MP3

Eaten by Snakes

A guitar orientated Fusion piece with a few "outside" elements and a funk feel. Faintly influenced by John Scofield, Bill Bruford, and maybe Mike Stern.

This needs some Sax melodies or solos in the 7/8 pad section. Now that I've bought new recording gear I'll be finishing this off as I originally intended.

1

Aardvark's Delight 

An acoustic tune. Slight echoes of Ralf Towner. Used my Greg Smallman guitar for the steel string parts. 

Flying Glass

Another guitar based Fusion piece with a kind of soaring melody. Can't say who I was influenced by when I wrote this one. 

This is a shortened version. I need to add a Sax solo and redo the "scratch" guitar solo which was recorded to give the drummer something to work to.

2

Drawing Room

A little classical piano ditty.

Messaien Around

This is an attempt at 12 tone serialism for flute, marimba, and Piano. Messiaen wasn't a serialist, he had his own system, but I didn't want facts getting in the way of a great musical pun.

Bartock Smartock

Another little classical piano ditty.

RTFM

A little classical piano ditty built around a D pedal. Reminded me very slightly of Chick Corea, hence the title.

More Arse than Glass

While I was at uni we had to write a piece in a minimalist style. Just to prove I can be as talent less, repetitive, and pretentious I wrote MATG and sat around congratulating myself on my cleverness. Just like a true minimalist piece
the focus is on the process rather than the musical result.

It deliberately  contains a few elements from Light Wind, I guess you could regard them as companion pieces or part of a suite. 


The piece is based on a few simple concepts:

The use of pedal notes to create different tonal centers underneath an ostinato figure. I tried randomizing the durations and progression of these
The opening chords start off and gradually collapse in time. i.e. they become quicker and closer together.

The main ostinato figure is a 13/4 figure played in 8th notes. It eventually resolves to a Bm tonal centre.

E |: G B D F#, E B F#, D A E, G F# D E, F# C# G, G B F#, F# B E, C# A :|



This melody/riff/ostinato figure is built up in an additive way on Marimba i.e.

E, E G, E G B, E G B D, E G B D F#
1, 1 2, 1 2 3, 1 2 3 4, 1 2 3 4 5 ETC

It takes about 3 minutes to have the full melody played all the way (bells) through without doubling back on itself.

Glass is the only composer to be sent up on both the Simpsons and South Park. What a tosser!

The melody has a countermelody (flute) which comes in at frequent intervals to help avoid total boredom. (Which means it fails as a piece of minimalism.)

Towards the end the main melody is tripled and the other instruments are offset by an 8th note or 2, which seems to give it a slightly Gamelan type quality.

It does have minimalist elements.

Probably best listened to in the background.

Desert March 

I had a very vague image of some kind of relentless desert journey; hence the driving log drum and bass parts. The core idea of this composition goes back a long way and it's mutated many times. 

McCoy Tyner, Santana, and Keith Jarret were the very tenuous influences for this piece.

The composition is not finished and needs melodies written for the floaty bits with all the key changes. It also needs solos in the middle and to take it out to the climax at the end.

I'm leaning toward Sax solos or violin. I don't hear any guitar in my minds' ear, certainly not distorted electric. Maybe mandolin, nylon acc, or my ES-175.

I've finally bought some new recording gear and can now complete this tune and about 10 others I've written.

Although unfinished I thought I'd throw it up there in case I'm run over by a bus, or eaten by snakes. While this may not be one of my best compositions, it's the one I like the most.

The Visitor

A Sonic Soundscape. An electronic collage. No guitar on this one folks; move on, nothing to see here.

I imagined walking on a dark deserted
moor at night. I see lights in the distance in a disused quarry.

I hoped that that track would arouse images of lonely places, mystery, danger etc. You be the judge. I'd be interested in how other people are affected by it.

It's pretty long and not really music; it might make a soundtrack for a movie scene.

Reverie

I had the 1st part written for ages, but got stuck for the rest. Came home after a 2 month holiday in Italy and Greece and the rest wrote itself in an afternoon.

This is a re-recording of my SRV Chordal solo done on my new DAW and using my newly acquired Fractal AXE-FX Ultra. I used a modified version of the UD chorus patch that's floating around the web.

Fender Strat Plus, Area 58,58,61 pups, direct from the Ultra to mixer to computer. No extra EQ, or FX. I added a little limiting in SoundForge for the mastering.

Stevie

A strange mixture of Jan Akkerman, Satriani, and SRV. You could describe it as a blues/pop instrumental

Light Wind

This is a midi prog rock piece I wrote over 30 years ago. Written in the innocence of youthful enthusiasm it's a bit corny now. Still, it does have elements I still like and I'll rerecord it (eventually) with guitar parts and better synth sounds to freshen it up.

I used the 13/4 section many years later in MATG so the pieces have some slight connection.

The Winds 12 Quarters  

COMING SOON

Drifting

 COMING SOON

BLANK

MORE TUNES COMING SOON