Joé McKen ♪ Composer
Music account · Freelance composer in Québec, Canada · New releases & announcements · He/him · Personal account: @joemcken.net
» Commissions: bit.ly/JMComms
» Socials & music pages on my website: https://joemcken.net
- 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” 😔
- Currently listening:
- Reposted by Joé McKen ♪ ComposerListening 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.
- 🎵 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
- 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.
- New release incoming tomorrow … 🎵 🐲
- Anytime you feel like connecting, Avid Link Aaaaaaaaanytime now
- 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
- 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.”
- 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.
- Reposted by Joé McKen ♪ ComposerUpdate: 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.
- Reposted by Joé McKen ♪ ComposerSeems 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. 😔
- Reposted by Joé McKen ♪ ComposerEqually 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?)
- Reposted by Joé McKen ♪ ComposerIn honor of Spooky Month, share a 4-word horror story that only someone in your profession would understand: Only VST3 plugins supported.
- Reposted by Joé McKen ♪ ComposerTranscribing 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.
- Reposted by Joé McKen ♪ ComposerIn honor of Spooky Month, share a 4-word horror story that only someone in your profession would understand: Scans cropped out instruments.
- Reposted by Joé McKen ♪ ComposerFor the pianists
- Reposted by Joé McKen ♪ ComposerI can’t believe Twitter rebranded to be a double sharp
- Not my first time posting this, but I just love this piece so much.
- Reposted by Joé McKen ♪ ComposerHappy 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 🪈
- 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. 😔
- Reposted by Joé McKen ♪ ComposerEvery 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.
- 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/
