iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Joé McKen ♪ Composer @music.joemcken.net · 05/10/2026

Quote-posts on Bsky now properly bridge (via @ap.brid.gy) to the Fediverse with actual embeds rather than janky links. Very good.

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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 · 05/07/2026

Dang sheet music buying airline tickets and forgetting to bring along its plus-one (you)

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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 ♪ Composer @music.joemcken.net · 28/03/2026

Daaaang. Wouldn’t have dared hope the film would have legs like this.

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Joé McKen ♪ Composer @music.joemcken.net · 28/03/2026

Movie’s out on Blu-Ray and has been streaming for weeks, yet it’s still in (some) theaters. Wondering if that’s intentional or if Disney’s getting uncoordinated, lol.

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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 · 12/03/2026

Now that is one heckuva piano 👀

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Joé McKen ♪ Composer @music.joemcken.net · 26/02/2026

I think that’s more the director’s call than the composer’s, isn’t it? IIRC, the director and composer sit down together and the director then scrubs through the film pointing out when they want music or not. Though I’m sure the process can be collaborative to some degree.

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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 ♪ Composer @music.joemcken.net · 17/12/2025

You’re gonna be responsible for half the national box-office revenue by yourself at this rate 😉

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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

I enjoy it when I’m challenged to come up with a tune using a limited number of instruments. It’s especially tricky to craft a memorable melody with no room to restate it, but given that I’ve repeatedly caught myself humming it, I hope that means it’s catchy a-plenty.

joemcken.bandcamp.com

Prelude for Addernotch, by Joé McKen

track 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

Stupid VPNs Stupid apps that randomly don’t work with specific VPN server locations

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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 · 28/11/2025

You mean … you have no egrets. :3

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Joé McKen ♪ Composer @music.joemcken.net · 28/11/2025

Very good ^^ If Z3 doesn’t include at least one kickass flying scene where Judy rides on the back of an eagle or something I’m gonna cry foul so hard

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Joé McKen ♪ Composer @music.joemcken.net · 28/11/2025

You DID stay for the post-credits scene, right? 😉

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Joé McKen ♪ Composer @music.joemcken.net · 21/11/2025

@declanflannery.bsky.social Seems the full album is already up on YouTube – on Disney’s own Topic account, no less:

youtube.com

Zootopening

YouTube video by Disney - Topic

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

Oh Oh no I just discovered a professional musical engraver who publishes full-concert score books of film scores Including several I don’t have and that I’ve wanted for YEARS I can feel all my free time and spending money for the next few months vanishing already

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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

“I need to write music to fit a certain mood. Ooh, maybe a bed of soft bowed electric-guitar sound design, and a nice pulsing sub-bass, and these breathy violin flautandos, maybe some tinkling celesta arpeggios in the background … “Oh. Should probably add a melody. Uhhh … doo do-do doo doo …”

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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 ♪ Composer @music.joemcken.net · 16/10/2025

Ooh, I don’t think I’ve heard you do a piece that wasn’t a piano solo. Intrigued!

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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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Joé McKen ♪ Composer @music.joemcken.net · 04/10/2025

Sincere question: Why the complete redesign on the logo? Why not just modernize the existing one, such as with a cleaner, simpler headphone & sine-wave waveform between the earcups? It would look nicer than the slightly janky current logo, whilst retaining the recognizable branding.

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Joé McKen ♪ Composer @music.joemcken.net · 25/09/2025

I really hope it’s a rejected design they’ll discuss in the video. Can’t tell if it’s meant to be a curved note, a misshapen ‘A’, or a mutated Among Us character. The existing logo is iconic. It looks neat + is widely known and instantly recognizable. Why would anyone throw that branding away?

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Joé McKen ♪ Composer @music.joemcken.net · 23/09/2025

Jebus. Maybe I’m just lucky, but I’ve never encountered that kind of garbage in person. Those idiots don’t deserve you.

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