LITTLE BIRD

Composed/recorded "Little Bird" for nylon guitar (and some foley/sfx).

Drop-D tuning, and inspired by little birds :)

WOODPECKER

Composed/recorded "Woodpecker" for nylon guitar (and some foley/sfx).

D-G-D-G-A-E tuning, and this time woodpeckers :)

Used to be E-A-E-A-B-F# tuning, but the high F# kept breaking on me.

FOR RUFUS

Composed/recorded a guitar duet written for my old college buddy, the late Rufus Brown (1972-2005.) 

A composer/guitarist from Sycamore-IL, he was a wacky & nutty guy in the best ways possible, and a wonderful human being that is missed by many.

Siblings

A piece for string trio I had written a few years back (Octatonic-ish), and recorded in November 2021.

INTERFERENCE PATTERNS

12 free-form improvisations. We gave our recording engineer a bowl full of key signatures on paper scraps, and asked him to pull them out for us at random (we stick to them for the most part).

David Jennings, vibraphone (davidjenningsmusic.com)
Vikas Deo, guitar

BAROQUE DANCE FORMS

Composed in the Gigue, Allemande, Minuet & Trio dance forms, performed by pianist Dain Yoon. 

This was a re-composition of various movements from Bach's piano suites to start learning the voice leading of the Baroque musical language (not to strictly imitate it, but to be inspired by it.)

MOMENTS OF KIDDOM

Composed "Moments of Kiddom" for piano, performed by David Maki.

The idea was to try to evoke opposing emotions (i.e. fear + excitement) we may have experienced as kids, using octatonic pitch collections (i.e. half-whole diminished)

I. Ghost and the Graveyard

II. Forbidden Cookie Jar (2:14)

III. Lullaby For Little Creatures (3:38)

IV. Up The Wooden Giant (5:24)

Theme & Variations

Composed "Theme & Variations" for solo piano (this a MIDI mockup export from Finale.)

This was a continuation of an introduction to learning the Baroque musical language from the previous Baroque suite composition, choosing a different form this time (again -- not to strictly imitate it, but to be inspired by it.)

Half way through, I fortunately & unfortunately discovered Partimento. Although the system began to make some sense, I couldn't apply it to the process of composing this music -- so I had to move forward with what I knew at the time! 

That process reminded of the explanation of re-creating dinosaurs in Jurassic Park - as in, they inserted frog DNA into the dinosaur DNA to complete the missing pieces. Tha's more or less how I felt using the jazz knowledge I had to fill in the missing parts of the Baroque language I couldn't comprehend (pre-Partimento.)

3 PIECES FOR SOLO HARP

Composed "3 Pieces for Solo Harp" (based on the Indian Raag - Ahir Bhairav).

It was chosen for Stage 2 of the 3rd International Golden Harp Competition, September 15-22 2014, in Saint-Petersburg, Russia. I spent a week in Saint-Petersburg, courtesy of the International Golden Harp Competition.

This is the winner, Tatiana Alquati, performing the piece in Italy before the competition, and Joel von Lerber in the 2nd round at the competition in Saint-Petersburg

BIG BAND CHARTS

Big band charts for WMS Gaming slot machines, "Up, Up, & Away" and "Free Spin Bonanza".

I hadn't written big band charts before this (aside from some small jazz combo arrangements way way back in undergrad) -- so this was an on-the-job-crash-course using Gary Lindsay's Jazz Arranging Techniques (what a great book that is!)

These were tracked one section at a time for logistical reasons (rhythm section in the morning, brass section in the early afternoon, and sax section/woodwinds late afternoon.) Since these were for games, I needed to be able to have all the sections separated out to use for different scenarios in gameplay. But also, we couldn't get everyone to come in at the same time :)

Luckily, these were for Monopoly themed games, so anything resembling a more modern big band sound wasn't needed --- which would not have not been doable in the short time span I had to learn & do :) 

Digital mockup of a Sitar and Orchestra piece I had written with sitarist Gaurav Mazumdar.

Gaurav played quite a bit of material (to a click) into my little field recorder, which I then chopped up, slightly re-arranged, and then created the MIDI orchestral arrangement mockup to support his parts. The sitar part in is Raag "Shayam Kalyan" is real -- the orchestral parts are not :)

Film music cues I'd done in Mr. Robert Drasnin's (1927-2015 ) film music classes;

He was a television/film composer & teacher at UCLA Extension. He laid out scenarios, and we wrote to them. 

He was a wonderful teacher and human being, and we were lucky to have him :)