iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Joé McKen ♪ Composer @music.joemcken.net · 02/08/2026

@declanflannery.bsky.social Heya, DM sent! Apologies for the length. Got maybe a bit more detailed than I needed to. 😅

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Joé McKen ♪ Composer @music.joemcken.net · 16/05/2026

Okay that thing is freaking cool and I want to listen to a moderate-length concert played on it

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Joé McKen ♪ Composer @music.joemcken.net · 08/05/2026

VST3? In Sibelius? Never thought I’d see the day. Nice.

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Joé McKen @joemcken.net · 23/03/2026

As someone who loves ‘The Lion King’ score and who especially adores Lebo M’s work on it … What the everloving fuck. Lol. Lebo needs to both grow a sense of humor and – especially – fire whichever shitbag lawyer he dug up who’s advising him that this lolsuit is a good idea.

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Joé McKen ♪ Composer @music.joemcken.net · 24/01/2026

Still bummed about my abandoned plan to create a suite of James Horner film themes that I had to give up on because if I tried posting online it would either get blocked or have ads crammed into it (and I categorically refuse to have even one single ad on my channel) RIP “The Horner Suite” 😔

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Joé McKen @joemcken.net · 11/12/2025

Listening to a U2 live album. For some reason I’ve been used to thinking of it as “it’s from 2001, so not that old”. Just did the math. It’s almost exactly, to a year, at the halfway point between today (2025) and the band’s formation in 1976. I don’t like these kinds of realizations.

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Joé McKen ♪ Composer @music.joemcken.net · 09/12/2025

🎵 NEW MUSIC: Prelude for Addernotch 🎵 Every story has a beginning. For the kobold Skunk Lanswel, his prelude lies in the cradle of his youth: the village of Addernotch. A piece written for my friend @skijarama.bsky.social’s novel’s audiobook! ➡ BANDCAMP ➡ SOUNDCLOUD ➡ YOUTUBE

youtube.com

Prelude for Addernotch

YouTube video by Joé McKen ♪

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Joé McKen ♪ Composer @music.joemcken.net · 09/12/2025

youtube.com

Prelude for Addernotch

YouTube video by Joé McKen ♪

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Joé McKen ♪ Composer @music.joemcken.net · 09/12/2025

Oh, get fucked, Bandcamp. This is a stupid policy at the best of times, and even moreso when I’m trying to link to my friend’s novel that I wrote this track for.

Error whilst trying to save draft on Bandcamp:

“Note: Links to external stores are not permitted.”

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Joé McKen ♪ Composer @music.joemcken.net · 09/12/2025

New release incoming tomorrow … 🎵 🐲

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Joé McKen ♪ Composer @music.joemcken.net · 05/12/2025

Anytime you feel like connecting, Avid Link Aaaaaaaaanytime now

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Joé McKen ♪ Composer @music.joemcken.net · 20/11/2025

Listen, I know I had things to do and engagements to uphold tonight, but a friend asked me to compile a list of my favorite film scores, so as you can see, it really wasn’t my fault

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Joé McKen ♪ Composer @music.joemcken.net · 17/11/2025

Always amazing when I listen to some old movie/TV/videogame soundtrack I haven’t heard since childhood and realize, “Oh, so THAT’s where I got this particular musical motif/rhythm/etc. that’s been stuck in my head all my life.”

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Joé McKen ♪ Composer @music.joemcken.net · 13/11/2025

It’s funny … When I started writing music, it was heavily melodic; I was mediocre with harmony and texture, so I focused on making hummable tunes instead. Since then, it’s somehow switched: Texture and tonality are the first things to come to mind when composing, whereas melody has become harder.

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Joé McKen @joemcken.net · 08/11/2025

Update: All my accounts were reinstated at some point in the last couple days. (I say “at some point” ’cause I only just noticed when I checked on a whim. Didn’t get any emails or anything.) Apparently a bunch of folks who got swept up in the recent ban wave are getting unbanned.

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Joé McKen @joemcken.net · 06/11/2025

Seems Xitter is cracking down on third-party apps tonight, ’cause all my accounts – which I accessed through OldTweetDeck – just got permanently suspended simultaneously for “inauthentic behavior”. Lol. I mainly lurked there, since *so many* peeps I follow still haven’t moved to Bluesky. 😔

Email from X(itter) informing me my personal account, @joemcken, was automatically suspended for violating the rules against “inauthentic behaviors”.

Email from X(itter) informing me my music account, @joemcken_music, was automatically suspended for violating the rules against “inauthentic behaviors”.

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Joé McKen @joemcken.net · 12/10/2025

Equally terrifying addendum: Only VST2 plugins supported. (Seriously, Avid, add VST3 support to Sibelius already. It’s over 15 years old, and most new plugins are VST3-only. Are you waiting until Sibelius users can’t use any new plugins at all?)

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Joé McKen @joemcken.net · 12/10/2025

In honor of Spooky Month, share a 4-word horror story that only someone in your profession would understand: Only VST3 plugins supported.

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Joé McKen @joemcken.net · 12/10/2025

Transcribing sheet music with 20+ staves and absolutely no instrument names (and sometimes not even instrument group brackets) is FUN, lemme tell ya. SO MUCH FUN.

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Joé McKen @joemcken.net · 12/10/2025

In honor of Spooky Month, share a 4-word horror story that only someone in your profession would understand: Scans cropped out instruments.

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Threatening Music Notation @musicnotation.bsky.social · 11/10/2025

For the pianists

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Threatening Music Notation @musicnotation.bsky.social · 07/09/2025

I can’t believe Twitter rebranded to be a double sharp

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Kristin Naigus 🎙🪈 @fieldofreeds.bsky.social · 19/08/2025

Happy release day to Sword of the Sea, the latest game from Giant Squid, with ethereal soundtrack by @awintory.bsky.social :) I once again had the privilege of recording woodwinds, including this beautiful Mayan triple harmony drone flute. It has a haunting voice that's all throughout the score 🪈

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Joé McKen ♪ Composer @music.joemcken.net · 04/08/2025

TFW you wake up with a new melody playing all fully-formed in your head, but you have no sounds in your music arsenal that could capture it, and you have no projects to use it in, and you have so much to do anyway, so you have to ignore it and let it disappear. 😔

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Mike Masnick @masnick.com · 15/07/2025

Every few months someone reads a terms of service and spots the *basically necessary* copyright license that any site that handles 3rd party content HAS TO HAVE to avoid getting sued out of existence by awful copyright lawyers and freaks out. Mike here explains why.

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Joé McKen ♪ Composer @music.joemcken.net · 29/06/2025

Sod it. This account’s collecting dust, and I feel like rambling a bit, so here we go. I’m feeling musically blueballed right now. This will take some explaining. 1/

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Joé McKen ♪ Composer @music.joemcken.net · 14/05/2025

Good on them for clarifying the ToS language, though arguably it shouldn’t have been necessary. Can we all move on now?

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Joé McKen ♪ Composer @music.joemcken.net · 14/05/2025

Do we have a title for this piece? “Lament for Ghorman”, maybe? Obviously hits 10 times harder if you hear it after just finishing the episode it’s attached to, but it’s still quite the lovely, tragic piece on its own.

youtube.com

STAR WARS Andor S2E8 End Credits Music Theme

YouTube video by Sith Lord Online

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Joé McKen ♪ Composer @music.joemcken.net · 13/05/2025

Quick thread with my thoughts regarding the “SoundCloud mentions ‘AI training’ in their terms of service” panic going around, and why maybe people should slow down a bit before yanking all their content from [checks] every social-media and art-sharing website ever:

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Joé McKen ♪ Composer @music.joemcken.net · 31/03/2025

One of my favorite things to do: » Notice lovely background music in YouTube video » Identify it with Shazam (assuming it isn’t credited in the description, which it rarely is …) » Add it to my playlist Got a small but growing collection of esoteric atmospheric tracks happening Tonight’s find:

youtube.com

Inception

YouTube video by Falls - Topic

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Joé McKen ♪ Composer @music.joemcken.net · 28/02/2025

[blows dust off account] I mentioned my revised thoughts on ‘The Wild Robot’, so I figured I’d comment on the OST, which I’m currently binging for the second time in a row: It’s excellent, of course. But I was not prepared for the choir that suddenly kicks in at the end of the penultimate track.

youtube.com

You Don’t Have To

YouTube video by Release - Topic

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Joé McKen ♪ Composer @music.joemcken.net · 12/12/2024

This is the one and only true Threatening Music Notation on Bsky. Accept no other.

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Joé McKen ♪ Composer @music.joemcken.net · 12/12/2024

Holy fuck Audacity’s “crossfade clips” plugin is so fast and simple and good I’m a bit mad I haven’t tried it until now

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Joé McKen @joemcken.net · 23/11/2024

Optimist: The cup is half full Pessimist: The cup is half empty Musician: If I wet my finger and rub it around the rim of the cup it makes a cool sound

youtube.com

Für Elise on glass harp

YouTube video by roberttiso

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Joé McKen ♪ Composer @music.joemcken.net · 14/10/2024

Just a quick li’l proof-of-life wave hello. I’m in between projects at the moment, and I’m again caught up in non-music-related work that consume all my free time, so it may be a while before I start my next musical project. (Unless someone commissions me – that always takes precedence.) ✌

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Joé McKen ♪ Composer @music.joemcken.net · 17/09/2024

Bluesky now has over 10 million users, and I was #305,610!

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Hi Im Monte @montecrisco.bsky.social · 09/09/2024

Bro why is your leitmotif playing in a minor key. Are you ok dude

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Joé McKen ♪ Composer @music.joemcken.net · 28/08/2024

Hard disagree. Every single one of these is amazing and I now need to write music for all of them. (Already have for a few of them!) Also, aren’t bagpipes kinda everywhere already? Can’t go to Scotland or listen to anything vaguely Celtic without hearing them.

cracked.com

12 Instruments That Fell Out of Favor for Obvious Reasons

Ancient music-makers that lost their aux privileges

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🏳️‍⚧️ Alexandra Merideth Erin [she/her] @alexandraerin.com · 14/08/2024

This tweet is good enough to be on BlueSky

Tweet from @jackie__sabbagh:

"is the music they play at baseball games diegetic? like can the players hear it in the world of the game"

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Joé McKen ♪ Composer @music.joemcken.net · 29/07/2024

🎵 NEW MUSIC: Elegy 🎵 Sometimes, you write music for a general audience, or for a popular project. Other times, you decide to combine the themes from two late-90s Discovery Channel documentaries about the Titanic for fun. (That is, if you’re a giant nerd.) ➡ BANDCAMP ➡ SOUNDCLOUD ➡ YOUTUBE

youtube.com

Elegy

Sometimes, you write music for a general audience, or for a popular project. Other times, you decide to combine the themes from two late-90s Discovery Channe...

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Joé McKen ♪ Composer @music.joemcken.net · 28/07/2024

Update to this three-month-old thread: My channel’s “advanced features” have been restored, meaning I can once again put clickable links in video descriptions. Went ahead and fixed the links in the last few videos, so that’s done. Oh, and also – new song drops tomorrow.

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Joé McKen ♪ Composer @music.joemcken.net · 19/07/2024

Gee I sure love how Sibelius doesn’t bother remembering the values you set hairpins to so that every time you load a score they all get reset and you have to configure them all fucking over again Goddamned pile of bugs, this app

Screenshot of Sibelius with multiple hairpins reset to “auto”

Screenshot of Sibelius with multiple hairpins now manually set to “Change: 10%”

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Joé McKen ♪ Composer @music.joemcken.net · 29/06/2024

When you get completely stuck on a piece of music and you can’t decide whether to keep working it, or take it in a different direction, or give up entirely and just start something new. 😖

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