Andrew Souter

Minimal piano composition.  Composed/performed/produced 7/27/13.  Tentative arrangement.

This is representative of the type of material that will find its way onto the third solo piano album.  The first album takes inspiration from romantic love.  The second, from family, friends, and social groups of one form or another.  The third is more spiritual, meditative, and minimalistic and takes pride in the rests as much as the notes.  

In theme one could summarize thus:  eros, philos, and agape...

Let's hear what you all think...





Andrew Souter -- With Purpose

New piano composition composed 9/11/2013.  Tentative arrangement.

In a time when the world is too easily focused on the differences between different people and cultures and fear of the unknown, online communities such as SoundCloud are amazing places for people from all over the world to come together and celebrate life and the gift of music.

Places like this allow artists to sincerely and honestly share their talents in an uncompromised manner with whomever would listen. This is possible regardless of who the artist is, where they are from, what level of marketing savvy they posses, or what degree of support they have from the entrenched entertainment establishment that purports to dictate what is cool, trending, and marketable.  It allows sincerity to triumph and for real people to find other real people wherever they are.  It allows people to potentially expand their concept of friendship and family from the microcosm of the self to the macrocosm of the global village. It allows us all to focus on our shared commonalities and better believe in the innate goodness in all humans via uniting in our shared passion for the universal language of music.

Special thanks to Loredana whose smile and free spirit can light up a room even from 5,000 miles away.  Of all the amazing people in the world, the D-Flat Major women are some of the truly special ones:

https://soundcloud.com/thesignatureseries/d-flat-major

Andrew Souter -- Smile From Afar

It was seemingly a late Autumn season this year and the leaves held on to their branches a little longer than average this turn of the wheel. I watched as the final remaining members of the deciduous resistance proudly held their ground and clung to their branches, while the wind tried to seduce them to give up their futile attempt at immortality and surrender to the inevitable.  In bold defiance they refused and proudly flew their colorful flags of deep crimson, rust orange, and a shade of yellow so ineffably deep it does not even bare a name. They danced gallantly and gracefully with the wind as they moved in asymmetrical rhythms and flowing tempos - the mathematics of which seemingly beyond human intelligence, boarding on the divine. The eb and flow of the motion together with the beams of sunlight that would burst through the branches and cast a glimmering shimmer onto everything was truly an epically cinematic sight to behold! If I were a cinematographer this is what I would film.  As I am only a composer, I did the best I could with the tools available to my disposal...  I hope you may enjoy it...

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"Autumn Rains" is the second installment in a trio of neoclassical solo piano albums composed, performed, and produced by Andrew Souter. These projects have been two decades in the making and represent a return to traditional music composition, engaging song-writing, and the pure passion of emotional story-telling. This trio represents Andrew's most personal and intimate music. It is quite literally a love project. We hope it may help you on your journey, as it has us...

"Autumn Rains" is music inspired by the spirit of Agape. It is an album dedicated to the concept of spiritual love and universal compassion clothed in the metaphor of transcendental natural beauty. It is an album that simultaneously expresses deep love for both the creator as well as the creation. It is said God gave us music so that we could pray without words. It could be added that nature was provided as an example of exactly how to do this effectively. In this spirit, Autumn Rains is a prayer of gratitude for the opportunity to learn from the natural beauty of this world, and an expression of a sense of respect for the inescapable universal equality that nature imposes. It humbly attempts to capture deep feelings of awe, granduer, idealism, and a belief in the innate goodness of the world even when we all face exceptionally hard lessons.

Andrew Souter -- The Wind Whispers To The Trees

In existence there are ideal forms and there are imperfect manifestations of these forms.  It is a matter of philosophy which is more real to us in our experience of the world:  the perfect idealized form of an apple, or the imperfect manifestation of this form that is said to "participate in apple-ness".  In fact we don't ever see the real idealized form of an object or an idea. It is as if, as Plato said, we are prisoners of a cave, where the objective form sits outside the cave and casts shadows on the interior wall of the cave.  We see only these shadows that are subject to the limitations of our perception and influenced by the collection of our emotional beliefs and past experiences.  More abstractly, these shadows may represet a potential relationship, any of our desires or goals, our self image, or a myriad of any possible other more mundane things. We reach towards these shadows trying to understand as best we can, trying to refine them to be one step closer to perfection.  Sometimes magic happens here. Other times it does not.  Sometimes we fail to realize when it has happened.  Other times we fool ourselves into believing it has happened when it has not. The best we can hope for is to remain humble and patient, and continue to believe our perception will eventually converge with reality if we continue growing and reaching for shadows...

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"Autumn Rains" is the second installment in a trio of neoclassical solo piano albums composed, performed, and produced by Andrew Souter. These projects have been two decades in the making and represent a return to traditional music composition, engaging song-writing, and the pure passion of emotional story-telling. This trio represents Andrew's most personal and intimate music. It is quite literally a love project. We hope it may help you on your journey, as it has us...

"Autumn Rains" is music inspired by the spirit of Agape. It is an album dedicated to the concept of spiritual love and universal compassion clothed in the metaphor of transcendental natural beauty. It is an album that simultaneously expresses deep love for both the creator as well as the creation. It is said God gave us music so that we could pray without words. It could be added that nature was provided as an example of exactly how to do this effectively. In this spirit, Autumn Rains is a prayer of gratitude for the opportunity to learn from the natural beauty of this world, and an expression of a sense of respect for the inescapable universal equality that nature imposes. It humbly attempts to capture deep feelings of awe, granduer, idealism, and a belief in the innate goodness of the world even when we all face exceptionally hard lessons.

Andrew Souter -- Reaching For Shadows


December is a special time of year for most of the world. As children we look forward to it with eager anticipation of all of the shiny new toys and presets we will get this season.  As adults our priorities hopefully shift some and we worry more about the gift of giving than the act of receiving.  We imagine making friends and loved-ones, new ones as well as old, happy in some small way. We envision participating with them in their life for a moment or two and sharing some form of intimacy.  We celebrate the opportunity to give love with the intention of building lasting relationships, and if we are wise enough, we let go of expectations of immediate reciprocation and realize the act of giving is itself its own reward...

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"Autumn Rains" is the second installment in a trio of neoclassical solo piano albums composed, performed, and produced by Andrew Souter. These projects have been two decades in the making and represent a return to traditional music composition, engaging song-writing, and the pure passion of emotional story-telling. This trio represents Andrew's most personal and intimate music. It is quite literally a love project. We hope it may help you on your journey, as it has us...

"Autumn Rains" is music inspired by the spirit of Agape. It is an album dedicated to the concept of spiritual love and universal compassion clothed in the metaphor of transcendental natural beauty. It is an album that simultaneously expresses deep love for both the creator as well as the creation. It is said God gave us music so that we could pray without words. It could be added that nature was provided as an example of exactly how to do this effectively. In this spirit, Autumn Rains is a prayer of gratitude for the opportunity to learn from the natural beauty of this world, and an expression of a sense of respect for the inescapable universal equality that nature imposes. It humbly attempts to capture deep feelings of awe, granduer, idealism, and a belief in the innate goodness of the world even when we all face exceptionally hard lessons.

Autumn Rains

Waiting For December

Andrew Souter -- Waiting For December

This is your song. I wrote the main parts of it in the first month of our relationship as we were falling in love. I've played parts of it for you before many times, but I had never finished it. I have now evolved it into its complete form. This is how I choose to remember you. I focus on the positives; I idealize and romanticize you. My idea of you remains loving and longing even if we are not meant to be. My idea of you persists and looks past challenges despite how difficult they may seem. I believe our ideas and our ideals create our own reality and therefore it is always best to imagine perfection however we may desire it to be. This song is reflection of all the love and gentleness we shared during good times. Ultimately it is a song of optimism even in the face of adversity. Its verses and chapters moves sideways like the astrological crab that you are, but there is deep beauty in it, and in the end it gets to were it wants to go and finds happiness and peace. Thank you for this song. I hope it may comfort you.


ALBUM INFO:

"The Idea Of You" is the first of a trio of neoclassical solo piano albums composed, performed, and produced by Andrew Souter. These projects have been two decades in the making and represent a return to traditional music composition, engaging song-writing, and the pure passion of emotional story-telling. This Andrew's most personal and intimate music. It is quite literally a love project. We hope it may it help you on your journey, as it has us...

The Idea Of You Cover Art "The Idea Of You" is music inspired by the spirit of Eros and all of its blessings as well as its tribulations. It explores the vicissitudes of romantic love, the delicate seasons and contour of life, and all the lessons learned along the way. Themes of desire, passion, limerence, romantic love, idolatry, jealousy, envy, loss, regret, forgiveness, acknowledgment, appreciation, acceptance, and eventually glimpses of true understanding permeate the work. It attempts to communicate that which so many of us can never quite communicate properly with words. It is an open apology for the clumsy mistakes we all make when coming to maturity in learning how to care selflessly for another human being. It is a gentle reminder as to what is most important in life, as well as an invocation to continuously seek self-improvement regarding our understanding of such matters.

Andrew Souter -- The Idea Of You (Part)

A collage highlights overview of The Idea Of You album, providing 0:45 to 1:30 or so of each track on the album.

The full album is now available now on iTunes:

https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/the-idea-of-you/id854783736

Full album Info, longer previews (full song in several cases), and new web site:

http://www.galbanum.com/music/theideaofyou

New Video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ti-GfCM5-zk

(BTW: all the individual tracks found in the album playlist and uploaded previously here, were replaced with re-recorded versions from Jan 2014, so you can hear longer clips of the final versions and sometimes the full song in the playlist as well.  ...or stream from the player on the new web site...)

Sheet music will be available soon as well.

"The Idea Of You" is the first of a trio of neoclassical solo piano albums composed, performed, and produced by Andrew Souter. These projects have been two decades in the making and represent a return to traditional music composition, engaging song-writing, and the pure passion of emotional story-telling. This Andrew's most personal and intimate music. It is quite literally a love project. We hope it may it help you on your journey, as it has us...

"The Idea Of You" is music inspired by the spirit of Eros and all of its blessings as well as its tribulations. It explores the vicissitudes of romantic love, the delicate seasons and contour of life, and all the lessons learned along the way. Themes of desire, passion, limerence, romantic love, idolatry, jealousy, envy, loss, regret, forgiveness, acknowledgment, appreciation, acceptance, and eventually glimpses of true understanding permeate the work. It attempts to communicate that which so many of us can never quite communicate properly with words. It is an open apology for the clumsy mistakes we all make when coming to maturity in learning how to care selflessly for another human being. It is a gentle reminder as to what is most important in life, as well as an invocation to continuously seek self-improvement regarding our understanding of such matters.

Andrew Souter -- The Idea Of You Album Overview (Available Now)

Precedence: the fact of coming earlier in time. What came before shall come again. We are much older than we care to remember. We know well who we are and where we must go, but we all play a collective game of Maya, forgetting our inheritance and instead embracing materialism and valuing ignorance over wisdom. Throughout history civilizations build great sand castles towering towards the heavens, only to tear them down again and again. Technology now connects everything and anyone. The world turns faster. Information is freely available to those who would seek it, yet wisdom and restraint have been lost. All things are possible, but all not all things are profitable. Discerning which is which is not an easy task to accomplish when the connection to what has come before has been lost. We must remember the past to create a better future.

Composed/produced 05/09/2013 while working on a 2CAudio B2 preset expansion.

Wayfarer is a project name Andrew Souter uses for the deepest of deep ambient space music. This is music that is meant to invoke a sense of traveling without moving to remote and unknowable reaches of outer and inner space. Wayfarer projects are more sound environments than music in the traditional sense. They are intended to invoke a sense of ineffable awe at the magnificence of the universe, and give a fleeting sense of connection to some form of universal non-human intelligence. Despite, or rather perhaps because of, its humble abstract nature, this is meditative music that implicitly asks big questions, and hopefully inspires big ideas.

"Whitespace" is the first of the Wayfarer series. This two hour sonic odyssey is a collection of thematic and textural ambient deep cruisers that are certain to be the impetus of a myriad forms of outward journeys and inward discoveries. The atmospheric, mood-inducing soundscapes of Whitespace make a perfect compliment to mediation, relaxation, deep concentration, lucid dreaming, quiet introspection, various spiritual practices, star gazing, and various other formative life experiences. To borrow words from Stephen Hill, founder of Hearts Of Space, this is "slow music for fast times".

http://www.galbanum.com/music/whitespace

Wayfarer -- Precedence

 "This whole earth in which we inhabit is but a point is space."
 -Henry David Thoreau

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"Autumn Rains" is the second installment in a trio of neoclassical solo piano albums composed, performed, and produced by Andrew Souter. These projects have been two decades in the making and represent a return to traditional music composition, engaging song-writing, and the pure passion of emotional story-telling. This trio represents Andrew's most personal and intimate music. It is quite literally a love project. We hope it may help you on your journey, as it has us...

"Autumn Rains" is music inspired by the spirit of Agape. It is an album dedicated to the concept of spiritual love and universal compassion clothed in the metaphor of transcendental natural beauty. It is an album that simultaneously expresses deep love for both the creator as well as the creation. It is said God gave us music so that we could pray without words. It could be added that nature was provided as an example of exactly how to do this effectively. In this spirit, Autumn Rains is a prayer of gratitude for the opportunity to learn from the natural beauty of this world, and an expression of a sense of respect for the inescapable universal equality that nature imposes. It humbly attempts to capture deep feelings of awe, granduer, idealism, and a belief in the innate goodness of the world even when we all face exceptionally hard lessons.

Andrew Souter

Diana Jung 1