My Music
Let me start out by saying that this stuff is unfinished. Since I don’t read or write music, this is the only way I can “write” or save it, and that’s by playing it and recording it to listen to later. I don’t profess to be proficient at anything I do, I’m a dabbler of the highest order. I tinker and play and see what happens. So that’s what all of this stuff is. Live recordings, or compositions I’ve put together. Some of it has been worked on for years, other stuff I was literally making it up as I was going along, and you’re listening to it as it was “invented” in my head. So look at this as sort of a peek into my creative process, look at them as works in progress. It’s my way of saving snippets and fragments of ideas.
Keyboard stuff
I just picked up a midi keyboard, and have been figuring out where the notes are hiding. I’m surprised at how quick I’m picking it up, I’m just hitting keys and they’re slowly registering in my head. No lessons, no chord charts, this is how I learn. I wanted to put these up here to refer to later. The newer pieces are at the top of this section.
String Sweep
This was a weird one. I took a melody that I’d written earlier, and laid down the tracks in an editing program. I reversed the sound in the editor, played it back, and re-learned how to play it, in reverse, from the original version. Then I laid down a track playing it in reverse, coupled with the forward version, and started adding layers, both forward and reversed, and although this is a really confusing and complicated sounding piece to listen to, it’s haunting sounding, and I’m digging it big time. String Sweep
High Drama
Sometimes I amaze, and scare myself, and this is one of those times. I sat here one day wanting to see just what I could do if I tried to put together a long instrumental piece, as if I was doing a movie score or something. Anyway, it was nothing more than an exercise, to see how well I could string together the few chords I know, to see if I could transition from one theme to another, and make it into something longish, with lots of movements and feelings. I’m still playing with one hand, although I held down some drone notes with my left hand in this recording. But, for the most part, it’s all one handed.
I sat down at the keyboard, plugged it into the laptop, and recorded it live to the hard drive. There is zero editing on this at all, it’s raw, live, in the moment. I can find numerous places where I missed a note, or should have changed something here and there, as well as seeing the moment I ran out of ideas, places to go, and should have just stopped, but I kept going, pushing ideas. You’ll probably notice the moment the ideas ran out too, but I’ve left this, just as a record of what took place late one night.
So here you go, 41 minutes of music, unchanged, unedited, it is what it is, warts and all. It’s a big one at 37 megs in size. Right click, save to your hard drive, then play it from there. High Drama
Happy Melody
For lack of a better name, this is the Happy Melody. I woke up this morning with this song looping over and over in my head, so I sat down and figured out how to play it, which took just a couple of minutes. It’s still in it’s infancy, it’s mighty rough, but it’s the basic framework.
Second Test-
This is recorded as I played it live, no multi- tracking, no editing at all, and this is entirely my right hand. My left hand still doesn’t know what to do yet. So here you go, this is my first “composition” on keyboard, although it’s more of a collection of little things strung together. Anyway, here you go.
This is a small collection of music I’ve created over the years. As you listen to these, ignore the lack of technical expertise. I’m not a good technical player, there are occasional bad and missed notes- these recordings were done to record an idea. In the older pieces, Kim is playing rythym, I’m doing the lead. Anyway, here they are, as a way of preserving music I’ve created. Enjoy!
Roaming The Hillside- This song, as you hear it, was recorded back in the early 1980′s. It was “written” on the spot- I ran a $5.00 dictation cassette recorder, and it was recorded live, just as you hear it here. A few years ago, I found the cassette, so I digitized it, cleaned up and equalized as best as I could, and then laid some new tracks over it, now that I have the ability to multitrack. It would have been nice to have this sort of technology back then. roaming_the_hillside.mp3
Firedance- This was “written” somewhere around 2002, and was interesting for these reasons. I have music running through my head most of the time, and I’ve always wanted to try to capture this “head music” in order to share it with others. It was strange to be able to grab my guitar and lay down all these different tracks without ever playing it before. So, to me, this is special song, as it’s one that runs through my head quite often, and I can finally share it with the rest of the world. How cool is that?
firedance.mp3
Hoosier Daddy- This one was recorded back in the early 1980′s, using the same cheesy tape recorder. I sat down with a friend, turned on the tape recorder, and this is the result. This song, every bit of it, was created on the spot as you hear it. Sometimes musicians click, and this is a perfect example.
hoosier_daddy.mp3
Out of Nowhere- This song was recorded originally in the early 1980′s. This was another one where my buddy Kim and I sat down, turned on a cassette deck, and just started inventing songs on the spot. This one is magical to me, since it was invented as you listen to, exactly as it is presented here. Neither of us had played this song, or any of these riffs, before this moment. Yet somehow we knew where it would take us- we’d split off into different directions, and come back together again. We finish, then try another take on it, feeling it out a little more. Lots of missed notes on this one.
out_of_nowhere.mp3
Rain Song- I play by ear, and to me, this sort of thing is normal and natural. At the end of this song, you hear a comment or two, then you hear the second take on it, again, made up on the spot. This one was recorded back in the early 1980′s, during a rain storm, heard in the background. Sadly, this recording still has a lot of noise in it, but you get the idea of where we were going with it, a different take of Out Of Nowhere.
rain_song.mp3
Traveling- This is another song that’s been running through my head for many, many years. I decided to try to record it for others to listen to, and this is pretty close. Oddly, this one plays only when I’m on the road, traveling through the countryside. The only thing missing is the lead riffs done on violin, omitted only because I no longer have a violin. traveling.mp3