Waiting for Spring, is the title track of my new album, available at https://timhopkins2.bandcamp.com/album/waiting-for-spring.  Winters where I live in Canada, can be long and harsh.  We always look forward to springtime.

Bandcamp

Waiting for Spring

Für Elise is surely one of the most famous compositions of all time, by Ludwig van Beethoven, the German composer from the 17 & 1800s. Famous for getting the kroovy boiling of Alex from A Clockwork Orange, and famous for many other things, being deaf for instance, this piece is instantly recognizable on piano or guitar.

I hope my rendition of Für Elise proves to be the same. I tried to pick out the most recognizable part by ear, then added my own guitar elements to fill it out and give it my own spin. Those guitar parts may feel blasphemous and out of the spirt of the original documentation of Für Elise. But, they were fun to play and I hope you enjoy listening to these Für Elise variations on acoustic guitar.

Für Elise Variations for Guitar - Ludwig van Beethoven

forever wondering
if I was ever really
up for the moment
in the bright city lights
and the dark, wet streets

just a humid memory

Goodbye, good night

Envelope Chaser

Short demo for Found Strings sample library by Christian Henson

https://www.pianobook.co.uk/packs/found-strings/

Arrival

Reposted with the added vocals of Lien.  My many thanks to Lien for graciously enriching this composition with his amazing talent. You can find more of Lien's wonderful music here https://soundcloud.com/lien-thag

Inspired by the poem "The Peace of Wild Things" by the American poet Wendall Berry.

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

The Peace of Wild Things (featuring Lien)

A very quick idea from my morning walk by the river.

Two Miles Per Hour

I hesitated to upload this one.  It was written as an expression of my sorrow over the recent loss of a dear friend to illness. I don't believe it's an easy listen and is texturally and harmonically dark at times.  I hope it also expresses at least some of the love I held and still hold for my friend.

Funeral for a Friend

cooku

The Battle of Passchendaele was a major World War I campaign fought by the Allies against the German Empire on the Western Front from July to November 1917.  It is widely remembered as a vivid symbol of the horrific fighting conditions, particularly the deep mud, and immense casualties for minimal strategic gain. The village of Passchendaele was eventually captured by Canadian troops on November 6, 1917, and the nearby ridge was secured by November 10, when the campaign ground to a halt. The advance was a mere five miles, achieved at an enormous cost of an estimated 275,000 to over 400,000 Allied casualties and around 220,000 to 400,000 German casualties. The ground gained was ultimately abandoned by the British in the face of a German offensive the following year. The name "Passchendaele" has since become synonymous with the brutal and often futile nature of trench warfare during the First World War.

Passchendaele

A track using the Kristiansand Octave Cascade Piano available for free at:

www.pianobook.co.uk/library/kristiansand-octave-cascade

(All delay effects are included in the instrument)

Octave Echos (Kristiansand Octave Cascade demo)

Jim Sanger