MUSIC
WE ARE THE MUSIC WHILE THE MUSIC LASTS


MY
SONGS
COMPOSITION
PROGRAMS
WRITING PERFORMING
MUSICAL
GOALS
 EQUIPMENT THOUGHTS GETTING
GIGS

FAVORITE
MUSIC
MUSIC
HISTORY
BOOKS MY
SKILLS
  
FAVORITE
COMPOSERS
REQUESTS RECORDING MY
GIGS

Ex-Beatles Welcome (C'mon Paul, play with me!)

MY SONGS lyrics, & the stories behind them. Audio not yet available
 
A FORCE OF NATURE Epic Saga
EXPRESSING Latin Jazz
YA GOTTA BELIEVE Acoustic Funk
EVERYONE Rousing March
A BETTER PLACE Caribbean flavor
ALL NIGHT LONG Rock Ballad
BORN AGAIN Honky Tonk
EVERYTHING'S CHANGE East Indian style
TERRIBLE TED Country Waltz
LIVE Island Music
JUST LIKE YOU Circus music
TO THE EARTH Ballad
THE WISDOM OF MY YOUTH
Ballad
GOD GIVES YOU WHAT YOU NEEDFolk
BIRDS OF AMERICA Jazz
WHAT ELSE IS KINDNESS FOR Gospel
BLASTED Pop
BUSINESS & PLEASURE
Pop
FLOWERS IN THE SUN Pop Fantasy
WISH Pop
I SEE MYSLF IN YOU Ballad
 

  MUSICAL GOALS  
 

 > To write complex instrumental music with many mathematical bells & whistles going on. Something both intellectually and emotionally compelling.
> to Write a piece that could actually changes people's consciousness. I believe sound has abilities we have not begun to tap into yet
> To write the musical equivalent of those "magic pictures" that you stare at to see hidden images
> To write the music that I hear in my head
> To record great "pictures in sound" albums like the Beatles did with George Martin. To use the recording medium as a painter uses the canvas
> To write the ultimate "Going to the bathroom" song. It will be more ubiquitous than "Happy Birthday"
> To write music that brains on chairs might enjoy
> I've always been torn between writing "head" music (ie serious instrumental pieces that blaze new musical trails), and "heart" music (songs that compel & exhilarate). Right now, I'm in the "heart" mode, but I hope to have time to get back to my classical pursuits someday.
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 FAVORITE MUSIC 
 

My tastes are basically mainstream rather than avant garde. I tend to like the works that have been tested by time and filtered through the masses. There are more great works on the trodden path because more work is done there, and there are more tools and materials available. I don't deny the value of experimental music, but, both as a listener and composer, I prefer the fully developed flower of a genre to the germ or seed.
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 > As a prelude to new listeners, I suggest you give each new piece at least two listenings before making a judgment. Large scale works reveal the secrets slowly.
Bach : The Brandenburg Concertos / Jesu, Joy of Mans Desiring / Air on a G String / Anything!
Beethoven : Symphonies 3 through 9
Tchaikovsky : Symphonies 4,5, &6 / Romeo & Juliet Fantasy / 1812 Overture / Serenade for Strings / Piano Concerto #1
> Stravinsky : Pulcinella Suite / Firebird Suite / Symphonies for Wind Instruments / Dumbarton Oaks Concerto / King of the Stars
> Any Beatles album: The early ones have the raw exuberance that made them famous, The later ones (except for Get Back) have sophisticated brilliance.
> Any Billy Joel album: And there are many. for over three decades, He's been writing the best American pop.
> Recorded songs: Abbey Road Golden Slumbers medley / American Pie / Starry Starry Night / Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me / Hotel California / Scenes from an Italian Restaurant / All You Need is Love / The Pretender
> Performers on record: Jimi Hendrix / Janis Joplin / most Motown


> I heard a poor street musician playing "Inky Dinky Spider" slowly, in a minor key
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FAVORITE COMPOSERS
 

> Tchaikovsky : His 1812 Overture (on the Quaker puffed wheat commercial) got me interested in classical music. He is loud, passionate, and, at his best, beyond sublime. He is the rock & roller of the romantic era
> Beethoven : No-frills brilliance. His music is brave and noble. I use it to chase ghosts The maestro of the classical era
> Bach : A big fat genius. There is Baroque music, and then there is Bach. This guy obviously spoke directly to God. There is no other way to explain it
> Billy Joel: In my opinion, the greatest songwriter of his day. Musically and lyrically intelligent, passionate and proficient. A worthy successor to Cole Porter, etal
> Paul Simon: Verbose, but very representative of his time & place. I love the Album "Bookends" done early in his career, with Art Garfunkle
> Igor Stravinsky : The last of the great symphonic composers. Complex, darkly beautiful. I use it to summon ghosts
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COMPOSITION PROGRAMS
 

 I've written programs in BASIC on my Apple II that send out pitch class numbers to a sound card. Some examples:
> Random melodies of length x using y unique pitches
> Variations on melodies such as pivots, inversions, sequences, "least pitch class" transpositions of segments, and more
> Extract melodies from harmonic progressions, and vice versa.
> Random melodies of predetermined contour (this is useful for finding a melody for an existing lyric line, using its inherent inflection to suggest a contour)
> If you'd like to exchange compositional techniques / ideas , email me, please!
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EQUIPMENT
 

 > MIDI keyboard, Roland JV1010 Sound Module , Cakewalk Metro recording program, Macintosh G3, GR30 guitar synthesizer, Acoustic & electric guitars, bass guitar, cello
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 MUSIC HISTORY 
 

>  Our pop songs of today are a type of urban folk music. They reflect the manners, customs, and habits of everyday people.
> What do we sing about? War, peace, crime, love, home, family, sports, transportation, clothes, games, dances, humor and Gibberish (hey nonny nonny abba dabba mairzy doats boppa hooma mow ramma lamma ding dong)
> 1877 - people were really weirded out by Edison's new phonograph machine, but once it caught on, the record companies scoured the country for music of all kinds to record
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REQUESTS
 

>  If any of the stuff I'm doing interests you or you think we could collaborate on something, give a shout.
> I'd be interested in moving my writing of composition programs to a more modern computer (my Mac G3). Any advice on how to do it?
> I'd love to record a collection of jump-rope songs from around the world. Got any to share?
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 WRITING
 


> I prefer not to write lyrics about romantic love. It's been done quite a bit. I'd rather write about abiding, unsung subjects like Nature, animals, and spirituality. (well, ain't I special !) ( <- self-deprecating sarcasm) (<-double-reverse humility gambit)
 > LYRICS - Keep notebooks everywhere (car, home, work, etc), and jot down every catchy word or phrase that pops into your head / Look for plays on words, vice-versa's, alliterations / Get a thesaurus, rhyming & regular dictionaries / read books on topics that interest you, & keep notes / In both lyric and musical writing, generate lots of little ideas over time, and when you have quiet time, peruse them and see how you can expand them or fit them together - you can't just sit and wait for inspiration (unless your Mozart)
> My overall technique can be described by my motto "Volume,Volume,Volume". Generate tons of stuff, and statistically, some of it's bound to be good (..and the wisdom to know the difference). That's how nature works - she generates tons of stuff, & we humans decide what is "good" or "bad"
> Try thinking of music as the stage and the sets, and lyrics as the characters in a play
> Associate sounds with colors and images. Look around and hear the scenery. Get used to hearing that faint music in your head - it's always there. You move to its rhythms without even realizing it. This is not to say you shouldn't study compositional techniques - they are the tools, but the raw material comes from within.
> Becoming a composer is not that hard anymore, now that instrumental virtuosity is not required. You don't even have to be able to play in "real time". I'm planning books on music theory and compositional techniques to get novices composing & recording in a very short time. (I'm also planning to sprout fins and live with the dolphins)
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So, Herr Beethoven, how did you come to write the Moonlight Sonata? "Well, my bass player Horst and me were just tradin' riffs backstage between shows and it like just came to me man. And the 5th symphony, I wrote the whole thing in an hour on the carriage ride to Duke Wilhelm's. I had nothin' new for the gig, so I had to come up with somethin' quick. The 9th? In the shower.
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THOUGHTS
 

> Hearing is believing
> There's music for the moment, and there's music for all time
> You can tell a lot about people by the music they like (or dislike)
> To creatures much larger or much smaller than us, our music would be nothing but patterns of vibrations
> Time marches on - it does not boogie. A good march will never fall on deaf ears (spoken like a true Caucasian imperialist)
> Have you ever stayed in your car - or even kept driving past your destination - just to finish hearing a piece of music. Ain't it grand?
> Is western tonality inherent or artificial ? Would someone who had never heard it understand it ? Would they identify two notes an octave apart as the same note ?
> I'd love to hear the great symphonic works recorded directly from each instrument or section onto separate tracks and then mixed meticulously. Without all the vagaries of a big room, it would be quite different from anything we've heard before
> I think it's absurd to think that people older than a given age don't want or need new music aimed at them. Why do so many artists today disappear or stop creating (or resort to "the best of" albums) when they reach middle age? On the contrary, their work should only improve with age and experience. If senior citizens don't spend money on new music, it's only because they're not being offered art worthy of their attention. I hope the internet changes that
> The execution and recording of popular song has advanced steadily in quality. It has reached the level of a fine art, but the quality of the lyrics has hardly progressed past kindergarten poetry
> I'm sorry to see the practice of group singalongs at parties & family get - togethers disappearing. I have many pleasant memories as a boy, hearing my family singing the great old singalong standards. Modern songs just don't lend themselves to that kind of thing (oh my God, I'm an old fart!)
> Personally, I don't obsess over sound quality. To me, Bach would sound just as sweet on a cheap kazoo, and Shakespeare would be equally profound spoken by a parakeet (maybe even more so)
> In keeping with the modern phenomenon of group effort, I think the Beatles were a messiah-by-committe
> Coolest Musicians Ever: Those guys who played "Nearer My God to Thee" While the Titanic was sinking
> Someone told me that when the writer Aldous Huxley knew he was about to die, he put on some earphons and went out listening to Bach
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 BOOKS 
 

>  "American popular Songs" by David Ewen, Random House, 1966. A great overview of the entire subject
> 20th century Composition - Vincent Persichetti (a man I knew)
> Interesting books on composition (I forget the titles) by George Perle and by Paul Hindemith
> During the 70's and 80's, I gleaned much fascinating compositional information from Yale University's "Journal of Music Theory, and another periodical called "Perspectives in New Music"
> "All You Need is Ears", and "The Making of Sargent Pepper's" - George Martin
> Any biography of Tchaikovsky
> Any books about the Beatles
> To keep current on technical matters, "Electronic Musician" , "Keyboard", or similar magazines are essential
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RECORDING 
 

 > If you record at home, unplug the phone pull the shades, and obsess, baby. This is for keeps. If you have to rent expensive studio time, try doing it in small increments, and be very prepared for each. Try to create masters that can be changed or modified later if you wish. Bach, among others, sometimes reworked pieces years later, and we are the better for it
> I love the process of augmenting songs with sound effects and ambient sounds, creating little "plays" in sound
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PERFORMING
 

>  There's a fine line between rehearsing the spontaneity out of a piece and being under prepared. I like to practice hard for a few weeks before a gig, then slack off a day or two before the concert to keep it fresh, but I NEVER go onstage without at least holding my instrument and warming up a little.
> Don't hit your audience with too much unfamiliar material. Remember, they're "learning" each new tune, you already know them. Don't burn them out, mix in stuff they'll know
Rule 1; You must enjoy what your doing. Feel it. Have fun.
> My performing heroes were people who wrote their own material, stood there and performed it. No dancing. If you're gonna dance, you better be Fred Astaire or Nureyev
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 GETTING GIGS 
 

 > If you want to get started as an original performer, don't be afraid to do free gigs. In the beginning it ain't about the money, it's about finding your audience. Volunteer your services to any group or venue where you think you might fit in, and work just as hard as if you were being paid top dollar
> Join local songwriter groups. It's a good way to meet peers and find venues
> Get yourself a little web site like I did. Sell the artist, not just the art. All of my favorite artists led bizarre, passionate lives. That is part of the mystique. Perceiving the passion behind a Van Gogh painting or Tchaikovsky symphony only enriches the experience.
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