some of my science experiments, certainly falls under the "safe to try at home" umbrella as it only requires a few ingredients. Make sure to be careful not to break the egg when stirring it, that could be a mess!#science #magic #howto #kitchenscience #DIY
Super Blue Moon - Wont Be Seen Again Until 2037 - August 30, 2023 (Full Moon) AltoonaYourPiano 2023-08-31 | Along with being a Blue Moon, it's also a Supermoon, making it a very rare Super Blue Moon. And since we already had the Sturgeon Moon, and the Corn Moon is the Harvest Moon, maybe this can be the Blue Corn Moon? Not really, but it's so close to September, I won't blame you for calling it that (in fact, some Native American tribes called August's moon the Red Corn Moon, and since it's a Blue Moon, they might call this a Blue Corn Moon. Maybe). I didn't hear any wolves howling at it, but I DID hear a neighbor's hound dog howl at it early on, so maybe that counts? I dunno, "have you ever heard the neighbor's basset hound cry to the maybe sorta blue corn moon?" just really doesn't have the same ring to it. Still, it's a fun thought. This is a supermoon because it's the closest to Earth that the moon will be this year, thus the full moon appearing bigger than usual in the night sky. Usually this happens at or near the Harvest Moon, in this year's case it was very close to September.Thanks to a bunch of clouds being tossed north by Hurricane Idalia, I had to wait until the middle of the night to get some good moon footage. For most of the night it was a few seconds here, a few seconds there, a few more, but no sustained period of clear skies that would allow me to capture some truly good moon footage. But then the skies cleared for about 10 minutes or so. I filmed what I could and used the best footage I had. Some of it was actually pretty good, and the music I chose really is surprisingly perfect. At first, what I show looks like footage from a monster movie with fast moving clouds and a full moon poking through, then finally the clouds break for several minutes.For those who don't know, a blue moon is the second full moon in a month. It can also refer to the third full moon in a season with four full moons, in fact, that was the original definition before the current one became popular. There is a saying "once in a blue moon", and that's what it refers to. This particular full moon is very close to September, which has the Corn Moon and also the Harvest Moon, and so some may call August's Blue Moon a Blue Corn Moon (because we already had the Sturgeon Moon), even though in reality, it would be the second full moon of September, which will happen in 2031. If I'm still on YouTube in 2031, I'll film that and set it to an instrumental cover (possibly even a vocal cover by a friend) of the song "Colors Of The Wind" for that line.Music used in this video:"Devastation and Revenge" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 Licensehttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0Kevin MacLeod is a composer who creates free background music to be used in videos. Unlike many on YouTube who claim to offer "royalty free music", he's the real deal. You've likely heard his songs in videos.#bluemoon #supermoon #superbluemoon #fullmoon #supermoon2023
Bullet Boneyard AltoonaYourPiano 2023-08-22 | If you thought my last song was set in a super hot place, well this makes the scorching hot Dead Sea region seem like Vostok, Antarctica in comparison! This original song of mine is set on an imaginary planet with temperatures in ranges that just can't even be comprehended. It's not just a desert, it's a lava and volcano hellscape! Given that it's August, the hottest month, and this is the hottest part of the year when the most extreme temperatures here often are recorded, I felt this composition of mine, a piece set on a dystopian dead planet of lava, volcanoes, and pure heat was fitting. There's also alien forces battling for control of this hell planet. No idea why. There may be resources but they'd all be in a form that couldn't be safely handled by anyone. As for the original song itself, it has elements of the heat and lava variant of desert and heat themed music that you may recognize from my last song, but with "beefier" bass instruments, this also blends a rhythm from another song I'd made in a dystopian hellscape years ago and strangely enough, the sound of a sad medieval style flute, to create a really gloomy, militarized lava world. It is probably the most extreme heat themed song I ever created. I made this in April, so it actually is a new song, and finished it right before my dad went in the hospital (he's doing fine now, had to have his gallbladder removed), so it's really incredible I was able to get the timing to work out so well for this. Had I started a day later, this may have been much more delayed and be a different song. Hopefully you like this. Be sure to let me know, I love hearing from you! This is one of my more abstract and less literal seasonal soundscapes I did.#summer #hellscape #lava #volcano #originalsong
Floating On The Dead Sea AltoonaYourPiano 2023-08-11 | After my last song, set in a very cold location, I figured we'd heat things up a bit. This original song of mine, also a seashore song, featuring a much hotter location than last month's tropical beach songs, is meant to both evoke the effects of the hot desert and the location of the Dead Sea, but also be fitting for the hottest month of the year. This is also the first desert seashore song I have made and released. That alone makes it a quite unique composition of mine. Hopefully this song not only evokes the hot, dry heat of the Dead Sea, but you also get to learn some things about the location through the music video, which is pretty damn educational I think. I did some research on this region and I hope the piece I created captures the feel of it, I also tried to go for genuinely Arabic sounding desert music and not just something like you'd hear in a video game, so it sounds a lot less "Egyptian" because it's not Egypt that it's set in. However, stock desert music really isn't even all that Egyptian themed anyway. Half of the song is ocean sounds, although I made them a bit calmer because the Dead Sea doesn't have the kind of tital activity that the ocean has, still wanted to evoke the ocean. If you enjoyed this original song of mine, be sure to let me know, feel free also to make some requests!#desert #DeadSea #originalsong #composition #desertmusic
Desolate And Remote Vostok, Antarctica AltoonaYourPiano 2023-07-21 | What? A winter song in July? Well, there's two reasons. First is I wanted to do something for my viewers who live in the southern hemisphere. Secondly, it's the 40th anniversary of the coldest temperature ever recorded on Earth, back on July 21, 1983, that temperature being -128.6°F, which is also -89.2°C and 184 Kelvin. The temperature was recorded at a Soviet research station, it still is used by Russia to this day. How this happened is that the tiny bit of ocean moderation seen in central Antarctica was cut off, allowing temperatures on the continent to plummet. Despite being so far inland, there's usually a small amount of maritime influence from the Southern Ocean, not unlike the small bit of Pacific influence throughout the entire North American continent (and Atlantic influence for the eastern third). The flow was curtailed, sometimes it happens, allowing for temperatures colder than what's normally possible. It was a once in a lifetime phenomenon in a very cold location. If you're ever feeling shitty because of the cold in the winter, be grateful you're not here. Interestingly, it's nowhere near the South Pole and averages significantly colder than the pole. In fact, it's at a similar latitude to McMurdo Station (not to be confused with the McMurdo Dry Valleys), a research station sort-of-town that nearly has a tundra climate (barely qualifying for an ice cap climate) where very limited vegetation grows. Vostok, in contrast, is far too cold for anything to grow. It is also quite dry, only an inch of precipitation on average throughout the year. So it's not only colder than if hell froze over, it's drier than the Sahara. It's not just "holy shit, it's cold", it's "oh shit, it's too damn cold!". How cold is it? Throw some water in the air and it won't make it out of the glass!Sources:The Story Behind Earth's Coldest Temperature Everlivescience.com/9795-story-earth-coldest-temperature.htmlRecord low surface air temperature at Vostok station, Antarcticaagupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2009JD012104The music itself is an original composition of mine which blends in covers of two Legend of Zelda songs in the first half, the first being Snowpeak from Twilight Princess, the second being Snowhead Temple from Majora's Mask, with an original song of mine at the end. These aren't exact covers but interpretations of the ambiance of each piece. Hope you enjoyed the song and learning, too!#Vostok #coldesttemperature #Antarctica #recordlow #history
Monkey Shine AltoonaYourPiano 2023-07-15 | Today is the 11th anniversary of AltoonaYourPiano here on YouTube and I just hit 5000 subscribers on the same day! What a milestone! To celebrate my double milestone, here's a happy little money in the jungle dancing to a short little song of mine. His dance and my song title are loosely based on the 50s song Monkey Time by Major Lance, a fun little rock and roll song that was popular when my parents were teenagers and part of the dance craze of the 50s alongside the stroll, the bop, the walk, the twist, the bird, the mashed potato, the pony, and so on. Here's the original Monkey Time song.youtube.com/watch?v=Vs0UQQ6FH_4On that note, this fun little lighthearted mini-song also signifies something else, my channel has been around for a long time on here, I have a feeling that my first videos were posted before a few of my youngest subscribers were born. On the other hand, I have some friends on here who have been making music since before I was born, or at least since before I made my first songs. I'd be surprised though if any of you made your first recordings before Monkey Time was recorded. However that would be so freaking cool to be able to say I know someone who's been recording music since the 50s!Here's the first video I ever uploaded and the oldest true song recording that I have intact (my 1988-1990 stuff is missing entirely and I only have outtakes from 1991-1993). It's called "Here's The Waw Voice" and it turns 30 next year! Really amazing to think!youtube.com/watch?v=SFvWN48AH2wAnd here's last year's ten year anniversary special, much more elaborate and ceremonial in nature!youtube.com/watch?v=--2JfUfYPR0Thank you all so much for sticking around to watch my songs over the past eleven years or however long you've been watching. Hopefully we're all here for my 20 year anniversary in 2032 and other milestones that go beyond that! At least I hope I'm still around for them.#anniversaryspecial #milestone #11year anniversary #5000subscribers #novelty
Relaxing Tropical Beach Afternoons AltoonaYourPiano 2023-07-06 | It's after the Fourth of July, which means it's now the middle part of summer, which means an original song set on the beach! This one has a tropical and a summer beach theme, much more than the last song which was a Fourth of July themed seashore song. This one though is entirely beach themed and set on a white sand beach. This piece is also quite short in comparison to many other of my original compositions. I know, it's weird to call a six minute song short, as the average pop song is three minutes long, so it's actually a long but not an exceptionally long song, but the long-form composition for me is common to the point that anything much shorter than fifteen minutes is a short song for me and it's not even long until it's much more than forty minutes long. This is set on a different beach than before, and unlike before where Mary made an appearance, the only other character besides me is Victoria, as my character finally goes on a date with Victoria, though they don't call it one. That said, I sure hope you like this composition of mine. My later July songs will be not what I usually post in July as I'm posting some really unexpected things, you will see what I mean! First my 11-year anniversary special, then a cool one! It won't be nearly as spectacular as my elaborate 10-year video was, still hope you enjoy it! It's a short one but it's also a fun one! Well, at least I think it is.#originalsong #summermusic #vacation #summervacation #beach
Fireworks By The Ocean AltoonaYourPiano 2023-06-30 | Happy Canada Day (July 1st) and Happy 4th Of July (US Independence Day). This is an original song about watching fireworks by the ocean. Okay, maybe that's too short of a description. So here goes. You know about my seashore songs, I presume? This was an unusual song but much more typical than the last seashore song. I combine beach elements with marching bands so that it evokes midsummer but also a bit of patriotic feel associated with national holidays. I've been making beach themed music videos for years, but this is my first foray into making one with a night setting. I also decided that I'd take a minor background character who got her first interaction with me last year in a song set during shitty weather and to make her the deuteragonist of this music video and I also feature two other characters of mine, one I used to feature a lot in 2019-2020. The beach is one I never make clear if it's a new beach my character visits or if it's one of the same beaches my character visits every year. It also features the first time I did anything with drawing fireworks. Hopefully I did a good job with it! The time I spent on this knocked the shit out of me!I can't post the actual fireworks of July 4 on here, due to use of copyrighted music, so I posted it on Facebook instead.facebook.com/AltoonaYourPiano/videos/236148155891445 Question for my audience, particularly those of you outside of North America (United States and Canada), does your nation celebrate an independence or a founding day celebration? Does it celebrate with fireworks? If not, what do you do to celebrate? What kinds of foods do you eat to celebrate? Are there any traditions that would make an outsider say "Holy shit!"?#originalsong #FouthOfJuly #CanadaDay #independenceday #fireworks
Why Are There No B Batteries? Actually, There Are! Or At Least........There Were! AltoonaYourPiano 2023-06-16 | UPDATE 9/6/23: A few statements I need to correct1. The No. 1 through No. 5 batteries are NOT early versions of the A, B, C, D and F batteries. They're kind of direct predecessors, maybe analogous to them, but the A, B, C, and D sizes were used for battery packs at the time and the standardized names became transferred to the cell-sizes. The sizes were determined by the height in inches of the batteries, although there was some wiggle room. The Burgess No. 1 for example is about the same size as a modern sub-C battery, maybe a little smaller, the Burgess No. 2 is a little bigger than a D battery, the No. 3 is very hard to find but was often a small ignitor, the Columbia No. 4, No. 5, and No. 6 were each their respective heights in inches. Columbia also made No. 1, No. 2, and No. 3 sizes, but they're almost forgotten about as I can find almost no information on the internet about them. Some No. 3 batteries became glow plug ignitors (but not all glow plug ignitors are No. 3 cells, some are multiple D batteries).2. There actually IS a B-cell battery but it's rarely called such, mostly it has the name in Europe. It is funnily enough the same size as a No. 8 battery. I only found one that calls itself a B-cell battery (by Rayovac). They often come out of two-cell or three-cell battery packs.3. I don't get into much about AA batteries, but they were originally called Z batteries. The No. 7 was the ancestor of the AAA, called such because of the fact a 7 is a Z without the third line. N batteries also got their name from Burgess, as the N was a flipped Z.4. The number codes on the actual battery predecessors to today's sizes weren't the simple and easy to remember sizes I attributed to them. They had designations like No. 950 for D batteries, No. 935 for C batteries, No. 915 for AA batteries, and so on.5. One battery type I was unaware of is the Aladdin battery. Much different than the No. 8, it's like a trio of C cells stacked on top of each other. I have no idea how it got the name. Maybe three cells equals three wishes from the genie? Or that the battery lights a lantern meant to evoke Aladdin's magic lamp?6. Battery names existed before dry cell batteries. Originally No. 1 to No. 5 were given to wet-cell batteries, with No. 1 being the old standard battery. The No. 6 was the first dry cell, produced by Eveready in the late 19th century, still used into the 1960's as a telephone line battery.7. Cylon makes weird sizes like the X battery (like a chubby D battery) and its own version of the No. 6 that it calls the BC.== Original Description ==There's a comedy routine that asks why they don't make B batteries, offering some humorous reasons why. The reality is far more mundane, there wasn't anymore demand for them. Transistor radios and old-time hearing aids used B batteries. They're really weird and unique. Some people deduce that maybe the 9-Volt is the B battery. Actually, it isn't. 9-Volt batteries are E batteries. An actual B battery DOES look a bit like a 9-Volt, though. In the video, I show you what a B battery looks like and explain the history of battery sizes, showing a few really odd ones along the way. I know some of you are thinking "hey, wait a minute, now that I think about it, why no single-A batteries?" They exist, too! Unlike the B battery, they still make the A battery. They're kind of obscure, but Titus still makes a standard A battery, they call it "fat A". Imagine a portly AA battery and there's an A battery. Don't confuse these batteries with old time vacuum tube radio batteries, a radio "A" battery was often an F battery or a battery pack of multiple A batteries. Radio "B" batteries were often 45, 67.5, and 90 volts and the size of a box of soap powder. Individual B batteries are much smaller. Radio "C" batteries existed, too, and were usually 4 1/2 volts.This is a collaboration with another small YouTuber, Harper The CatHarper's Channel: youtube.com/@UCZmOeLHuLlEcCQ8m0VjbfCw I'd also like to give a personal THANK YOU to Battery Warehouse of Altoona, Pennsylvania, USA, who provided some of the batteries.batterywarehousealtoonapa.comThe information gathered in this video was researched over a period of a few months using primary and secondary sources, however, some information I had to rely on anecdotal testimony to fill in the gaps. If I got anything wrong, feel free to let me know. If you can tell me ANYTHING about the #7 battery, I will appreciate it. (UPDATE 6/17/23: I FOUND A #7 BATTERY! It wasn't at all what I was expecting but it was still a cool find. Another mystery solved!)Footnote #1: At 3:30, it's supposed to say six AAAA batteries are in 9-Volt batteries, not four.#vintagebatteries #Bbattery #Bbatteries #antiquebatteries #history
The Pixelated Boat AltoonaYourPiano 2023-06-09 | Wow......what even IS this? One of my most experimental songs ever, that's what! There's not a lot to say about this. It's part of my seashore songs genre but it's a VERY atypical entry into the series. I used two cheap keyboards, one being the infamous $1 piano, to record this song. For the ocean sounds, this sleep sounds thing I have provided that. The purpose of this song was to see if it was possible to create something that is beautiful with such cheap and limiting equipment. Usually, these cheap pianos are seen as shitty instruments not worth your time. I'm not sure if I succeeded, but I sure did try! Or I at least proved they aren't just useless junk. Later on in the year, you'll hear more normal seashore songs. I have a few planned for a release in the summer and a few in the fall. The song's story kind of breaks the fourth wall while in the second half continuing the storyline within song story music videos and giving an explanation of recent events that happened with hints to all sorts of shit to look forward to this summer. For those wondering, Captain Pisspants from a story years ago won't be coming back, he was eaten by sharks, but there's still Admiral Shitpants and Masterchief Brownpants. Except I think they also got the hell out of there when the ship sunk.My first ever original seashore song from January 30, 2012 (A Candle To Light The Way In The Dark):youtube.com/watch?v=DJ7hkqcgW9w #experimentalmusic #weirdmusic #maritimemusic #seashore #originalsong
A Fine Summer Day AltoonaYourPiano 2023-06-02 | Happy start to meteorological summer! It sure feels like summer today! Here it's usually not that hot until late June with the most intense of summer heat lasting from early July through the first half of September, but this year we're getting an early start. This original song aims to capture the feel of the lazy, balmy days of summer when the days are at their longest, right before heat is overwhelming, when it's hot but still enjoyable, when the brutal heat of the main part of summer has yet to come. When the weather is pretty instead of shitty or even pretty shitty. When it's neither hotter than hell nor hotter than shit. This composition is a continuation of the late spring theme, with a bit more summer sounds in this piece. While my late spring original song had a lot of strings and woodwinds, this adds a few tropical sounds as well to emphasize that we're heading into summer. This is my early summer song of this year. Despite having more in common with the spring songs than with the July or August summer songs I often release, it's unmistakable how much this song sounds like summer! There's something in early summer that's just special and wonderful that's not present after the 4th of July (it's America's Independence Day). This is the best time to enjoy the long-ass days. And the best part of all! Some fruits and vegetables are right now all ready to pick! You truly get the best of both worlds in early summer! And if you haven't gotten fertilizer to grow your vegetables, all you need is some manure right from a farm. And that's no bullshit! Except it kinda, uh, is. Literally.#summer #composition #originalsong #earlysummer #summermusic
Late Spring Days AltoonaYourPiano 2023-05-26 | It's the end of spring, starting to turn into summer. This original song of mine will hopefully capture the fell of the last days of spring, where the days are so long it's like summer, but the intense unrelenting heat of summer has yet to arrive. This composition is perfect for Memorial Day weekend, it has a taste of summer, but this piece also feels like springtime. It's a special time of year where you get the best of both worlds. Kind of the opposite of August, really. I mean, you may be thinking "damn, this isn't what I expected at all" for songs I make in June. Where I live, June is the fourth hottest month, the weather is often in the first half cool and rainy, the hot as hell summer temperatures do not really begin until much later, like around late June, get really intense once we get to mid-July, peak in mid-August, finally things begin to cool off in mid-September, and like June, there's a far less chance of shitty weather during the second half of September than during July, August, and early September. Although this time of year is more "holy shit, it's so nice out" whereas during the peak of summer it's "holy fuck, it's hotter than hell out there". Within this story I tried to capture the feel of late spring with a few hints of summer yet to come. But ultimately I just wanted to focus on the last hurrah of spring. It will be Memorial Day on Monday here in the US, some call that the first day of summer, but where I live, it's the first day of growing season. Technically the last spring frost average is May 15, but many old timers wait until after Memorial Day to plant for good reason. And I include a subplot with Jutta, it doesn't go quite so well here. Thankfully this fictional relationship is just that.#originalsong #latespring #composition #classicalmusic #instrumental
Red And Gold Fire AltoonaYourPiano 2023-05-22 | This is another original song from 2018 where I actually made the video for it back then and I never got to upload it for some reason. This one has a highly unusual backstory to it. Many years ago, I was interested in Power Rangers. I may have been "too old for that shit" in 1993 but I didn't care. I loved the cheesy fun of Saved By The Bell meets Transformers meets Voltron. Eventually I found out the show has origins in a show called Super Sentai in Japan. Years later, out of nowhere I began reliving Power Rangers memories, around 2018 or so and I found out there was a Power Ranger from a modern series, in Samurai the second red Power Ranger was a girl named Lauren played by Kimberley Crossman. I instantly became a fan of hers and out of nowhere made this as a sort of quick tribute. A few months later I kind of forgot about my revisiting of my old hobby and eventually forgot I made the video, which I never got to upload in 2018 due to time constraints. And that will answer any "what the fuck is this Power Rangers shit?" questions you have about the weird vaguely Power Rangers theme. So, here's the song and video that I made in 2018. It's my second "bare bones" video in a row where it's just the title card. I made a mix of this style and full videos back then, which is why I kind of shelved this and "Eights And Eighteens" as they looked more like the style I used in 2012-2017 than what I used in 2018, hence the shitty audio quality, I didn't have software to edit out the cassette fuzz and other bullshit. Anyways, hope you like it! I always appreciate hearing from you!#originalsong #experimentalmusic #composition
Eights and Eighteens AltoonaYourPiano 2023-05-19 | Some of you who are newer to my channel don't remember the weirdly oddly experimental songs I used to make between 2011 and 2018. It was late 2018 when I switched mostly to doing seasonal soundscapes with the occasional experimental soundscapes. Here's an example from 2018 of an original song that's quite a bit more experimental. Some of you may like this, others will be like "what the hell is this shit?" This composition was made on August 18 of 2018 at 8:18, hence the song title "Eights and Eighteens". I was phasing out my radically experimental stuff at the time, I no longer felt the inspiration to make it that I once did, and the opinions of it were much more split. However, as weird as this is compared to my newer stuff, it was actually tame if you'd compare it to my weirdest 2011-2012 stuff. Remember, one person's shitty music is another person's pure musical genius. Regardless of how you feel about this piece, I hope you enjoy the sheer novelty of it. You may notice too that there's no video, it's just a simple still photo. That's because 2018 was at the time when while I was making music videos, not every song got a music video, some just got a few still photos. The audio you can tell is rough, too. I just recorded the cassette audio straight. This is an old video from 2018 that I just never uploaded. I was going to upload it in 2018 but never got to it. It's so amazing, I had less than 200 subscribers and less than 100,000 views at the time when I made this video. Now I have over 4000 subscribers and just under a million and a half views. This original song of mine is one that could kind of be seen as one that somehow slipped through the cracks. On a funny side note, this will probably have more likes and views after one day than it would have gotten in its entirety had I uploaded it in 2018 as planned and it'll have more comments within the first six hours than it'd have today. Amazing!#originalsong #composition #noveltysong #EightsAndEighteens #experimentalmusic
Very Late Season Snowstorm AltoonaYourPiano 2023-05-12 | You remember my April snowstorm music videos last month, and maybe you saw the first in the series back in 2021 called "Late Season Snowstorm". This is kind of a sequel to that called Very Late Season Snowstorm. This uniquely original song of mine is the first to depict a May snowstorm, but realistically. It doesn't last for a ridiculous amount of time. It's cold, but it's not midwinter cold, and at around 3 AM a quick hitter snowstorm makes short work of the spring season and buries the city in six inches of snow by sunrise. But a few hours later it begins melting and there's snow everywhere. The damn ground is so muddy, but the warm sun quickly dries the surface out. The ground still remains cold, with that being the only remnant by late afternoon that it even snowed earlier in the day. This is based on a real snowfall we had on May 2 here, but I embellished a few minor details. The weather on May 3 after the snow melted was not nice, in fact it was damp as hell and absolutely shitty weather. And we sure as hell didn't get six inches of snow on that day, more like six tenths of an inch. Despite the little bit of exaggerating, I hope you enjoyed it quite a lot. And it's not entirely bullshit, we have gotten that much snow early in May before (and on one occasion, we had thirteen inches in late May, the Memorial Day Blizzard of 1963 during May 29-30). That said, I'm thankful for all of you who take the time to listen to my song. I always appreciate hearing from you. I always try to bring you the best content that I can. Oh, and there's another side story with Jutta, based on a girl I knew many years ago back in college. Still wearing the same dress and scarf outfit because I didn't think to give her a different outfit, but given the warm evening, it's not too weird. That said, thank you all so much for continuing to listen to my songs, watch their music videos, and just be all around amazing supporters. I appreciate you!#springsnow #latesnowstorm #originalsong #composition #midspring
Warm Springtime Showers AltoonaYourPiano 2023-05-05 | Well, it's May, the rainiest month of the spring. With the snow gone, possibly until next November, we can focus on springtime things. This original song I made hopefully captures the feeling of mid-spring rains. On that note, I'd like to wish everyone a happy Cinco de Mayo! Contrary to popular belief, it's not a major holiday in Mexico, it has about the significance in Mexico as the date of the Battle of Bunker Hill in the US (June 17) or more accurately, the Battle of Yorktown (October 19). In other words, an important historical date but it's more of a historical footnote to Mexicans than a holiday. Anyways, about the original composition of mine, this spring-themed piece I composed has that mid-spring sound I associate with May. It's energetic and uplifting, but not as lilting or excited as early spring music. That's because while in May, spring is still an exciting time of year, the novelty isn't as strong. It's like April but a bit more relaxed and calm. Hoo boy, could you imagine if it snowed in May? It's enough to make a person say "oh, fuck" even if they normally don't swear. Or if they like winter, they might say "holy shit, this kicks ass!" But for most of us in spring mode, we're just happy to enjoy the warm and gentle spring rain. It's a very wet month, lots of thins grow this time of year. After all, you can't have the lovely spring flowers without the key ingredient, water. We often hear that April showers bring May flowers and Mayflowers bring pilgrims. But for us in the northeast or anywhere with seasonal lag, April snow melt brings mud, it's May showers bring June flowers, and June flowers bring weddings. May is a month to break out your raincoats. Remember in a previous song story there was a girl wearing a raincoat on a sunny day? I bet she's really grateful for it now! May is often assumed to be like September, although for us it is more like October than anything. September is actually like June and July. When I was a kid, I liked that rain helped us pick up more TV stations from far away. I annoyed my parents by constantly moving the antenna around throughout the day. And for many, rainfall is relaxing. No need to worry about it changing to snow, right? I mean, it is May, after all. While the bees stay indoors during a rainy day, other bugs love the rain and enjoy the mud. With that said, I hope you all are having an amazing day and enjoy this mid-spring rainy days song!#springrain #rainyday #originalsong #composition #instrumental
The Onion Snow AltoonaYourPiano 2023-04-28 | Another nickname for a spring snowstorm is the onion snow. Usually the last major snowfall of the year, this original song hopes to capture that feel. This, like the previous week's song was recorded in April 2019. While the song that I made in 2021 was an improved sequel to these, these are used as sequels I set up in the music videos. At times, the audio is kind of shitty. This song isn't connected much to last week's but the music video continues the story. Consider this part 3 of the story. A piece made with random instruments (including an old keyboard) capturing winter in spring is a funny as fuck idea for a composition. But hopefully this composition is one that works for you. Oh and towards the end you'll notice me chatting and having a surprising conversation with the dress and scarf girl from my nights in the city scenes. If it seems a bit odd that I'm flirtatious with this character, here's a backstory. She's based on someone in college that I really liked a lot who really liked me back but sadly we never dated. She wore that exact outfit on the first day of classes (but with glasses as mentioned in the video) and it left such a positive impression on me. I liked her accent, too. I even gave her the same first name in this story as well as country of origin. I won't reveal anymore information but that part of the video is kind of wish fulfilment letting me do something I had wished would have happened back then (one of us asking the other one out). But that said, I can't dwell too much on the past. Looking ahead to the future, I have more spring themed songs on the way. This is the last snowfall, right? Who the hell knows?#onionsnow #springsnowstorm #originalsong #newmusic #instrumental
April Snowstorm AltoonaYourPiano 2023-04-21 | It's April, it's springtime, and it's the time of year for warm weather. So what's going on here? April snowstorm? Yes, that's right! This original song of mine is meant to capture the feel of getting blasted with snow in late April. Not the most fun thing to happen during the spring season. I made a composition in 2021 that I posted in April 2021 showing a quick-hitter where it snowed quite a lot and got colder than shit during the early part of the storm, then warmed up and it melted the very next day. Here, the scenario's a little bit different. It is not going to get quite as freezing cold as it did in the song that I'd posted two years ago, but there's no warmth in sight, either. It's going to get cold, it's going to stay cold. I figured this piece was a nice twist and surprise from my usual springtime fare. It's a spring song, but different. Snow is everywhere in the song and the ending tells you what's in store. Sometimes where I live it's cold as fuck and snowy as hell in late April or even early May. In the real world, where I live, it's actually hotter than shit today with cold weather arriving next week, but in the song it's going to be freezing cold and a return to winter for at least a few days. I'm going to continue experimenting with songs like this. It was an old one that I made in early 2019 that I finally found an opportunity to post in April 2023!#springtime #composition #snowstorm #springsnowstorm #originalsong #blizzard
The First Flowers Of Spring AltoonaYourPiano 2023-04-15 | It is now the middle of April, and by extension, it's also the beginning of the heart of springtime. The snow is gone, and in its place is mud. Lots and lots of mud. And through the mud lots of flowers poke through. The trees have a lot of pastel blossoms on them, things are really beginning to look like spring as life emerges. If you have a dog, you're finding dog shit everywhere, it is no longer hidden by the snow but part of the mud. Other than that mess, you're likely excited for the spring (unless you've got allergies). This original song of mine hopes to capture the ambiance and feeling of springtime. You'll notice the first bees of spring. Not the honeybees that everyone loves but their less friendly cousins, the carpenter bees who are experts at finding their way into a house. Usually when a bee manages to find its way into your house, it's one of those bees. But the days are getting longer, you've waited all damn winter for things to thaw out so you can enjoy the beauty of spring. And now here it is! Hopefully you like this piece I composed. This original composition meant to evoke the spring season is the first of this year's series of spring songs. It seems like winter is finally over. I mean, it's warm. pollen is thick as hell, hazy as fuck, and likely to get rain. It's not like you're going to see a late snowstorm, right?#spring #newmusic #springtime #composition #originalsong
Vintage Music Box Toy By TOMY - Bunny Rabbit Plays Brahams Lullaby And Rubs Its Eyes Sleepily AltoonaYourPiano 2023-04-08 | This is a toy music box that looks like a rabbit holding a pocket watch, it's from the 1970's or early 80's (most sources mention it being in production in 1980) that plays Braham's Lullaby, also known as "Go To Sleep" with s sound that for me brings to mind what I imagine diamonds would sound like if they could play music. This one is in "played with" condition, a little rough around the edges, but still works exactly the way it did half a century ago. The charm of it is that as the string recedes into the sleepy bunny, the song gets slower and slower. The rabbit appears to be rubbing its eyes sleepily but may also be playing peek-a-boo. This was mostly used as a crib toy for babies, but I've found uses for it in some of my songs. I also used it as one of my early 2012 test recording objects to make sure my tape recorder still worked. You can hear it in a "duet" with my Rudolph toy in a Christmas song I made in 2017.This is my sort-of Easter special, inspired by the success of my Rudolph toy video in December 2021. While not exactly Easter related (except for being a pastel colored bunny), it does kind of fit the Easter theme and this was the best I could think of for an Easter counterpart to my Rudolph video. This is, like my Rudolph video, intended for nostalgic adults as its demographic, as I don't think today's generation would have any interest in a music box playing Braham's Lullaby except as an antique or a curiosity. You may notice that it's in a lower quality format than usual. My internet has been abysmal, so I had to opt for VHS quality in order to post this at all. Still, the sound quality and the video quality should be enjoyable. Notice throughout the video, the clever little editing technique I did! I hope that everyone has a very Happy Easter!As it's tangentially Easter related, you can think of this as the Easter Bunny.#Easter #bunny #vintage #BrahamsLullaby #vintagetoy
This Is What Happens When You Microwave A Grape AltoonaYourPiano 2023-04-01 | Microwaving a grape sounds like something completely mundane, like you'd just heat up a grape and it'd taste funny. Nothing weird, right? Except, there is something weird that happens to a grape in a microwave. But you don't just put a grape in the microwave. If you slice it in half first, you generate plasma, the fourth state of matter from the middle of the microwaved grape. What you're seeing is the creation of a spark gap in the little bit of skin, which will get super hot and temporarily be hot enough to ionize gas. For those who are confused, by plasma, I mean a state of matter beyond gas, where electricity is quite abundant because of the breakdown of the particles themselves. It's not the gooey liquid colloid that is often called "plasma". The inner part of the grape will be burnt, possibly burnt away. This is a science experiment that was carefully done under close observation, DO NOT try this at home!Here's the background behind what inspired this particular video: Years ago, I ran a YouTube channel that was dedicated to weird science experiments, but with an emphasis on microwaving things. It was actually a spinoff from this channel (in fact, the first twelve videos were uploaded here, now private) and was once upon a time cross-promoted between the two. That channel at one point was more successful than this one. However, it had a very one-sided and one-dimensional fanbase that ONLY wanted microwave videos, and so I moved the other science stuff over to here. Interest waned over time and by the end of 2020, it was a dead channel with little views and no comments. I no longer had interest in the channel or the means to continue it so I made a series finale and it's now a part of my past. Think of this as a tribute to a part of my YouTube history. The videos were much longer, but I didn't want to fully recreate the experience, just share a quick and fun video and explain how I'd thought to do something microwave-related and explain why in advance it'll not become a series on here. So, with that said, I hope you enjoy watching it!#microwave #science #plasma #microwaving #microwaveagrape
Soundwave Experiment #1 AltoonaYourPiano 2023-03-27 | Many years ago, in late 2002 through all of 2003 and 2004, I made a series of songs that I called "8th Universe Songs". These were dark, monstrous and evil-sounding songs not necessarily intended for Halloween (but ideal for the holiday). I made something like 15 or 16 of them before I lost all of them (as well as most other songs I created on the computer from 1999-2004) to this random computer virus. As I had no viable means of backing up my complex songs, the only full-length song to survive was the Villani logo song. I had no intent to recreate the genre as I don't rerecord lost songs, as it loses its soul and always feels very paint-by-numbers afterwards. However, a decade later I decided to try to accurately recreate the genre for old time's sake just once and make a new version of it with my "8th Universe Revival" songs. This was the only one that attempted to faithfully reproduce the style bounded by the limitations of 2002-2004 that I created. Not as dark or scary as later songs I have made for Halloween, but not without its charm. It's mostly a half-length reproduction of the first 8th Universe song I made, including the thunderous C# note at the end. The technique was simple blend 1/4 speed piano tunes, 1/2 speed animalistic growls, 1/2 speed dissonant organ and string chords, and unusual practical sound effects (like an ice scraper on a cutting board).The reason it's called 8th Universe Songs isn't entirely random. I co-created this fictional series that involved fictional parallel universes, with each one being darker than the last. As much as we like to joke about living in a dark dystopia, we live in the 1st Universe within that story framework. Silent Hill and similar horror universes are the 2nd Universe, a much darker place, but one where you can still manage to eke out an existence. However, from the 3rd Universe onwards, things get much darker, peaking in darkness with the 6th Universe as far as illumination goes. Then things change. While it can be said that technically speaking, the 7th Universe is slightly less dark, but still a lot darker than even the 5th Universe, it is a far more evil place in which you wish the darkness shrouded what you saw. The 8th Universe, the most evil of all, is surprisingly well-lit for such an evil place (about the darkness level that you can find in the 4th Universe, maybe slightly darker), but everything is just pure wrong and evil. It's like if Hell was an entire universe. I never established a lot of canon because my brain couldn't think up things evil enough to fit the universe, the Earth was destroyed, the sun replaced by a black hole, very few planets in this universe contained life. Those that do are ones that in the 1st and 2nd (maybe even the 3rd) are idyllic utopian planets beyond the best we can imagine. Their 8th Universe equivalents are dark and depraved full of the worst corruption that would even shock and horrify Big Brother from 1984! And if anything, I'm understating it!The music that you hear here is meant to be examples of the happiest of the 8th Universe music (try to imagine the happiest most feel-good songs you've heard, this is their equivalent). Anything beyond this would cause very Lovecraftian effects on the listener. Their universe's idea of horror or scary music would involve sounds so evil, we can't even reproduce them!#8thUniverse #horror #experimental #experimentalmusic #cosmichorror
Combination #98 AltoonaYourPiano 2023-03-22 | This original song of mine is an unnamed spring thaw themed songs. Most of my songs have names, but sometimes I write a composition and have no idea what to call it. As I place everything into folders, they at the very least do have a numbered placeholder title (sometimes that becomes the permanent song title). That said, I hope you enjoy this unnamed spring themed song I'd composed three years ago. This video shows the snow melting as it warms and eventually the warmth has replaced the cold and the snow melts and in its place is a bunch of mud. Early spring (late March through April) is often a very muddy season. It goes from winter to "holy shit, it's spring!" in a matter of days. Although the mud is a real bitch to clean off your shoes. In fact, some names for April have historically been mud related, same with March. This sounds slightly different from the ones you've heard most years, it's different from last year's and 2021's. It's a little bit of a novelty piece, but not really as it's a straightforward springtime bloom sound. Although you'll notice it has a lot of references to a song from January 2017 within the music, especially apparent around the middle portion of the song. Depending on your perspective, this is either the last winter song or the first springtime song. However, if this isn't spring enough for you, I've got another spring song coming in early April, a more true and traditional spring song for all of you. For those wondering about the title being about combinations, in early 2017 I made a distinction between MIDI-analog combinations and the more traditional progressions forward that were pure or mostly pure analog. Before that, the distinctions were upbeat vs dark and before that the distinction was between straight recording and pitch-shift enhancement. Over time, the two began to merge together and by late 2019 they were a lot more distinguished by soundscape or concept than MIDI backing track or no backing track, so my 2020-early 2021 songs are divided into soundscape as well as concept. It's kind of bullshit, though that I haven't made many seashore songs lately. I miss making that style. Similarly to how in 2012-2016 I divided my songs by mood and style, my MIDIs in 2011 were divided that way as well, but also using the 2002-2007 criteria. From 2007-2010, there were no distinctions, they were all of one set, the single-use folders were a reference to my experimental microcassette songs in 2002 and 2003.#winter #spring #newmusic #firstdayofspring #instrumental
How To See Earths Shadow - A Little Piece Of The Night Sky That Appears Before The Sun Has Even Set AltoonaYourPiano 2023-03-14 | If you're like most people (including myself), you in your lifetime witnessed many a beautiful sunset and noticed that the wedge of sky near the horizon stays lit up for over an hour longer than the rest of the sky. It even still looks brightly illuminated when the stars have come out and the sky is mostly dark overhead. But did you know that the opposite is true? There's a bit of sky that remains darkened for awhile after the sunrise and it begins to darken before the sunset. This is called the Earth's shadow and it conists of two parts. The first one that you will see is a pinkish hue that is reminiscent of the pink and orange in the skies right around and after sunset. This is called the Belt of Venus, sometimes also called the antitwilight band. This will appear up to an hour before sunset. Below that, appearing about a half hour before sunset, is the Earth's shadow proper, a purplish, bluish, greyish band of sky that looks a bit like an oncoming storm but also looks like if someone illuminated a night sky somewhat. This region, called the twilight wedge, is the most surreal as it looks similar to the darkening of the sky you see after sunset, except you're seeing it before the sun has even set. When you think about it, given Earth's rotation resulting in continued twilight near the horizon after the sunset, it's only logical that one would see the night skies that are seen far from us if we look in the opposite direction. Curiously, this effect is most prominent in the half hour before sunset and the half hour after sunset, but is not nearly that prominent in the next phase of twilight While you're enjoying a sunrise or a sunset, don't neglect to look at the other side of the sky putting on a show!Music used in this video:"Frozen Star" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 Licensehttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0This was filmed on Wopsononock Mountain in Altoona, Pennsylvania. I filmed another vlog here two years ago.#science #nightsky #sunset #sunrise #twilight
Full Moon on March 7, 2023 - Full Worm Moon (Lenten Moon) AltoonaYourPiano 2023-03-09 | Traditionally, the full moon during the Lent time period is called the Lenten Moon and the March full moon is called the Worm Moon. The latter name is because as the snow melts in late March, the first nightcrawlers appear in the muddy soil. It was an extremely clear night, giving me a great shot of the full moon. I used to make full moon videos on another channel I used to run years ago before moving that tradition here to an extent where I posted lunar eclipses, but hadn't posted a traditional video of the full moon a long time. I decided to show the capabilities of what my camera can do and for once, I was able to get a lot of full moon footage without much jostling. Last year, I filmed another bit of moon footage (though not as good) that I slowed and repeated for the music video for my song that'll be released in October. It's one that was originally meant for October because "October" is in the song's name but when I got the video done it was November, oops! At least I have it for this year. Anyways, hopefully you enjoy the footage I grabbed of the Full Worm Moon of March. I may continue to grab more and more moon videos.Music Credits:"Ominous Intro" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 Licensehttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0#fullmoon #wormmoon #fullmoon2023 #march2023fullmoon #fullwormmoon
Moody March Mornings AltoonaYourPiano 2023-03-04 | It's March! The last winter month and for some, the first spring month! This is a bit different from my usual late winter song, unlike the usual fare which has a bit of an icy sound to it but is in a major key, this is in a minor key but is not all that icy or wintry sounding. It almost feels different from the video itself. I do hope that you enjoy the song I created. It's a borderline novelty song but I don't think it's zany enough or unusual or unconventional enough to qualify for being a novelty recording of mine. It actually kind of sounds like a rainy day song at times. That said, hope you're having a great March and winter in general. Yesterday, winter came back for the first time since early January in that it snowed a couple inches and temperatures were actually seasonal for once. I've been asked to write a transcript or paraphrase the video within the description for non-English speakers. So from now on, the second half of my descriptions will be a recap of the video (mostly the meat and potatoes of it).It's March, a month many call the first spring month, it's actually still winter. It's not as cold as January or February, but it's still cold, especially at night! People that consider March a spring month likely live in a warm climate. Do you think the snowy scene in the video looks like spring? However, they are not entirely wrong because the first day of spring is in late March. The sun is stronger and you can feel that spring is not too far away. In a month, things will thaw out. Please don't misunderstand, it's still winter but the sun makes it feel warmer. What do I plan to do today? Try to take over the world! I'm just joking! Damn it, Eris! For those who don't know, Eris is the name of a unique character of mine. Enjoy the winter while you still can. There will be snow, it will melt, but there can still be big snowstorms. Snow melting and refreezing in March causes it to take longer to melt. Soon, the crocus will bloom. Often heralded as the first flowers of spring, they often bloom through snow at the end of winter. March is often a bittersweet month. If you like winter, it nearly is over, if you dislike winter, it's still winter. March features a lot of snow, it's the month where baseball season begins but there is no football in March. It is one of those perspective-based things. Mornings are like December, but in the afternoon it is much warmer. Enjoy the rest of your day! Good afternoon!#originalmusic #spring #winter #originalsong #composition
The Frigid Icy Lake AltoonaYourPiano 2023-02-26 | This original song of mine is another icy midwinter themed song, albeit not as harshly cold sounding as the other three. This composition was meant to be uploaded years ago but I never got around to it (I'm getting deja-vu here, I remember writing this exact same description about another music video). I hope that you enjoy this unique icy midwinter song I created, I always like to hear from you. While this isn't set in the Arctic or Antarctic, it IS set in North Dakota, the location of a similar song about ice fishing, which is still damn cold this time of year! I don't know how many springtime themed songs I'll have this year but I do know that March will be a quiet month most likely as I only have two songs to upload (and one bonus novelty science video), April on the other hand will be a completely different story. This is the time where it's still winter, is still the deep freeze, but temperatures are no longer at their absolute coldest and with the brilliant sunshine, it'll actually feel warmer than it has since late December, even if the temperatures are like mid-January. It's not really a new type of composition, if anything, this piece is a throwback to the kind of icy midwinter songs that were a prototype for this in 2017-2018. I think this is the last of this style I made. The story also bears a similarity to a story song I recorded right after it set in North Dakota. I'm kind of glad that I didn't get to upload this in early 2020 but instead had to wait until 2023, as it means I haven't run out of songs yet. Thank you all as always for listening to my original song! Please feel free to request new song ideas, I may do them!#winter #originalsong #composition #newmusic #wintermusic
Group Three Elements In Water - Curious Chemical Reaction - SCIENCE! AltoonaYourPiano 2023-02-17 | This is a first of its kind chemical reaction demonstration for YouTube. Many (including myself) have demonstrated alkali metals in water, some (including myself) have demonstrated alkaline earth metals in water, but, nobody so far has done this (at least not with the actual metals). I decided to fix that with a demonstration of the Group 3 elements in water (the Scandium family), they are the first series of transition metals. I knew they reacted with hot water, so I decided the best course of action was to demonstrate the reactions. Now, if you're expecting it to look like sodium in water or potassium in water, you will be disappointed. Of the four Scandium family elements (Scandium, Yttrium, Lutetium, and Lawrencium), I was ablet to obtain three. I also did two bonus elements that are chemically very similar (you'll have to watch the video, I'm not going to spoil the fun here). However, if you wanted to see metals react with water that just aren't demonstrated, kind of left behind and forgotten, I think you've come to the right place. Expect a step down from the group two elements (alkaline earth) just as they were a step down from group one (the alkali metals). A couple of the metals used actually had a mildly interesting reaction. I had to speed up the footage to really show off the water reaction.Click here to watch me do this with the Group 2 elementsyoutube.com/watch?v=JGwoxm8VYyoClick here to watch me do this with the Group 1 elementsyoutube.com/watch?v=41dBZjPEzwgI will, unfortunately, not be doing the Group Four elements. They don't react with water at all. Only groups 1-3 react with water. And with that, this is the last of the "metals in water" series, unless I think up a reason to continue it.#science #chemicalreaction #chemistry #demonstration #periodictable
The Permanently Frozen Polar Ice Cap AltoonaYourPiano 2023-02-06 | In contrast to the alleged winter where I live, up north around the north pole, not just the geographic but the magnetic and geomagnetic north poles, it is colder than hell up there! Anyone who got a taste of the polar vortex knows it can go from mild to cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey in an instant. This original song of mine attempts to capture the feel of the arctic in more ways than one. In this song's setting, it's been a mild winter and so a part of the ocean is still ice free but it's freezing up quickly. This composition aims to like every winter themed piece during January, capture the feel of the freezing cold winter season for all. This original composition aims to evoke a blistering chill, and not really sound all that festive and jolly. Like "holy shit that's cold" type chill. Anyone who has been a fan or follower of my work for more than two years knows that I make icy midwinter music to release during January and February. The setting that my original song takes place in isn't immediately clear, but it provides a lot of opportunity for fun and educational information. Although there's little story, I mostly provide educational information within the song's music video. With that said, hopefully you enjoy what I created, unlike my January releases, this has a more "typical" sound of my icy midwinter songs, like I used to release in 2018-2022. In fact, this was meant to be released last winter but I ran out of time. I was kind of glad though as it gave me a ready-made winter video of the 2022-2023 winter season. Instead of releasing this, I did a collab with my friend that involved the Frozen Charlotte story. It was a lot of fun to work on that, and I helped her gain a metric fuck ton of views through the collaboration. Anyways, thank you all for continuing to watch and listen to my songs over the years.#winter #originalsong #polar #midwinter #arctic
The Icy Siberian Plains AltoonaYourPiano 2023-01-24 | It's right now the dead of winter, and colder than shit in most places, the coldest part of the year and we all know what that means, it's time for an original song set in a freezing cold location. I set this original composition in Siberia's icy plains. Siberia is in eastern Russia. You can tell that this one was recorded on cassette as it has a very lo-fi sound to it. Hopefully the song is still enjoyable despite the limitations and audio balance issues. This piece I recorded on cassette isn't unique, I record most original songs on cassette. What's unique is that you can tell I used a less than stellar quality tape and a cheap tape recorder, as it was recorded on Christmas Day. Despite that, I set the song in Siberia and it contains a lot of fun and useful facts about the icy region of the arctic. It's in the style that's usually my first icy midwiner song I post every year and the video, too, including passages from the poem "Snow Bound" by John Whitter. I hope this really evokes the cold and icy desolation of the tundra in the midwinter. I always aim to evoke the atmospheres of the places that I'm making my videos about. Thank you all for listening to this as always and I hope to hear from you. I know I haven't posted as much as you have come to expect, but I don't want to risk running out of new songs before my creative spark comes back. Wish me luck in my creativity returning soon!#originalsong #arctic #winter #siberia #wintermusic
Antarcticas Mysterious McMurdo Dry Valleys AltoonaYourPiano 2023-01-09 | There exists a region of the world drier than the Sahara, the Atacama, or any other place on Earth. It makes the Sahara Desert seem like a monsoon and it makes the Atacama Desert seem like a swamp. Nothing can grow or live in this region, the McMurdo Dry Valleys. Looking at them, you'd think it was the warmest part of Antarctica because of how snow-free it is, but no, they have an ice cap climate, rarely venturing above freezing. But there's so little snow or ice because no precipitation falls. That's not bullshit or hyperbole, either. There has been no precipitation in the McMurdo Dry Valleys for over 2 million years! All the snow you see blew in from places that do get marginal amounts of snow. I attempted in my original song to capture the feel of such a dry but cold part of the globe. I wanted to make something so dry sounding but also sound of ice. It's a little bit like the winter desert song I made a couple years ago, but I went for an even colder and dryer sound in this original composition. I hope you enjoy listening to the piece I composed and enjoy learning about the dry valleys of Antarctica. It's such a unique ans fascinating region. This is one of my favorite "new era" songs I composed. I haven't made many new songs in the past 22 months. Today is what would have been my mom's 75th birthday but she passed away on March 8, 2021, and after the night of March 7, 2021, I've recorded only four songs. I've already uploaded the first three of them, so this one is the fourth. I also brought back and included old characters and a relatively new one. Each one is visiting Antarctica's McMurdo Dry Valleys for a different reason. One is the world's nicest supervillain mining for resources, one wanted to build a snow-sandcastle, one is visiting with family, and one is a tourist who thought one of the valleys was named after her. Oh, and there's also a lost little penguin. As I explain in the video, penguins don't live there, I do explain what kind of life does, however. Anyways, thanks for giving this a listen and as always I look forward to hearing what you thought of this video.#Antarctica #McMurdo #dryvalleys #originalsong #composition
I Survived 2022 AltoonaYourPiano 2023-01-01 | HAPPY NEW YEAR! I survived another year!At least I think I did, anyway. Sometimes I don't know if I really did. Feels like surviving another year is a pyrrhic victory sometimes.Face reveal for Sonny the cockatiel. You've heard a bird in my songs and videos for years. That's him. He'll be 24 in March.Also, spent New Year's with my dad, in my last New Year's vlog, my mom was still alive. It's been, let's just say, challenging.Previous "Years I Survived" New Year's vlogs:2020: youtube.com/watch?v=xxi8kIrUQSM2017: youtube.com/watch?v=qS1pv6cs-Ss2016: youtube.com/watch?v=I_j5URQsDWE#NewYears #HappyNewYear #happynewyear2023 #newyear #Happy2023
The Passage Of One Year AltoonaYourPiano 2022-12-29 | Remember two years ago where I showed a year passed in one minute? Well, this original song of mine (ironically, made before the short MIDI video was) will flesh that out a little bit longer, examining and discussing every month in great detail. Remember, this refers to how the months are where I live, so it'll be different if you live somewhere with a very dissimilar climate. That said, I hope to entertain you with this composition and inform you as well. It's also my last song release of the year, as after this, I'll be posting my icy midwinter type songs. This piece was recorded on the old micro-genie keyboard, it's not as long as some of my other original songs that I've released recently are. It is set in a four-seasons climate with seasonal lag and winters that last about five months of the year (late November through early April). I figured that the song showing a year passing in one minute is perfect for this time of year. I'll hopefully have the music video for my newest song done in early January so you can enjoy the unusual setting within. This kind of works like an unofficial New Year's song, giving a look back at the year but also a look ahead at the following year. And at the end, the cycle completes as the artwork that I used at the beginning during the January portion makes its final reappearance at the end. The year kind of works like that. Although each year is different from the last, there are some things that never change, that always stay the same. The birds fly north every spring and south every autumn. The bears shit in the woods once again every spring. #originalsong #winter #composition #NewYear #NewYearSong
