really beautiful and lush composition and performance

In my description for my last personal composition, Painted In Pastels, I talked about a certain harmonic language or style that flowered in the late sixties, early seventies. I mentioned Sondheim and his work, especially from the same said time. This to me is a towering achievement of what I was talking about. I was just floored digging into the music. The better a musician I become the more this piece impresses me.

Send In The Clowns

Within This World (for Piano)

A dark, fateful opening ushers in the vast expanse of the Pandemic Suite. The bassoon strikes a motif of destiny— a solemn call, answered with heavy hearts by the string orchestra.
Inevitable, unrelenting, chord upon chord presses forward, until the music finds its root— the home key, like fate fulfilled.
A dark entry-gate to the 31-part Suite.

Pandemic Suite – 01. Prologue

Tempo 148 BPM
Timing 4/4
Tuning 421.6Hz A ~ Wolfgang Amadé style 🫡


Cleansed

I hold my hands up
I was naive
That AI poison made it to my feed
I gave them real
The full passion
But right now music needs full real ration

Deleted
Forgotten
Cleaned
Fixed
Deceiptors
Fake flocking
Deceived
Tricked

Now to protect this musical world
I am an an artist
I am this pearl
No more poison until conscious time
No more fake melody tainting my rhyme

A small part of me felt sorry for the human
But the human made the lie
The fake profiles they perusing
That's the problem in a nutshell (Sorry Layne)
So all AI music can go to hell
(So sayeth Staley)

Cleansed in the end

I won't name names I mean not hurt
But I'll save the spirit of Cobain, Kurt
You plagarised him
You spit on your child
How about Morrison
Pêre-Lachaise losing smile

I'll do this for Bowie, Buckley & Cash
I'll protect their Spirit from AI music rash
How? We'll make new just like they did
We'll inspire new humanism with beautifully candid

Music is Soul
Music is Spirit
I am it's role
I am no limit
I am brain new with ego controlled
They'll feed your Spirit with mellifluous gold

Cleansed in the end
May the real win
The real will win

https://youtu.be/3Nlb-m_vKYM?si=XLoXT2W047tQkIj8
Rock Beato doing his best to call out a fake there!
It's a fucking disgrace to music that Spotify allow this. TBD ain't going near Shitify anytime soon. They are ruining music

This song is an acknowledgement that I had actually collaborated with a couple of AI artists. I decided to delete them and I'll say no more although I was happy with my input and if I'm honest it hurts to do it for lots of reasons and I could have just zipped it too but.... Not in these moments  unfortunely there is too much at stake. We musicians take this stuff to heart so in a way we are a gauge of how we should be emotionally intelligent with this very dangerous scourge on creativity. So I needed a good cleansing.
Now my bio doesn't lie 🕺🏽 🙌🏽

Technically associating with AI profiles is most likely a negative thing... or at least it should be if the algorithms at work were actually clever enough to manage this stuff! We need innovation for transparency and education on why projecting these fake profiles is very harmful to a business which already has very questionable fairness aimed at younger artists. We need to inspire them not turn them into dummies happy with a fake song and 8 hours of Tik Tok instead of making real music and expressing it with their voices and fingers and actually wiring their brains with more abundant connections. It's all related for me. Social media short dose info/ quickly making shitty songs with AI... it's a bonfire of bullshit limited thought and we need to face up to it or kids are going to be content with that matrix! Schweeeet 🤘🏽🔆

Cleansed

Copyright Brian James McDonald (ASCAP)
Copyright Hoon Toons Publishing (ASCAP)

Time: The Fire In Which We Burn (Piano Improv)

A Heart of Hope will carry us forward on our Journey into the expansive and wonderous Here and Now!

May the Way be easy and your burdens light.

Composed and Orchestrated by Anomon


Btw...  No Ai was used for this composition, although various samples of orchestral instruments were.

Image: from Royalty Free Getty Images

Caravan of Hope *

This is a very short, sort of dreamy song. It reveals that lovers usually see the reality of a disconnect, yet often hold on to the shadowy past when things were so much different. This was originally recorded some years ago but I always wanted to improve the sound quality and complimentary instrumentation. Thanks to my dear friend and musical accomplice, Nat Daniels and Gentle Rain Records, we’ve tightened up the original tracks and she added some beautiful touches in the instrumentation that really make this song achieve the results I always sought. Thank you Nat!

Craig Durgy: Guitars, mandolin & vocals
Nat Daniels: Production & additional instrumentation
©2025 Gentle Rain Records

Lyrics:
Lovers know the time to go, but
Lovers sense, a time that's tense, so why

Do we sit here still
Is it for the lack of will
Seems to me we just want to be again
Save what we had then

Lovers hold, a heart grown cold
Lovers stay when there’s nothing left to say

But we sit here still
Waiting for the time to kill
Seems to me we just want to be again
Save what we had then

Lack Of Will

MEMORIES OF DAYS GONE BY

The Dissuaders - Short Movie main theme. Now on Fetchflix

Williams works in a team of workers preventing suicides. Without judging and with a lot of compassion he try’s to save lives but it is a tough job and sometime depressing. How long is he be able to hold on to his mission.

“This story is a work of fiction. Any similarity to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events, is purely coincidental. And for those who did not get it, Fetchflix TV is also fictitious.”

Music: Syrel
Photography: Meta AI

Musical notes: This is a variation on John Barry's theme for the 1971 TV show The Persuaders!. It is a challenge that my colleague and great composer Serge Smulders gave me. I could not resist as that TV show was one of my favourite those years. However, may I say that John Barry synthesized version of that time is now a bit outdated. Nevertheless, a classic is a classic hence revisiting it.

The Dissuaders

So what now?

The pieces are set,
The board is occupied,
The main actors have taken their positions.

The inevitable is coming,
Fear fills hearts and minds.

Will what many predict come to pass,
Or will fate turn in our favor?

The core of our beings has been seized by the machine.
The art that defined us is being smothered by a flood of perfect artificiality.

Simulation of emotions, simulation of art, simulation of humanity.
Where do we belong?

Where is my place?

And what now?

--------


This is a piece I improvised on March 23, 2025. I was surprised at how well it turned out. However, I didn't know what to do with it. I couldn't think of anything more, so I'm publishing it as is, with minor tweaks (I literally added six notes in three places).

With this piece I am starting a series in which I will be posting rather uncomplicated, short pieces, created out of the need of the moment, under the impression of something specific.

To compose it I used only 3 plugins/sounds
Spitfire LABS Autograph Grand (piano) (free)
Spitfire Originals Intimate Strings x2 (in octave)
And one patch from truly amazing synth from Arturia: Pigments

I hope you like it at least a little bit.

Picture Freepik: https://www.freepik.com/free-photo/woman-portrait-with-blue-lights-visual-effects_26813733.htm

And What Now?

"Sea Fever" is a song for piano and voice written bei John Ireland in 1913, with lyrics by John Masefield.

Piano by Helen Roberts

We hope you'll enjoy, and spend some time by the sea, if you can :)


artwork by Joaquín Sorolla

Within This World (for Piano)

Brian James McDonald

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