Anticipating Spring

“Anticipating Spring” is a collection of seven original piano compositions.  It has a calm and patient pace, designed to create an atmosphere of peace and serenity.  It’s entitled “Anticipating Spring” because the music was recorded in the winter of 2009. Winter is a time when I must exercise every ounce of patience I have to endure the discomforts of that season.  It is only the hope of spring’s approach that gets me through the dreary, cold days of January and February.  This music is full of that hope, and I hope you enjoy it. It’s available now in my store.

This first CD is the result of the gentle proddings of a number of people who are important to me.  My wife, Diann, occasionally would say things like “I want our children to be able to have their children hear you play.” It is the desire to leave something substantial of myself that motivates me to do many of the creative things I do, and it is one of the primary motivators for this site.  But more than that, people through the years who have heard me play have asked if there was a recording they could obtain, to take me with them, so to speak.  There never was, and my answers to those people seemed a bit puzzling to them, and somehow left me dissatisfied as well.  My friend Kim, who has been known to cry just by listening to me (in a good way, as opposed to my siblings when I was growing up, who would cry with rage when I would start practicing at 11:00pm), staunchly insisted that she have a recording of me.  Others, friends and strangers alike, would make this request periodically.

One of the greatest obstacles to me has been the lack of accessibility to a great piano.  My church finally acquired a very nice Kawai 6′, and after its break-in period of a few years, has acquired a good tone.  So that obstacle has finally been removed for me, and this has given me the opportunity to begin to make reasonably good quality recordings.  This is the first time I’ve taken any of that recorded music and made it into a CD.

I should take a moment to mention the cover art.  This photograph is one of my own, taken in January in Arden Hills, Minnesota, a suburb of St. Paul.  My coworkers watched as stood outside the building window, fixated on a dripping icicle, and became quite convinced that I was more than a few fries short of a happy meal.  But when they saw the result, they changed their mind.  I’m fascinated by water.  Dripping icicles are doubly fascinating.  They mean so many things to me: the coming warmth of Spring, the power of water in nature, the incredible physics of surface tension, and sheer beauty, to name some of them.

So here it is, one of the deepest looks inside myself that I’ve ever allowed. Don’t just listen to this as piano solo music, enjoyable or not.  Listen to it as an echo from somewhere deep inside Tim Stone.  Maybe you’ll like what you see, maybe you won’t, but it’s real, and it’s me, and for at least that reason, I want you to have it, and to value it.

Song List

The music on Anticipating Spring includes:

1. Anticipating Spring
2. Tenderness in D
3. Winter Wind’s Chime
4. Intimate Interlude
5. Winter Quiet
6. Friday’s Meditation
7. Ben’s List

Please note that all the music on this CD is available free on this site,to listen or download.  The CD is available if you don’t have an MP3 player, want to play the music in your car, or otherwise have use for physical recorded media.

You can purchase “Anticipating Spring” by heading on over to my store.

Thank You

• Diann, Joel, and Ben, for loving me through my emotional highs and lows.  I’m a temperamental guy.  You guys rock.
• Matt and Jen for your invaluable feedback on the design of sounds.timsworlds.com
• Jim for your invaluable feedback on the design of the artwork for Anticipating Spring, and for just doing what you do, which was another gentle prod for me to do something like this. When I say “you rock,” you really do.

Disclaimer

If you’re a sound engineer, you’ll immediately recognize that, though this music was recorded by an accomplished pianist, it was not recorded by an accomplished sound technician, or processed by an accomplished sound engineer. It was all done by me, by myself. It’s not bad for a first recording, but I’ve got a long way to go and a lot to learn about how to record acoustic piano, and how to turn those recordings into a great CD.