ad infinitum finis.

"So I stumble across your blog and I'm astonished to the point of sorrow at how beautiful this stuff is. All of it. The music that is somewhere between the sound that the Universe makes as it spins, and the melody that exits two lover's mouths as they kiss. 

Incredible. All of it."

So it is finally finished. A piano sonata of sorts and a concerto and a rock song all rolled up together somehow. It is called Ad Infinitum. It is available in three parts (sans vocal line of course) for streaming/download on my reverbnation page.

---

And for some reason this one means something. I don't know why. Maybe cos I've been telling myself all this while that I needed at least three demos before I could start really putting this sh*t out there. Maybe cos this one stretched every fathomable ability I have performing, composing, orchestrating, recording, mixing and mastering. Maybe cos it seems to come closest to this mess I always hear in my head. Every day. Whilst walking back and forth between offices at work. Doing dishes. Running. Trying to sleep. Trying to concentrate on anything else.

And so this is the third.

_cheers

ad infinitum.

... to continue forever, without limit, non-terminating, repeating ...

So the inductive hyphothesis goes 'if a statement holds true for some n, then the statement also holds true when n + 1 is substituted for n.' The proof was written over a millenium ago to prove in part the validity of Pascal's triangle which is a brilliant but simple array of binomial coefficients that continue ...

... ad infinitum ...

we have traveled to distant stars

searched through mirrors at who we are

at where we are from

at where we have come

our infinite sequence is one

by inductive proof must continue ad infinitum

This is just the first part. This was the easy part. The second part and ending will be my most ambitious orchestration and recording yet in an attempt to feebly put to soundwaves what I hear in my head.

MP3 sans straining vocals is available for streaming and download on my reverbnation site.

_cheers

ferocity and fragility.

MP3 files (the song had to be uploaded in three parts) available for streaming/download on my reverbnation page. Or playable from the widget at the top of the column on the right ...

---

The idea.

Finally. It is finished. I posted the intro a while ago. But this is finally the whole thing. A song in three parts fourteen minutes long. A piano. An orchestra. A choir. A band. A voice. And now it is finished. This is just a demo. This is just the beginning.

[is there still hope for us?]

[is there still time for us?]

we torture ourselves

we have all this fear

we have all this rage

we have lost ourselves

through our course of action

our ignorance sustained

what have we learned

what have we to say

of how

of how

we have lost our way

and we

and we have lost our way

we must be the ones to save us from ourselves while there is still time

there is still hope for us

(if we learn)

there is still hope for us

(if we see)

there is still hope for us

The voice singing to the rising crescendo above the orchestra and choir as it builds and builds and builds and builds and builds there is still time for us.

...

cheers

ferocity.

This is part of the mess. This is just the introduction. This is nothing.

And there is an MP3 linked here in case the player does not work.

I must now finish the piano cacophony that comes in after this introduction. And then the rebuilding and utter crescendo of all the instruments this all just came to me by accident out of nowhere like everything else of course and at last then the ending symphonic and slow and beautiful and haunting and wonderful probably only to me but that is okay key signature and tempo changes and a Bechstein in a corner alone and an orchestra and all of this shit once in my head then in Logic now out there.

cheers

this mess i hear.

For whatever reason it just looks messy. It is messy. And I cannot seem to get the arpeggio or the huge massive minor theme or the quiet simplistic motif or the interlude or the cadenza or the looping synths or the strings or the strains of a Bechstein then huge triple forte chords or the samples or the ending out of my head.

... someday I will actually finish this mess.

strains of herodotus.

I probably should not post this cos it was thought up and recorded in a day. Sunday morning this simple totally basic pathetic arpeggio in my head so sat down at the Bechstein for a bit. Played. I don't know I liked it totally basic all pathetic. Looped it to itself. Then to some strings. Banged the ending on the piano. Some change to B chromatic then to end on E♭ minor. Quick mastered the 2-track but very rough. As always just an idea. Just an idea that conveys nothing or so I think. If anything this is less messy than the other song I am working on which is totally jumbled and crazy right now in my head. And the dozens of others some enormous cacophony I cannot quiet down. I still hear it looping. I hear a voice singing rising with the music to some total crescendo lyrics scrawled ink in a notebook lying on top of the Bechstein its ebony scratched and worn. I hear the enormous E♭ minor chord. I hear a louder orchestra than Logic or some digital domain can contain. I cannot get this out of my head but must go to sleep. For now.

We gaze beyond the veils

beyond the seas beyond the stars

we seek to find the light

to find the way to hold what is ours

beyond our sorrows beyond our pains

to prove in time our finite loss yields infinite gains

like histories before us we strain

we strain

we strain

we strain

we strain

...

An MP3 file is linked here. Cheers. Goodnight.

just an example.

So I have been thinking a lot about stuff and the fact that I have been writing music for a while now to myself in my living room on my Bechstein and in my head and in Logic and that is all well and good except it is no longer good enough. When I was in my twenties I was writing music. Songs like Radiohead or Suede or concertos for pianofortes and orchestras. When I was in high school I was writing piano sonatas and this instrumental concept album of sorts. All of eighteen years old or so I went out and wrote a letter to the guitarist Marty Friedman to ask if he would want to collaborate with me. A year later he replied sure send him a tape. I never followed through. When I was ten I wrote my first song. Uh, yeah. And up until roughly three years or so ago I was convinced it was all crap. Well, maybe not all of it. The concertos for pianoforte and orchestra were impressive albeit incredibly daunting and I had come comfortably to the realization that they would end up being finished much later in my life when I had lived and had time to fully ingest and then reformulate into music and motifs and orchestral power larger than life all of those experiences and ideas which to me was perfectly fine.

But these songs that have been going on in my head and now transposed onto the Bechstein and in Logic have been bugging me because I am quite convinced they are actually not crap. Which is believe it or not one incredibly huge step for me. I tend to think everything I produce is crap.

But anyways this is all really just to say recently I finally stepped out from behind my walls to start networking to find other musicians that may see and understand my vision and be able to collaborate in a way that is impossible just me at my piano in my living room. It was tough posting MP3s. Not because I think they are crap. Well, partly they are because they are a fraction of what I hear in my head. But sharing does not come easily. But since it is out there ... I felt like those MP3s really did not give a glimpse at maybe what I really have been working on.

So I threw together this minute and forty seconds of sound tonight to hopefully give anyone who comes across my reaching out to get a better sense of what I mean when I say however it is that I describe this stuff in my head. 'Symphonic Rock.' Something like Muse. My often-used adjective 'furious.' I don't know.

After the intro and the time/tempo change the singer comes in. Moments of delicateness. And then it builds. And builds. And builds. Overdriven guitar arpeggios up and down. Furious piano arpeggios and those big fat chords! Drums beating harder and harder. The driving bass line comes back in. Vocal line soaring. Rising and rising. Crescendo. Crescendo. Crescendo.

It is not finished. It is still just a fraction of what I hear in my head. It is just an example.

Linked file is here.

cheers