Piano solos

This is another composition to follow up one of my other compositions of the Marionnettes, such as "L'Histoire d'une Marionnette", of which you'll be able to watch it via this link

https://youtu.be/TYr2UgdWrt4

My sincere thanks go out to Agnès and Dusan for letting me use their picture of  "Les Marionnettes de Yorick" which they have created....

I hope you will enjoy listening...

Les Marionnettes dansent encore...

Valse Triste en La Mineur

Gosh!  Over a year since I've posted a new song!  It’s been a rough few years, but for me, the past 6 months have been particularly hard.  

This song was written ages ago, but I wanted to record it, just to have a copy for myself.  It’s a one-take piano/singing thing, with flaws but a sense of the underlying feeling.  While I was producing it, it developed a life of its own.  I had thought I’d rock it up with quite a conventional sound, but the drums and bass insisted on having their own unique flavours – ribbons of synth.  Aah well, here it is, a bit rough around the edges but at least I can feel that I am making music again...  thanks so much for listening!

Rock it…

O rock it, come rock baby roll
there’s a tide rolling green through my soul
Somewhere faint I remember the person I am
Rock it, come baby rock baby roll

Seems everyone’s dancing to light, 
there’s a song we all hear in the night
With the moon wide and high static spitting the sky
seems everyone’s dancing to light
Some red and some yellow some white
seems everyone dances to light

And the dust, it comes muddy your veins
dreary life dull and moaning in pain
Circuits broken and lost and you can’t think to cry
lost the code lost the path and can’t understand why
and the meaningless days and interminable nights
when there’s nowhere to fly and the wings lost their flight
found the feathers all crushed on the floor
trampled broken, don’t work any more

O rock it, come rock baby roll
there’s a tide rolling green through my soul
Somewhere faint I remember the person I am
Rock it, come baby rock baby roll

But somehow the cycle moves through,
the winds of change whisper and call
some beat in your brain lets the sleep patterns change
to the pulse of the blood and the beat of the brain
and awaken arise to the life-song refrain

O rock it, come rock baby roll
there’s a tide rolling green through my soul
Somewhere faint I remember the person I am
Rock it, come baby rock baby roll

*    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *

Written sung made and played by Emma

Rock it...

Spatial Perpetuum Mobile

Regrets

Lyrics:

Some songs I just can't sing for you, they keep lingering, bothering me.
Deep inside of me I hold some songs, so many songs.
Oh I want to share them all and open up my music.
So listen carefully, I long to sing for you, the notes you've been waiting to hear...
My hands will play, my heart will say what I feel.
So please come closer now, let us grow and sing together,
let us try and sing together, let's sing some songs together...!

Some songs you sing for me just don't come through, although you try and try, it's frightening me.
When I think of all those older songs that I have to free,
then I know I will need some time to hear your music.
I will listen carefully, as long as you sing for me, the notes you've been waiting to share...
And I know, one day my heart will hear what you feel.
So please come closer now, let us grow and come together,
let us try to sing together, let's sing some songs together...!

Some songs we have not sung together yet, they keep lingering, bothering you and me.
If we bear in mind how magical our love can be,
than we can carry on to make our music.
And we keep listening, verry carefully, to the notes we've been trying to sing...
We will fly and play, we'll cry and say what we feel.
So please come closer now, let us grow and play together,
let us try and sing together, let us sing some songs together...!


Some Songs...

Sing in Blue  for the Voice of the Sea….    

Like a bird on the road, that has flown too far
feathers stiff, stuck in the gun-metal tar
like a ship out to sea where the people have fled
leaving food warm and waiting, words left to be said

I went walking one day on the turn of the tide    
felt a seeping of blood warming up from inside
Sing in Blue Sing in Blazing, in Sky Colours too
for the voice of the sea holds a memory true

There are faces there dreaming, just beyond reach
voices crooning in golden on a dream-shadow beach
It’s a calling, a drawing, it’s a pink spiral shell
whisper ocean, I hear you in a far away bell

I went walking one day on the turn of the tide    
felt a seeping of blood warming up from inside
Sing in Blue Sing in Blazing, in Sky Colours too
for the voice of the sea holds a memory true

Draw in deeper my darling, draw in wild, draw in wet
for there’s things here a-thriving, that you’ve tried to forget
And they watch as you pass, your body moves by
The yellow-head gannet slides clean through the sky
to the belly of sea and the beat of the sun
running faster we dance as the water colours run..

I went walking one day on the turn of the tide    
felt a seeping of blood warming up from inside
Sing in Blue Sing in Blazing, in Sky Colours too
for the voice of the sea holds a memory true

This is essentially an acoustic track – I was in a bit of a ‘dark celtic’ mode and I’ve been exploring how to play a wooden bass recorder (plus descant and alto) and have also included the ocean as an instrument… I recorded the waves/gulls on the beach where I originally wrote the song – how’s that for synergy??   it was a tricky mix I can tell you!!  The cello added some more grunt… well,  no synths in this piece!!  
That big recorder sure takes a lot of air to play it… but I love that hooty haunting sound… what do you think?  


Sing In Blue... for The Voice Of The Sea

A piece in a classical style which I hope you will like to listen to....

https://youtu.be/fFWFDV2txrI

Une Sonate En Si Bémol Majeur Allegro-Andante (+ video)

Captivation

On a summer night in 2018, when we were recording our album, we had “some” visitors in the studio in Cairo, and we made this!

**that was also our secret gift for those who bought our physical CD

Lyrics: Omar Mostafa
Sound production: Adham Zidan
Darabuka: Buda

No'oum Nasyeen

Youssra El Hawary - Nashaz

About the title:
in the evening, immediately after the kids go to bed, i often improvise some quite music on the grand piano using slow and soft chord patterns and melodies in the higher register of the instrument. Because we live in an old wooden house - the grand's sound vibrates through the whole building helping the children to calm down quickly as they listen. Mostly they sleep within 5 or 10 minutes. Those improvisations are known now as daddy's harmonies for the quietude.

About the song:
this one came out after i heard a guy in the radio telling that despite what people say about November, that month actually is a very happy and positive month. That day, i absolutely disagreed with him: the winter and tons of snow had already arrived and it came with an absolutely dark and depressed atmosphere. My harmony of the quietude that evening just reflects those feelings. 

About the way this sound was created:
This track was a bit of a challenge in many different ways. I'm trying out a completely new way of working by moving from an hardware based recording setup to a computer based workflow.  My wife happened to record the improvisation with a small mp3 recorder - I scored it out  from scratch and then played and then recorded it on a master keyboard and PC-Based tools. By the way, the score was made using MuseScore and  can be downloaded for free from my web site: 

https://www.vangestel.de/scores/piano/harmony-for-the-quietude-i.pdf

First, i learned so much about my performance weaknesses while doing the transcription. To understand what i had improvised was not easy and a lot of musical corrections had to be done. Then, to play my own piece afterwards, was a pain - i guess this is the very last track i did without a click track haha. The output of the piano synth is still recorded using the old hardware recorder because the first tries with the PC were just producing garbage - i still have to work on that one.

I intend to orchestrate this piece with MuseScore or other PC tools. I am currently reading some books on scoring, orchestration and harmony and on recording techniques. Hopefully this will help to produce better scores and orchestrations from a theoretical point of view and better tracks from a technical point of view.

I must admit that i had to resist the desire to return to the "old system" - that is: just lay down a piano part and then play some instruments like accordion, flutes or hardware synths to it using that good old Roland recorder. It would be a hell of a lot easier to me - just pushing that red record (hardware) button over and over again until some performance finally satisfies...

Anyway, i hope you enjoy this rather long track - sorry about that - but 3 minutes are definitely too short to get the quietude coming through ;) If you like it or if you have some feedback on my little story - just drop me a line, always much appreciated!

Get the free score

Harmony for the Quietude I (score included, see song info)

Seven years ago, I uploaded an improvised track with the same name. At that time I wanted to do more of those for SoundCloud as I played those 'Harmonies for the Quietude' regularly for my kids (see also comments on that track back then).
My kids growed older now, but I still play those harmonies almost daily for them. 
I did not record or upload anything for years, maybe it's time to change that. I might add some whistling or accordeon to those piano pieces or just do some new harmonies.

Piano work

Harmony for the Quietude II

Dear friends and music lovers, my good friend Sandro Cicali
  and I have worked on this little album over the course of this oh so strange last year. It is now completed and available on bandcamp as a CD or digital download! Have a listen if you like.
Sandro and I come from different musical backgrounds and have quite different musical tastes to say the least, so it was always somewhat of a "dance" to agree on things and find solutions that worked for both of us. It was a lesson in letting go of ego and finding a middle way or common ground.  That is why we called the album "Common Grounds" and I´m quite pleased with the result.
I´d also like to thank George Arnold
 for playing double bass on some of the tracks and for his great mixing and mastering expertise and last but not least the always wonderful Hugh Davies
 for his generous and beautiful trumpet and Flügelhorn contributions on two of the tracks .
The album consists of a small selection of cover songs either Sandro or I liked and the other one had to live with and a co-written original track. Enjoy 🙂

COMMON GROUNDS

Slow Down

Hobby musician, amateur astronomer, parent, cyclist, environmental scientist and wine maker making a living as information security consultant and IT trainer.

Here you'll find my sounds shared for you to enjoy, to download or whatever. Everything's available under a Creative Commons license. 

If you happen to leave a comment or press that Like button, that's much appreciated. You always make my day with that!

Take care - fred

Harmony for the Quietude II

Fred Van Gestel

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