These six songs date from somewhere around 1992. I vaguely remember recording some of them, but I don’t recall much about the occasion. Some of these songs are multiple layers, with drums and flute added for a nice effect. There’s about 50 minutes of music here, and to be honest, it’s not necessarily all great. But it at least serves to illustrate my progress over the last 20 years.
Christmas is a time of tenderness and warmth, and bells. So many Christmas songs mention bells, or are about bells. This is my attempt to play “bell-like.” It’s my Christmas gift to you. I hope you enjoy it!
The Vespers is a time set aside for calm contemplation and reflection. The Evening Vespers mark the end of the hectic day and the beginning of settling down for the night. Vespers are often accompanied by calming music. Enjoy this music this evening, and have your own Evening Vespers.
There is a vulnerability that only best friends can have with each other. It’s hard to be that vulnerable, to trust that deeply, and sometimes it ends up hurting. But sometimes it’s the most rewarding vulnerability ever. It’s then that the music flows.
Finally, after a long summer hiatus, I’m starting to think about recording again. The weather is turning cool, gray skies are more frequent, and my mood is turning towards more inward pursuits.
This little composition experiments with ever moving chord structure and dynamics. It’s vaguely reminiscent of some Bach compositions, but of course not nearly as rich and complex as those incredible explorations. But then again, I’m no Bach, and so that comparison isn’t even valid! Anyway, give a listen and let me know if you enjoy it.
Sometimes something that I record isn’t enough to constitute a bona fide composition, but it’s still noteworthy in that it’s pretty, and the thematic material might be very useful in another, more well constructed, improvisation. This is one of those kind of recordings. Rather than try to find a name for these kind of themes, I’ve chosen to simply number them. Don’t let the lack of a real title fool you. This is still worth listening to! Enjoy!
This piece provides a good illustration of how far my music has progressed in the last fifteen years or so. The piece itself is only so-so as far as I’m concerned, but it uses a theme that I used in another very early recording of myself that I made in the mid-90s. I called that piece “It Is Good.”
There is a freshness, a warmth, that comes after the harshness of winter.
This is really two pieces juxtaposed, a little lark on the piano during a bit of quiet time one Sunday morning. The first is like a flowing water, and the second is a gentle waltz.
Sometimes when I look in the mirror, I wonder which side of it I’m on. Is that really me I’m seeing, or is that really me being looking back?
As I thought back through my day, this is the music that the day became. It was busy, thoughtful, reflective, calm, chaotic, and several other themes, all thrown together in one waking day. And it was a typical day. No wonder I’m tired after it’s all said and done!
I love the Bach Two Part Inventions. Even though I’m not really skilled enough to play them, let alone make one up, I like to sometimes pretend that I can do that.
I had about ten minutes to sneak in a recording tonight, and this is what I got. Unfortunately, the recording equipment wasn’t set up quite right, and the result has a nasty hum in the background. This renders the recording basically useless, but it’s a decent piece, so I thought I’d put it up here anyway.
Update: I’ve reprocessed this piece, and I think I’ve mostly gotten the hum and noise out of it, so this one makes the cut! Have a listen to the second version to compare.
This piece is a bit of an experiment for me. It uses two relatively simple themes with vastly different meter to express how I am sometimes calm on the outside and not nearly so calm on the inside.
The first movement of the “Moonlight Sonata” by Ludwig Von Beethoven is one of the most beautiful piano pieces that has ever been composed. It’s one of the first classical pieces I learned to play as a high school boy.
t’s the middle of winter. Snow has fallen, chased by ice and then rain. The sun hasn’t shown for weeks on the prairie, and now there is water everywhere. But it does not make much sound as it moves across the countryside, cleansing the very soul of the prairie of all the accumulation of the past year. It does that for me as well.
Sometimes something that I record isn’t enough to constitute a bona fide composition, but it’s still noteworthy in that it’s pretty, and the thematic material might be very useful in another, more well constructed, improvisation. This is one of those kind of recordings. Rather than try to find a name for these kind of themes, I’ve chosen to simply number them. Don’t let the lack of a real title fool you. This is still worth listening to! Enjoy!
It was about 1993 when I got my first electronic keyboard, an Ensoniq KS-32. Lacking any good pianos to try to record some of my compositions on, I wired a cassette recorder to the keyboard and set out to capture some of the compositions I’d been working on around then. This is the first one of them I recorded. As with all of them, this one is untitled.
This is a recording of a recent practice session where I was working on O Holy Night. It’s definitely a practice; it’s not seamless and mistake-free in any way. But it’s as close as I’ll come to a traditional Christmas song recording this year, so here it is!
Here is a simple Lullaby, my gift to you this Christmas. Thank you for listening to my music in 2009. You’ve blessed me more than you know.
Year end is a time for reflection, remembering the good and the bad of the year, the joys and sorrows, the successes and failures, deciding who I’ve become, and who I want to become. Sometimes the thoughts and emotions are best expressed in something other than words.
Here is a new piece that I played using only my two index fingers. It’s interesting, and the idea has a lot of potential.
The First of November brings frost and bare trees, the rustle of leaves waiting to be raked, the calm before the storm of the holiday season.