Music

• Of the two following MIDI recordings, the original version involves the piano, while I adapted it for a chamber quartet that played at a community band concert in East Longmeadow, Massachusetts on August 12, 2008.  The piece was inspired by my memory of the subject of the similarly-titled photograph on the "Photographs" page:

          A Lonely Winter Night in Rural Central New York (Piano)

          A Lonely Winter Night in Rural Central New York (Chamber)

• I started to write a piece in January 2008 based on some music I imagined accompanying the noontime chiming of gothic cathedral near my apartment one starkly grey and slightly snowy noontime.  The piece turned out to form four distinct sections, which I eventually gave titles describing nightmares I've had over the years that I was reminded of by each section.  The final section, though, is actually comprised of musical material I heard in a dream several years ago, anyway; it was a dream where I was sinking into a glacier.  The first three sections are, respectively, "Sadaam Hussein's Sermon in an Old Graveyard's Chapel", "Lost in an Expansive Dangerous Ghetto", and "An Enormous Labyrinthine Cathedral".  (This is a MIDI realization):

          Fearful Images

•  The following is a recording of a piano improvisation inspired by a powerful summer thunderstorm:

           Life-Affirming Rain-Storm

• The following is a recording of a piano improvisation based on musical ideas I felt represented the wedding of my friend Sofia, now Sofia DeGraff:

          Sofi DeGraff's Wedding

• This is a MIDI realization of a short choral piece:

          Olden Song

• The following clip is a song meant to be part of a music video that takes a farcical look at Christian nationalism.  The video, only still images, is in the works at the moment and will be posted on Youtube once finished.  The instruments used are synthesized piano and strings, glockenspiel, synthesized double bass, a replica of a small medieval drum, and, of course, voice.  The parts were overlapped using Apple's Garageband program:
  

          The Kingdom of (In)justice

• This is a short improvisation based on some loose musical ideas I thought of in light of an emotional decision.  Within a few hours, I felt a shift in my outlook on my future as I thought through the factors involved in choosing between two paths––one mostly inspired by emotion, and the other mostly by reason.  The piece is a tribute to the path I chose to neglect and the deep joys it would certainly hold.  The overall context of confident hopefulness in this piece, though, reflects my peace in spite of the jarring sadness involved in straying from such an opportunity:

          Two Paths

• The following is based on a melody that has been floating through my mind for years.  I recorded one variation of it a few years ago to make sure I remembered it.  I finally thought to put it to some use, though, by placing it within a context of a showtune––but in the absence of any real or imagined show.  I'm not even very much into showtunes, but this musical idea seemed best treated as imagined in that context somehow.  It is imagined as a lullaby sung regarding love as a way to deflect despair.  The link goes to a spotty video-recorded performance of it on youtube.com:

          Moon's Lullaby  

• The following clip is a piano reduction (not without mistakes) of the second movement of a piece to be called Cycles which is meant to symbolize the cycles of birth, life, and death.   This second movement, called "Tragedy and Healing", describes the nature of life as a series of small to large tragedies which one can always heal from--its first section embodies "tragedyness" while the second section embodies "healingness".

• This is a MIDI realization of a short pieces that aims to describe the experience of driving through the White Mountains of New Hampshire:

          A Drive Through the White Mountains of New Hampshire

• This is a MIDI realization of a movement from a piece entitled Lenthy Childhood.  This movement is intended to capture the usual upbeat nature of children:
  

          A Collection of Happy Moments

• The following clip is a MIDI realization of a piece entitled A Dream of Other Worlds:

          A Dream of Other Worlds

• The following clip is a MIDI realizations of a piece with two movements packed into one, like the trinity, only with two things.  (There just is no pause in between the movement.)

          I and II

• This is an improvisation whose ideas are to be used in a piece descriptive of a forest and all its flurry of activity:

          Forest Piece Improvisation

• The following is a MIDI realization of a score to a story I wrote entitled "Positive Images" about a lonely man who meets an angel in the woods at night.  The angel shows him visions of how love can change the world:

          Score to "Positive Images"

• The following clip is an improvisation of a shenhai, 'ud, ney (with a  clarinet mouthpiece over it),  male voice, small gong, and an Egyptian tambourine rik that is meant to be incidental music played by characters in one of my stories, An Obscure Place--this music will be part of the "score" to be listened to as the story is read:

          Conglomeration of Ideas

• The following two clips are experiments in sound to accompany the sense of strangeness in finding an underground world in An Obscure Place.  The first, "Experiment", uses a stir drum, a spike fiddle, a Bolivian flute, an Egyptian tambourine rik, and egg shakers.  The second recording entitled "Music Accompanying Sight-Seeing in a New Land", uses a talking drum, a beaten (with a heavy cloth beater) and shaken tambourine, two three-headed agogos which are wooden and metal, a medium-sized triangle, a maraca shaken by the head (not the handle), a practice chanter, and a soprano gopachand:

          Experiment

          Music Accompanying Sight-Seeing in a New Land

• The following clip is a "soundscape" focusing on the sound of the bass shakuhachi while accompanying its improvisation with synth strings and a kalimba.  The ideas presented here may be used as part of the "score" of An Obscure Place.  The bass shakuhachi played here was made by the expert Shakuhachi-maker and artist, Perry Yung.  Check out his flutes at:  yungflutes.com!:

          Meditation--A Beginner Playing the Shakuhachi; Dedicated to Perry Yung

• This is an intentionally humorous but musically serious-sounding song I wrote recently.  The link goes to youtube where I posted a "music video" along with a recording of the song (poor drawings I did to accompany the song):

  Maybe I'm a Bee 

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