Not long after author Chad Derdowski came on the show this summer (hear parts 1 and 2 here), talking about his brilliantly humorous … oh, how shall we say, R-rated Choose-Your- Own-Adventure-style book, Fortune Favors the Bold, I wondered what a soundtrack to the book might sound like. Something out of an 80s movie, I thought, like Ladyhawke or Legend. And then, the muse struck. Of course, it was in an inconvenient place (in the shower), but as soon as I could, I found a keyboard and tapped out the little theme that formed the backbone of these two tracks.
I got Chad’s input and okay to proceed, then went to town. He didn’t put me up to this or anything, and I didn’t want him to think I was trying to steal his creations … I guess in the tradition of fanfiction, you could call this “fanmusic?” =) Anyway, I talk more about the creation of the tracks, called “Gleam of the Widowmaker” and “One Adventures Ends, Another Begins” on the episode and read a few choice bits from the book which inspired the tracks, which you can listen to below or by clicking on the song titles above.
The latter track was made on the iOS app Auxy, like “Flight of the Cloudrider” (listen here or see the music video below) and “There is Magic Inside.” You can learn more about Auxy, download a copy to your phone, and Henrik Lenberg, the creator of the program, by clicking on the highlighted links.
By the way, in case you are curious, here is a youtube tutorial that shows a little about how to use Auxy:
And here are some screenshots from “One Adventure Ends, Another Begins”:
If you enjoy synthesizer music, creating it, or just living your life as if it were accompanied to an 80s soundtrack, check out this great synthwave playlist on Spotify curated by Preston Cram.
I’ll end with more info on where you can find the book that inspired these tracks:
The bonus track, called “Flight of the Cloudrider” has a 80s movie mashup music video (see if you can identify all the movies!) which is available on youtube. This app was largely created with the iphone app Auxy.
Stay tuned. Follow along on Spotify! There is also a growing extended Thirteenth Hour playlist on Spotify with a growing number of retro 80s songs.
Signup for the mailing list for a free special edition podcast, a demo copy of The Thirteenth Hour, and access to retro 80s soundtrack!
Follow The Thirteenth Hour’s Instagram pages: @the13thhr for your random postings on ninjas, martial arts, archery, flips, breakdancing, fantasy art and and @the13thhr.ost for more 80s music, movies, and songs from The Thirteenth Hour books and soundtrack.
Today, we’re going to make a music track for one of the Thirteenth Hour book sequels with a combination of digital and analog technology. It goes with a part of the story where Aurora, one of the main characters, is just starting to discover that she has the ability to generate magic herself – something that is surprising, wonderful, exciting, and a bit confusing all at the same time. I was trying to capture that feeling in the music.
I’m using a app called Auxy to make the backing track and adding in a few electric guitar parts as accents. The track was 95% done prior to adding the guitars, and best of all, I did it all in the palm of my hand when I was doing something else (in this case trying to get my son to sleep by bouncing on a exercise ball – that works wonders, by the way).
I made a previous track with Auxy, “Flight of the Cloudrider” (listen here) or check out the link to the EP and music video below. You can learn more about Auxy, download a copy to your phone (only iOS so far, I believe – my error on the show), and Henrik Lenberg, the creator of the program, by clicking on the highlighted links.
Here is a youtube tutorial that shows a little about how to use the program:
And here are some screenshots from this particular track:
If you enjoy synthesizer music, creating it, or just living your life as if it were accompanied to an 80s soundtrack, check out this great synthwave playlist on Spotify curated by Preston Cram.
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Between Two Worlds, the synth EP follow up to Long Ago Not So Far Awayis now out for streaming on Bandcamp.
The bonus track, called “Flight of the Cloudrider” has a 80s movie mashup music video (see if you can identify all the movies!) which is available on youtube. This app was largely created with the iphone app Auxy.
Stay tuned. Follow along on Spotify! There is also a growing extended Thirteenth Hour playlist on Spotify with a growing number of retro 80s songs.
Signup for the mailing list for a free special edition podcast, a demo copy of The Thirteenth Hour, and access to retro 80s soundtrack!
Follow The Thirteenth Hour’s Instagram pages: @the13thhr for your random postings on ninjas, martial arts, archery, flips, breakdancing, fantasy art and and @the13thhr.ost for more 80s music, movies, and songs from The Thirteenth Hour books and soundtrack.
Today, we’re finish the track we started in episode #112. As mentioned, it’s a short atmospheric piece to accompany the third Thirteenth Hour book and centers around Aurora, who has assumed the part time role of someone called “The Midnight Phoenix,” a name generated by the local papers from the legends of old after she unwittingly saves a man while on a brooding nighttime walk above the city’s skyline. This is not a particularly happy time in her time, and her one real solace is playing a magic lute on the rooftop outside her window, high above the city, allowing her to see the sea, the horizon over which her home lies, and even if she can’t get back there, see an exit to her current trapped state.
Today. we’re finishing the backing track and adding the guitar part in. In the future, I’ll finish the accompanying artwork, which will likely show her up on a rooftop (Batman style), silhouetted against the sky.
This is the tabulature and chord structure of this short piece:
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Between Two Worlds, the synth EP follow up to Long Ago Not So Far Awayis now out for streaming on Bandcamp.
The bonus track, called “Flight of the Cloudrider” has a 80s movie mashup music video (see if you can identify all the movies!) which is available on youtube. This app was largely created with the iphone app Auxy.
Stay tuned. Follow along on Spotify! There is also a growing extended Thirteenth Hour playlist on Spotify with a growing number of retro 80s songs.
Signup for the mailing list for a free special edition podcast, a demo copy of The Thirteenth Hour, and access to retro 80s soundtrack!
Follow The Thirteenth Hour’s Instagram pages: @the13thhr for your random postings on ninjas, martial arts, archery, flips, breakdancing, fantasy art and and @the13thhr.ost for more 80s music, movies, and songs from The Thirteenth Hour books and soundtrack.
Like last week, today, we’re going to create more music together. In order to finish the piece we started last week, I needed to finish some backlogged music projects that I have had sitting around first. My synthesizer only allows you to store two songs at a time, so this is one of them. Like last week, it’s a mostly atmospheric piece to accompany the third Thirteenth Hour book and centers around Aurora, who has assumed the part time role of someone called “The Midnight Phoenix.” At this part of the story (at least according to the rough outline I have envisioned), things get a little out of control, and part of the city she now finds herself in is destroyed. She is standing on top of a tall building overlooking the city and the smoldering ruins. As she does so, this theme plays in the background. Like the tune last week, it’s intended to be slow and a bit mournful.
Today, we’ll be combining the synthesizer backing track that I’ve had in the can for a number of weeks with a guitar part that I recorded more recently. There is a post on IG that shows some video of the guitar part in the draft stage. At the end of the podcast, you’ll hear the more or less finished version.
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Between Two Worlds, the synth EP follow up to Long Ago Not So Far Awayis now out for streaming on Bandcamp.
The bonus track, called “Flight of the Cloudrider” has a 80s movie mashup music video (see if you can identify all the movies!) which is available on youtube. This app was largely created with the iphone app Auxy.
Stay tuned. Follow along on Spotify! There is also a growing extended Thirteenth Hour playlist on Spotify with a growing number of retro 80s songs.
Signup for the mailing list for a free special edition podcast, a demo copy of The Thirteenth Hour, and access to retro 80s soundtrack!
Follow The Thirteenth Hour’s Instagram pages: @the13thhr for your random postings on ninjas, martial arts, archery, flips, breakdancing, fantasy art and and @the13thhr.ost for more 80s music, movies, and songs from The Thirteenth Hour books and soundtrack.
Today, we’re going to create some music together. It’s a short atmospheric piece to accompany the third Thirteenth Hour book and centers around Aurora, who has assumed the part time role of someone called “The Midnight Phoenix,” a name generated by the local papers from the legends of old after she unwittingly saves a man while on a brooding nighttime walk above the city’s skyline.
At this point, she is supposed to be learning magic, which she can’t really do or control, and she misses the home she created, far away across the Western sea, on her island with her husband Logan. She supposed to learn magic since her family essentially needs another set of hands to defend against a new mysterious threat. But all she can really do is make flaming blue fire when she gets stressed or angry.
Here is Aurora doing a meditative exercise to try to help herself control her fire making ability rather let it engulf her (what usually happens, making her kind of a danger to herself and others around her).
Her one real solace is playing a magic lute on the rooftop outside her window, high above the city, allowing her to see the sea, the horizon over which her home lies, and even if she can’t get back there, see an exit to her current trapped state.
I was inspired by the rooftop guitar solo scene from the movie The Crow when thinking of this scene:
You can find the track as “Inferno” on The Crow score by Graeme Revell.
My favorite part of that track was always the slow, melodic intro part, so I was channeling that in marking today’s track. To be continued in a future episode!
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Between Two Worlds, the synth EP follow up to Long Ago Not So Far Awayis now out for streaming on Bandcamp.
The bonus track, called “Flight of the Cloudrider” has a 80s movie mashup music video (see if you can identify all the movies!) which is available on youtube. This app was largely created with the iphone app Auxy.
Stay tuned. Follow along on Spotify! There is also a growing extended Thirteenth Hour playlist on Spotify with a growing number of retro 80s songs.
Signup for the mailing list for a free special edition podcast, a demo copy of The Thirteenth Hour, and access to retro 80s soundtrack!
Follow The Thirteenth Hour’s Instagram pages: @the13thhr for your random postings on ninjas, martial arts, archery, flips, breakdancing, fantasy art and and @the13thhr.ost for more 80s music, movies, and songs from The Thirteenth Hour books and soundtrack.
Now you, too, can throw playing cards like you favorite superpowered mutant. Like I mentioned in this previous post, it’s not hard to learn to throw playing cards like Logan does in The Thirteenth Hour. But it does help to know a little about the technique and have the right cards.
Wait no longer. Thirteenth Hour throwing cards are now here. You throw heavier, more rigid cards first in order to get the technique down, then work your way down to lighter cards until you;re throwing regular playing cards. This kit is essentially a pair of “training wheels” to jump start your throwing while keeping your confidence up and frustration low. They’re handmade and contain pictures from The Thirteenth Hour and come in different weights:
1.) laminated cards with Thirteenth Hour illustrations (weigh 5 g each) x 2
2.) unlaminated cards with Thirteenth Hour illustrations (weigh 3 g each) x 3
3.) regular playing cards (weigh 1 g each) x 3
So you start with #1, then go to #2 when you have the throw down, then go to #3 when #2 is too easy. At that point, you’ll be able to use a regular deck of playing cards you can find anywhere.
Comes with a set of instructions showing the basic throw and grip variations.
You can get them on the eBay store here or on my Square online store here.
UPDATE (2/15/16): Well, the first time I posted these on eBay, they were removed since eBay doesn’t allow weapons to be sold, and I guess “throwing cards” were flagged as potential implements of destruction. It probably goes without staying, but I’ll paraphrase what’s said on the packaging on the cards themselves:
These aren’t intended as weapons! Even in the book, Logan uses them as a distraction. The idea that could you could seriously injure someone from thrown paper playing cards is not without its legends (see the original post for a book by magician Ricky Jay about it), but if you have any doubts, check out this Mythbusters episode where the myth of the lethal throwing card gets busted. Ricky Jay actually makes a cameo as well). However, you should still exercise caution, since if you get really good, you can cause small paper cuts, and walls and doors may get chipped. That said, these are primarily novelty items. If you’re seriously looking at them as a way of defending yourself, I wish I could say different, but there are many, many more effective ways!! Throwing cards for self defense is probably best left in the realm of fantasy unless done for distraction, like Logan did in the book. Of course, a handful or dirt or some coins to the face would do the same with much less practice, too.
This clip, posted on Instagram and on the Youtube channel, shows the creation of the drawing used for the label:
UPDATE (2/18/16): There’s now a video showing the cards in action!
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Signup for the mailing list for a free special edition podcast and a demo copy of The Thirteenth Hour!
Update (11/2022): Do you have a card with a QR code that has taken you to this page? There’s now a video showing how to throw cards. See below!
You can also listen to more info on card throwing in episode 82 of The Thirteenth Hour podcast.
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Ever had the desire to sling cards like this guy?
Marvel’s Gambit does his thing. (Image courtesy of Marvel)
Or how about this guy?
League of Legend’s Twisted Fate does his thing. (Image courtesy of the League of Legends Wiki)
Or maybe DC comic’s Joker was more your style:
“Pick a card … <pause> Have all the cards!” (Image courtesy of DC and Allposters.com)
Who hasn’t?
I first learned about card throwing from some friends at a summer camp when I was in middle school, before I knew who Gambit was (League of Legends was far off in the future, but Batman: The Animated Series, where the Joker tosses cards in a scene I paraphrased above, was on TV). At the time, the trading card game Magic: The Gathering had also just become popular and plenty of kids had them and used to play them during downtime. The rest of us that didn’t have a deck would sit around trying to figure out what kind of games we could play with regular cards. The only card games I knew were poker and 52 card pickup. Poker wasn’t very popular at the time and 52 card pickup was, well, more work than fun.
As is generally the case when young boys are left to their own devices, the play turned destructive – we eventually tried throwing the cards at each other. None of us could really do it, but we eventually figured out that our plastic IDs, rigid and heavier than playing cards, worked a lot better. They worked great in the hallway wars sometimes had. The only issue was if you lost your ID, you were kind of SOL. The adult me looks back and is grateful no one lost an eye or worse.
When I went back home, I kept experimenting with throwing playing cards. Somewhere around that time, I remember reading some old magic books that talked about magicians like Howard Thurston using card throwing in their acts. One book even boasted of a performer’s ability to toss a playing card from the stage all the way to the end of the theater. It always seem like a fun little trick and, to me, a more interesting way of utilizing a deck of cards then playing the few card games I knew. Not a bad way to pass the time, as evidenced by Bill Murray’s character using card tossing as one of the ways to pass the years he spent reliving the same day in Groundhog Day. As he says, “it’s all in the wrist.”
Time and boredom is also how Logan from The Thirteenth Hour gets good at the skill during the months that he is on board the Imperial Ranger ship at the beginning of the book:
…There was always a deck of cards lying around someplace, and even though I was no more welcome at the card table now than I had been before, I did pick up one interesting skill.
I learned to throw cards one evening after stumbling upon an adventure book in the ship’s library. The majority of the library – if you can call one shelf of books a library – consisted of star charts and books on navigation. But buried in between was “A Pirate’s Yarn – the Omnibus Edition,” a quasi–autobiographical account written by “J. Allsworth, former buccaneer.” The balance between truth and fiction probably leant heavily towards fiction, but the man was an entertaining writer nonetheless and, even without embellishment, had probably led an interesting life.
He described one encounter in a tavern where he had used a deck of cards to save his life. At the time, Mr. Allsworth, broke and haggard, was strongly considering giving up the frenetic life of a pirate–on–the–run and was thinking about a stabler career, perhaps in forgery or counterfeiting. He had just hocked his sword for one last night of drunken debauchery at the local tavern when his past caught up with him in the form of several soldiers holding a warrant for his arrest. Unarmed and inebriated, Mr. Allsworth reached for the only weapon he could find – a deck of cards. With a few flicks of the wrist, he send cards spinning into the faces of his captors, allowing him to make his getaway with flying colors, or at least, flying cards.
The book even had a few pictures showing how he did it. Mr. Allsworth didn’t say whether he acquired the skill on the spot or whether he’d picked it up at some earlier time. The book leans towards the former, but after trying it out myself, I vouch for the latter. Most of the time, the card would just flutter off like a wounded bird, and you had to hold and fling the thing just right for it to fly straight. But I had lots of time to practice, and eventually got to the point where I could toss cards the length of the deck. I lost more cards that way. I never really could hit what I was aiming at, but then again, I never was drunk and surrounded by soldiers that wanted to arrest me. Perhaps under that kind of duress with the magic of alcohol, accuracy would assert itself.
He ends up later finding another pack of cards that he utilizes successfully for distraction in a fight near the end of the book.
And with some practice, you, too, can learn how to throw cards like Logan, though I can’t promise it’ll be anywhere as useful for you in self-defense (or offense) as it was for him, Gambit, Twisted Fate, or the Joker. But, like Bill Murray’s character in Groundhog Day, it can provide you with endless cheap entertainment.
Below are the steps to follow, accompanied by pictures.
1.) Get some cards to throw. I’m using a pack of Bicycle playing cards here, always a good choice. Avoid the ones made out super thin pieces of plastic found in dollar stores and the like – I’ll tell you why in a minute, but suffice to say, they are too light to learn on. The stiffer and heavier the card, the easier it will be to throw and the more accurate and consistent you will be. In fact, old baseball cards, used plastic gift cards, or those fake credit cards that come in the mail are even easier and are not a bad way to start out. Then you can progress to standard playing cards if you want.
2.) Here’s one basic throw (there are many – this one will just get you started). It will be like tossing a frisbee. There are also multiple ways to grip the card, but here’s the method I use. Hold one edge of the card loosely between your index and middle finger.
3.) Like Bill Murray said, it’s all in your wrist. Curl your wrist back as if throwing a frisbee. To throw, curl your arm back at the elbow so it is bent like you were showing somebody lying on the ground the size of your biceps.
4.) Uncurl your arm and wrist to release the card.
To make this throw more powerful, you can use more than your arm. I find that if I rock my body back and forth (back when cocking the arm and forward when releasing), it adds more power due to more body weight behind the throw. However, the most important thing is still the wrist flick, since without that, the card will, as Logan mentioned, “flutter off like a wounded bird.”
Once you have that basic throw down, you can try some variations. Sometimes, instead of holding the card between my index and middle finger, I use this grip instead:
This grip might be more intuitive for some people, since it uses the thumb and middle finger for support while the index finger helps to add spin.
Another way to grip the card is this way:
This method uses the outside corner of the card. I find I get more spin out of using the inside corner, but it’s all personal preference. Try them all and see which way works best for you.
The last method I use, which I find works a little better for accuracy and power, is to hold the card vertically instead of horizontally, like this:
I use the same curling and uncurling movement of the arm to throw, but everything is in the vertical plane.
I also find myself standing differently for this one – in the frisbee throw above, my throwing hand is my leading hand. In other words, for a right handed throw, I’m also standing right foot forward. In the vertical grip, my throwing hand is in back. In other words, for a right handed throw, my left foot is in front. I find I can really wind up and get more of full body throw this way.
From here on out, it is just practice, as consistent throws are the hard part, especially if you have subpar or worn cards. It won’t be long before your cards start to look like this, all bent at the corners from colliding into walls and doors:
In order for the cards to be usable again for throwing, they should be bent back into shape as much as possible. Remember how I said don’t use cheap plastic cards? This is what will happen – the corners will chip off – now these things actually are dangerous … or some will split outright:
Actually, use them if you want once you’ve got the technique down – since they’re lighter and flimsier, they’re more challenging to throw, but it can definitely be done as long as you give them a good spin.
For inspiration, look what this guy is able to do with just business cards! If you notice, in the video, he uses fairly little overall body movement in some of the throws, but note how he curls his arm and wrist to give the cards a good spin in all of them.
The biggest issue I still have, besides consistency and the cards getting lost behind sofas and under doors, is with greater distances. It’s easy with the above methods to toss a card the length of a hallway, but for longer distances (or outdoors, where the light playing card is subject to wind), it’s harder to be accurate (at least for me). However, if you’re interested, there are many great tutorials and demos on youtube. Here’s one excellent example. The thrower in the tutorial is using a specially designed deck of cards for throwing available here.
And, for a laugh, check out the tongue-in-cheek, unfortunately now out-of-print book Cards as Weaponsby magician Ricky Jay with plenty of zany 70s humor and hair:
The 3rd edition of The Thirteenth Hour will be officially launched on 1/13/16, on its one year anniversary. Stay tuned for more details in the coming weeks!
Signup for the mailing list for a free special edition podcast, a demo copy of The Thirteenth Hour, and access to retro 80s soundtrack!
The Thirteenth Hour 