Paul - 13 minutes 23 seconds

Strings and Piano - written for Paul.

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It’s a crazy information overload world – especially for those of us who live in front a screen. Where do you start: email, internet, tweetdeck, rss feed, facebook or the word document and spreadsheet that you’re supposed to be working on – the telephone rings, a colleague appears – the distractions are endless and procrastination could now be an Olympic sport.

I find that the right kind of music can be critical to me actually starting something and this piece is one of my favorites for that. It starts out so simple and clean, delicate piano, aching string melody – it actually calms me down and helps me decide where I want to focus. But there’s a change at around 10:00 minutes, the energy of the piece just picks up and whether I like it or not, I start typing – it’s great! If I’m lucky, the next time I look up is when the piece is nearing the end.

Written for Paul Ruffin, owner of ECI Networks, a fabulous bass player and all round good guy.

The music2work2 Writer's Playlist

Charlotte - 10 minutes 9 seconds

Strings and Piano - written for Charlotte.

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So this is Charlotte's session - who knows how this music comes out but I do think of her and smile when I listen to this piece

Two strings based upon three distinct piano themes. I particularly like the third one in 5 / 4 time. The piece could come across as pretty melancholic and dark - when you look at what she has been through - I guess that's appropriate - but there is a certain hope to the piece - lots of positive resolution.

I think for me, one of the things I learned at EDNF and through my friendship with Charlotte is that you can either sit there and complain or you can get up off your butt (if that's physically possible!) and do something. Charlotte and I try to do something every day and together we have taken music2work2 from an idea to a reality. I could not have done it without her and for that I thank her with all my heart.

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Charlotte is part of The Reader’s Playlist.

Cassie - 20 minutes 1 second

Strings, piano and a church organ - written in memory of a good friend .

Put the words “Creative Process” into Google and you’ll get over 95 million results – maybe I should read a few but I’m inherently suspicious of patented 4 step systems, 5 stage cycles or 8 discrete states of consciousness.

Creativity is the Holy Grail for composers – at least it is for me. The idea that by the time I have finished, there will be something that hasn’t existed in that form before is both thrilling and terrifying. If I think too much about it I get paralyzed – for me it’s kind of like the late Douglas Adams’ approach to Flying.

So, I sit at the piano, often with a metronome keeping time in the background and I play; I play anything that comes to mind, whatever my fingers want to come up with, doesn’t matter if I’ve played it before or if it belongs to someone else – I just play – and then – I start to think about something.

Cassie was Charlotte’s companion and I wrote this for her after Cassie had passed away. Charlotte has far better words than I do – you can read about Cassie here.