Richard - 13 minutes 52 seconds

Multiple strings over two distinct piano themes inspired by my brother, Richard.

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My older brother has his birthday every year on the same day, the 11th of December - it is the most normal thing about him. He is an amazing human being and I love him. This was written for his 41st birthday - the opening cadence was sung in my head, "Richard my brother," and off it goes.

I experimented a lot with this track. the core piano theme came first and defined the structure. I then laid 4 different string voices on top, one pass after the other without listening to the previous pass. By then removing what didn't work, I arrived at what you hear now; a piece for a string quartet with piano. This is another piece that I look forward to sitting down and developing if I ever get time!

It was Richard who opened a door to this magical musical world in which I now live and adore, I will be eternally grateful for his invitation.

The dramatic change in the piece at around six and half minutes is a variation on one of Richard's creations. We have played music together for most of our lives and he is a terrific singer songwriter guitarist and musician. This is a variation on a song called "This Way Out" from the Stirling Brig years. I always loved his lyrics, they were always - and still are - from his heart - and "This Way Out" spoke volumes to me.

Coming out of that variation back into the core theme at ten minutes or so, I'm trying to create a sense of hope and optimism. Which is of course what I wish for him and his family.

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Richard is part of The Thinker's Playlist.

Identification - 14 Minutes 13 Seconds

Soothing Strings & Piano, written to assist information assimilation

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This was written to accompany a particular event concerned with identification.

Here is the reasoning:

Objective: Enhance the delivery of visual and verbal information through the creation of an auditory environment that stimulates the receiver's awareness without distracting them from the core message.

Target audience: Corporate / Government professionals

Environment: Tradeshow, busy exhibition hall, display booth

Having looked at the nature of the project, my instinct was to deliver something very calming. Having worked booths at trade shows, I know how busy and frenetic the environment can be; the very nature of a trade show means that attendees are receiving huge amounts of information in a short space of time.

The whole point of "background" music is that it is not the primary information, when reviewing the efficacy of a piece, it is important to be undertaking the kind of behavior that the piece was produced for. That's a long way of saying - be looking at the slides and think about what you will be doing when this is playing!

The piece is predominately string based which allows for longer continuous tones which in turn reduces the need for constant change and therefore potential distraction. Considered change is necessary however, to signal that new information is coming; say a change in a slide, or a verbal discourse, etc etc. To reflect this kind of behavior I adopted a piano 'motif" that appears throughout the piece.

The underlying construction of the piece is a gently ascending movement in a major key. Western ears associate this with positive, hopeful and uplifting outcomes.

At 14 minutes long, it should cover the amount of time that one individual will spend at the booth - also - it shouldn't be too annoying for the people who have to work the booth and hear it again, and again, and again......!!! I have a fear of coming back as an Ice Cream Van man and being sentenced to listen to Scott Joplin's "The Entertainer" for a living eternity!

The piece is written at 61 beats per minute - "heartbeat" rate - calming. I wondered about this a lot - having a more up-tempo and dynamic piece can actually add to the energy of the environment and facilitate the information delivery.

I used a Korg Triton that has excellent piano tones and relatively good string tones - please note that there is a definite difference in quality between digitally produced and real strings. For music that has to stand alone - I would not use "synthesized" strings - however, for this kind of music I think it is very appropriate (let alone economically expedient!)

Identification is part of The Reader's Playlist.

New Layout, iTunes and CDs

This is a super quick post 'cos it's late and I'm jolly tired - but - I just finished the new layout for the music2work2 site - new album colors, fully linked up album pages with links to mysongstore, iTunes and CDBaby.  I am very stoked - you can visit the music2work2 home page here. I didn't really get near the blog this week - spent more time on the resume - getting a new gig is a priority - having said that - I now feel much better about people coming to music2work2.  I've still got work to do on liner notes but its pretty close.  OK - Sleeeeeeeeeeeep