EARTH JOURNEYS
What These Pieces Are:
Earth Journeys are variations on the tune Happy Birthday. When I started them in earnest in 1990 I decided to use them as a way of learning to work with audio samples in addition to wave form synthesis that I had been doing since 1967. Up until 1990 I hadn’t learned the intricacies of sample technology, so I made this series as a way of solving that inadequacy. They have evolved as a musical version (almost) of Joseph Cornell assemblages. The pieces are also mini-portraits of each person. I try, In various ways, to make each variation a  relevant aural reference for the person to whom it’s dedicated. For composers this usually means including a sample from their own work. Such is the case for Laurie Spiegel, Steve Drews, Stanley Silverman, Gordon Mumma, Alvin Curran and other composers on the list. For others, I try to include a recognizable sound like the airplane motors for Steve Poleskie who made art by sky writing over various cities. In other cases, simply the aura of the variation will suggest a period or an event from the person’s life as in the doo-wop quote I use for my old high school friend Sam Gorovitz or the quote from Verdi for musicologist and Verdi specialist, David Rosen. Throughout the series I use the birthday tune in many guises. It’s presented backwards, upside down, upside down and backwards, or as a sequence of pitches without the familiar rhythm, etc., so the tune itself may be unrecognizable in many of these variations. In others it is very obvious.
How They Came About:
In 1977 or ‘78 I had a dream about a calendar. It was open to some month. Various people, some I recognized, some I didn’t, started popping their heads out of the calendar’s day boxes. It was just like the closing sequence of the old Rowan and Martin LAUGH-IN TV Show. Stars popped their heads in and out of boxes delivering one-liners. As the visual scanned toward the end of the month, a haunting beautiful music could be heard, some of the most interesting I’d ever encountered. It struck me, because I rarely have dreams with audible music. Although I “knew” the music was “Happy Birthday” it in fact sounded nothing like the song we all know. As if in response to this strange occurance, Lily Tomlin’s smiling face appeared out of the next to last day on the calendar. I started writing birthday party variations for Trudy Borden, whose birthday falls on the next to the last day of August. I invited the Hocketts (a family in Ithaca famous for academic excellence and their love of music) and a few other friends to come share in performing our newly composed variations on Happy Birthday for Trudy for several years just for fun. These early variations are mostly by the late Chaz Hockett and me for clarinet (Chaz Hockett), bassoon (Don Robbins), violin (Nancy Robbins) and cello (Carrie Hockett).
Then, in 1990 I received a letter from composer/poet Ann Silsbee’s husband Robert asking for a personal story of remembrance to present to Ann on her 60th birthday. I thought of the dream and made one of the variations for her using computer/synthesizer technology, this time with more than a “party” approach. Ann passed away in 2003 as have several others on the variations list, so I have called the whole collection EARTH JOURNEYS to signify that birthdays can be thought of as a birth into another dimension whether it’s coming to or departing from an earthly existence.


10. for Dick Hyman

My Accordina (custom build by Marcel Dreux), accompanied by Spanish guitar.
Recorded in Paris, March 15th 2016.
Beware: the ghosts of Elvis Presley and Cole Porter can materialise right in front of you if you listen to this snapshot under certain conditions.

50 snapshots by DD is just a showcase of the different instruments and sound I use both live and in the studio. This collection is intended as a catalogue of my multi-instrumentalists palette.


Snapshot 18 Accordina

12 bowed upright basses.
Some delays, reverb.
Recorded in Paris May 7th 2016.

50 snapshots by DD is just a showcase of the different instruments and sound I use both live and in the studio. This collection is intended as a catalogue of my multi-instrumentalists palette.

These are the instruments I play.
Recorded on my own studio in Paris, France, or on the road (mostly hotel rooms, with my Exile Studio).



Snapshot 35 UprigthBassBowedSection

Here is "The Rising Sun", a track where i used complex sound dessign to create deep athmospheres and where i used some sequences as bed for a main motive. it have a main section and a bridge which lead to the end. I used Omnisphere and different Kontakt libraries on it. Enjoy! 

The Rising Sun

This is from a piece called K216.01 and is one of my SYNERGY SOUNDSCAPES.I isolate one entire part from an existing piece of music and surround it with my own music therefore changing it's entire environment.In this case the music is the violin solo part from the slow movement of Mozart's Violin Concerto in G Major.I have actually treated the entire concerto in this way, this is just one movement.The violin part becomes electric with Martin Davids playing the solo part.


K216.01b

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Die Stickerin - Original Soundtrack

I don't want to leave (Ich will nicht weg)

Elagabalus

Elagabalus -Excerpt-

Get pumped to bash some baddies, because those monsters aren't going to kill themselves. They're not even going to kill each other. I mean, they are competing for the same resources, aren't they? But instead of going at the weaker little minions for some meat they all decide to band together against YOU. And how much of a meal are you really going to be once you've been divvied up amongst all the involved wild beasts? And why don't they just buy some decent food with all that money they're carrying around?

Not a single sample or preset has been used for this project; I've started everything from a single sine wave (or noise wave. And a sawtooth or square wave wave may have snuck in once or twice). Every new track convinces me even more how much I love FM synthesis.

All composition, arrangement, and sound programming by J. Michael St. Clair.

Overworld Field

Wintertime - Single

Wintertime

Freelance composition for games and film.  This is a short loop inspired by warhammer 40,000.

Hive Fleet Behemoth

What Lies Beneath

California composer James Michael St. Clair cut his teeth on composition by writing music (as the result of a bet) that garnered him two consecutive Disneyland Creativity Challenge awards at an early age. Ever since, he has continued to be an active composer for plays, banquet events, and television spots, as well as the concert stage (including compositions for such ensembles as The Definiens Project, The Robin Cox Ensemble, and the Devil's Horn Quartet). 

In addition to his work as a composer for stage and media, Michael has also worked extensively as a performer throughout the southern California area as both a piano soloist and accompanist, as well as bassist and keyboardist with the bands ShortOrder, The Changes Daily,Twenty Pound Donkey, and The Deacons. For the last few years, he has also been one the performers in (as well as a founding member of) the live electronic improvisational trio, "W.H.A.L.E.D.",  W.H.A.L.E.D. has been lucky enough to be featured at several venues, including long standing duties as the resident musicians for the Warehouse of Contemporary Art (WOCA). Michael was also the co-founder of Acoro Studios, a Cerritos-based recording studio. 

Michael's recent work includes the orchestral score to the popular Android roguelike game "Dweller", as well as additional music and arrangements for the video game adaptation of the Hollywood film "The Lost Medallion: The Adventures of Billy Stone".

Overworld Field

jmichaelstclair

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