photo credit: Roomic Cube
Feeling a bit under the weather tonight.  Short compositional treat at the piano, but really nothing much in new material.  Looked at some old with fresh analytical eye.  Last evening in bed, sketched out a brief outline of the sections and the tonal areas for the work.  Feeling pretty good about [...]

Continue reading " Fever "

photo credit: frozenchipmunk
On this Saturday, after catching up on errands and exercise, I started in on notating down the opening measures, which turned into an exercise of relativity.  Notating down the accompaniment – is it 4/4 with 8th notes; or is it 7/4 with quarters; or is it 3:2 8th notes in 4/4; or [...]

Continue reading " Timing "

Spent most of the day listening to concerti, starting with Ravel and Prokofiev and ending with Saint Saen, of all composers.  Ravel’s G major concerto is still in my opinion the most perfect piano concerto ever written –  too many technical reasons to mention here but lets just underline the whole thing with the word balanced [...]

Continue reading " xmas day "

I’ve been slow on these posts, simply matter of factly about them, as if the summer days were really closer together.  One day between the next, when weeks arch between thoughts…those ideals…that blend into smudges on paper, rather than real ideas.
Outside of the distraction of a few road trips, I’ve been spending my usual time [...]

Continue reading " Summer months "

48 songs is quite a bit to dish out, so I’ll just begin with a start and add a few every day.  Reminder that these songs are not all the ultimate greatest songs of all time, and certainly I left a lot of good ones in my listening bin.  These are songs I felt I [...]

Continue reading " List continued "

Finally have a pruned down a first draft list of 48 songs that I think are fairly representative of pop/rock/alternative and sometimes folk influences.  It’s difficult to determine a fair criteria that would cover everyone’s needs.  For my own, these are a good representation of lyrics and hooky materials that I think can be used [...]

Continue reading " The List "

Song organization is occupying most of my compositional time these days, as I try to get a handle around educating myself with the craft of song writing.  After fishing and perusing the billboards for what I thought were signifiant artists – artists who’s production was balanced and who emphasizes good writing / lyrics –  I have finally [...]

Continue reading " Composing Status "

photo credit: TheSeafarer
Trying to start the habit again of writing about whatever I am thinking about as it related to my own continual growth as a composer, or a virtual thinking one, I am back here at the old blog.  I guess its been almost 2 years since I started this thing.  Time really [...]

Continue reading " Back at the Helm "