Remix of this track many people here liked.
thank you for all your support !
I made the picture using javascript and svg on a simple html page.

Paradoxe D'Olbers (augmented)

Quartet For 2 Pianos ( after String Quartet 2 )

This is about how life is constantly presenting challenges. We must learn from each incident/experience and use that learning to try and be more resilient and be able to move forward. 
I wrote it on my 3/4 size Hofner classical guitar. It’s first song! I used open G tuning after being encouraged to try it by Mark Spruce (Original Spruce - great songs- give them a listen!). Thanks Mark! 
Hope you enjoy it. Best with headphones! 
Take care 
James 

Lyrics 
My Uncertain Steps 

As a boy, I was scared of the sea
With my family, on a beach in Normandy, 
a French boy told me the ghosts of drowned sailors grab your legs and dragged you down
I wouldn’t go in! 
Too naive and trusting! 

As a teen, I was all over the place! 
Always confused, just didn’t know which way to face
Too many temptations, suggestions and thrills, distracting and wild
Couldn’t think straight 
Couldn’t concentrate! 

It was always their demands and directions 
Had to meet their dreams and expectations 

My uncertain steps
No confidence 
(Trying to find my own way)
My uncertain steps 
At my own pace
(My way) 

My wreckage of a life, with this chaotic love
Constant demands, you can never do enough 
Mix in the bullies, the twisters and those egos too
It pulls you apart
Breaks your heart 

I’m seasoned, I now know this path
One crisis avoided, another starts 

My uncertain steps
More experienced 
(Trying to find my own way)
My uncertain steps
At my own pace 
(My way) 

And now I expect to see the worst
In everyone and everything I know
Just know how it is, but feel I can somehow 
see it through

(outro) 
I’ve got friends (for my uncertain steps)
I’ve lived and learnt (for my uncertain steps)
I’ve got you (for my uncertain steps) 
I’ll get through this (my uncertain steps) 


James Whiteman copyright  18 January 2024

My Uncertain Steps

℗© Copyright Ian Stokes. All Rights Reserved
Recorded, mixed and mastered in Logic.
Guitar played: Taylor 714CE in standard tuning 
Photography: Thanks go to Nigel and Libby Hume at Hume Photography.
Song Notes and Lyrics:
This song imagines one of those occasions when you by chance find yourself in a place where there is some great live music that somehow just seems right.....
Lyrics:
Somewhere in New York City
Or was it down in New Orleans 
Could have been in San Francisco
Or maybe it was all a dream
I was walking by an old blues bar-room 
When I heard somebody playing with some style
So I bought myself an ice cold beer
And listened for a while

Looked like he’d lived a whole life-time
Beard gone silver grey
The people in the place seemed spellbound
Happy just to hear him play
At home on stage under the spotlight 
Keeping time with his heel on the floor
I bought myself another beer
I stayed and Iistened some more 

He wore a fine silk waistcoat
Jacket on the back of his seat
Hat pulled down to his cheekbone
Boots tapping out that beat

He played until the bar-room closed
Right sound right time right place
He walked off into the night
With his old leather guitar case
Never knew his name
Don’t even know if he still plays
But I’ll picture that stage and hear that sound
For the rest…of my days

He wore a fine silk waistcoat
Jacket on the back of his seat
Hat pulled down to his cheekbone
Boots tapping out that beat

Fine Silk Waistcoat

Catchy, this tune has been in my head all day! Managing to find the time to compose again is so so good!
Combination of sounds from Logic Pro X, Arturia and of course Ghosthack vocals.
Picture courtesy of Freepik

Chasing Her Rainbows

Frida's Wings – The Skeletons
April 2024
Duration: 2:50
A shorter version was previously included in the “Art Expressed in Music” series
Painting: Frida Kahlo Painting Self Portrait.
Music for Danse Etoile Ballet (www.danseetoile.org) who will be performing Frida's Wings, a ballet based on the life and works of Frida Kahlo, June 2024 in Colorado.
Thanks to John-Marc Ventimiglia @john-marc-ventimiglia for creating the “rattling bones” sound library
Frida Kahlo was a Mexican painter known for her many portraits, self portraits and works inspired by the nature and artifacts of Mexico.  Her paintings often had strong autobiographical elements and mixed realism with fantasy. She is also known for painting about her experience of chronic pain. In most of her self-portraits, she depicts her face as mask-like, but surrounded by visual cues which allow the viewer to decipher deeper meanings. Aztec mythology features heavily in Kahlo's paintings in symbols including skeletons and skulls.  In the painting, Dream of The Bed, painted in the year of 1940, Frida expressed her feeling and interception of death, which depicts a skeleton on the canopy of her bed (as she had in her real life). Her husband, Diego Rivera called the Juda, Frida's lover, but Frida said it's just an amusing reminder of people's mortality. Frida Kahlo spent much of her life in pain.  As As a teenager she suffered a horrific bus accident which left her unable to have children and meant she needed more than 30 operations on her spine. Eventually her withered leg had to be amputated and she died at 47. She said in her diary: “Feet, why do I need you, if I have wings to fly”
For guitar, accordion, trumpet, violin, double bass, sound effects and percussion

Frida's Wings - The Skeletons

Hamster

This was a minor hit by David Soul (1943-2024) somewhat 40 odd years ago.  In fact I covered this a couple of years back but I was not happy with the vocals and the recording was put aside.  Lately I decided to give it another try and reworked the whole thing with an altered arrangement.  Just see what you think about it.
Thanks for stopping by.

[CREDITS]
Composition - Tony Macaulay
Vocals / Arrangement / Programming - Michael C. Lynn
E. Guitar (solo & fill-ins) – Shannon Forest @Band_in_a_Box
Baritone Guitar – Brent Mason @Band_in_a_Box

[LYRICS]
They say maybe dreams are only movies of the mind
 Still I've lived a few
 I'm not a star
 Though in some ways I've made it
 But all these nights away is gonna lose me you
 Thought a lot about it in these back stage rooms
 And I'd leave it all, if you want me to

 #CHORUS#
Some nights, God knows I'll miss the music
 I'll miss the crowds that call my name
 I'd find contentment now
 If I thought you'd just hang' on
 Playing to an audience of one
 
Some nights, God knows it won't be easy
 I'll feel the lights I'll hear the sound
 I'll find a piece in me
 Cuddled up when the evening's done
 Sometimes playing to my audience of one

 
The endless driving, midnight arriving
 The sleeping when you can
 Still worth it somehow just for that lift
 you get when you walk on
 But just to call you up some nights between the shows
 To say "Good-night I miss you" ain't enough I know
 So I'd leave it all if you tell me so
 

I'll find a piece in me
 Cuddled up when the evening's done
 Playing to my audience of one
 Sometimes playing to my audience of one.

Repeat CHORUS

Covers

Playing to An Audience of One   (Cover)

Opera : « En la Daunia »  - Act II  - (This is an excerpt of my new piece in work...)
Here's the update on Sunday, August 18, 2024
Franck Douvin © 2024 Contemporary Orchestral Music 
Thanks for listening & sharing
I hope you'll enjoy !

Opera : « En la Daunia »  - Act II  - (This is an excerpt of my new piece in work...)

Just pushed the button and recorded some simple chords in my practice time 
The instrument is a Nord Stage, and the sound is the Fender Rhodes Mark 1 .

Practice Time

what do you see

Anyone interested in performing/recording any of the works posted here please send me a message.

Joe

Quartet For 2 Pianos ( after String Quartet 2 )

Joseph Haspel