Compositions 2019

Yesterday, i recorded this Improvisation in spite of a drilling mashine in the neighbourhood. I didn't want to let it bother me, so i put on my headphones and startet playing " Monsieur Carl Is Straying". Hope you enjoy!

Monsieur Carl Is Straying

Passing By

I composed "Dark Skyline Brighter Dawn" for Piano Day 2023. The piano is the Fracture Sounds Woodchester piano. The strings are from #SpitfireAudio. The pictures in the art work are from an unfinished painting of my father's from the early 70s.

Music and Art Work © 2023 Roger Hooper Music

Dark Skyline Brighter Dawn (Piano Day 2023)

This is a composition we made for Benjamin and Carolines wedding 27 may 2023. We had our super talented guitar player og musician Herman Skogseid (Northshaped noise) with us in studio he also played it live in the church. It was a very special moment that we will remember for the rest of our lives.
Coming on Spotify soon

Our Day In May Feat. Northshaped Noise

For Piano Day 2017. A piece from the new album "Exile". #PianoDay
Listen to the whole album and follow me on Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/album/6lRzdTd7lTOxX1rMgBLj7g
If you like my music, please "like" my Facebook page - www.facebook.com/Michael-Ford-Pia…221557034537760/

Exile

Nocturne

A solo piano piece that explores the space between 2 realms.

www.jeffchipman.com
http://jeffchipman.bandcamp.com/track/threshold
https://jeffchipman.bandcamp.com/

Threshold

For more orchestral tracks please check out my full orchestral album here:
soundcloud.com/pianissimo/sets/orchestral-works-original

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Track Notes
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Thematically this track went on a very interesting journey from its inception on through completion. To explain that journey adequately I need to first explain how I typically compose ... 

Nothing is more important to my composing process than IMAGERY. My songs tend to be rather evocative. They all live in their own world replete with their own history, their own culture, their own lore. The songs then give a window into that world by painting images in the minds of my listeners (I hope anyway!). People often ask me what inspires my music. The answer is that this imagery inspires it. The world that the songs live in inspires it. 

What's interesting though is that said imagery is not actually present at the time that I sit down at my piano to start on a new piece. Rather typically I'll just sit down and start messing around until I latch onto some interesting sonic ideas. Then once I have a fledgling new song, the imagery around it slowly starts to take shape. It's that initial imagery that then informs further development in the song. And then once the song is further developed, the imagery comes into even sharper focus ... and so on and so forth until the song is finally complete. In this way, my inspiration is actually almost paradoxically derived from the music itself. So how then does this whole process I'm describing relate to this particular piece of music?

Well the initial version of this song, despite not being terribly far removed from the final version, had a rather different thematic aesthetic. Initially it evoked strong imagery of Russia, soviets, communism, order, marching soldiers, etc. (I kept imagining those soviet-era propaganda posters in my head.) As a result, the initial working title of the piece was "Tsar". 

Once the piece developed further though, it outgrew this initial moniker. Instead now it was evoking a rather dark, industrial vibe. I saw factories, machines, gears, clocks. Cobblestone streets shrouded in a sky tainted with soot.  There was also a bit of a retro, dystopian sci-fi vibe that emerged. I saw robots, automata, an army of drones (and this is where it tied into the original soviet imagery). This new imagery informed some development in the composition and I ended up changing the working title to "The Machine". 

But then the piece developed further and once again the song outgrew the name. Some of the original imagery remained, surely, but there were new elements now. There was an element of fear, but also an element of excitement, adventure, and almost child-like curiosity and wonderment. Now the imagery in my head revolved around exploring an uncharted and perhaps somewhat scary/forbidden land. This is when the name "The Black Forest" emerged as I feel that it ties in all of these ideas. The wonderful piece of visual art also ties in nicely with the name and the music and rounds out the world that this song lives in. I imagine that the little girl in the image has escaped home. Adorned in her little crown and dress she makes her way rather naively into The Black Forest, the place that all children are forbidden to enter. She's afraid but she also has a lot of courage and she stubbornly marches on into the unknown. 

I invite you to please put on a good pair of headphones and march right along with her :)

Thank you for listening (and reading)! 

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Instruments:
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Brass: tuba (staccatos + legato)
String: violin ensemble (legato), cello ensemble (spiccato), bass ensemble (pizzicato), solo violin
Woodwinds: piccolo flute, c flute x2
Percussion: timpani, toms, bass drums
Vocals: female choir, male choir, children's choir
Other: music box

Image credit: the Swedish painter John Albert Bauer (4 June 1882 – 20 November 1918)

The Black Forest

Thinking about and dreaming of all what will come in the New Year is always an exciting and challenging task...:)

Silvesterträumerei

Blick über das verschneite Land

Anfang Februar

Anfang Februar - Early February

Frühlingsvorfreude

This is my contribution for the <3 PIANO DAY 2019 <3. 
It's always a pleasure to create something new on my piano for this special holiday on 29th of March. Let's celebrate the piano music everywhere around the globe together with all of our good memories.

I hope you enjoy my relaxing piano track  "Piano Memories". Let it be an invitation to get lost in your own precious journey through the past while listening to my piano melodies...<3 

HAPPY PIANO DAY from MACRIMA :)

PIANO DAY 2019: MACRIMA - Piano Memories

PIANO DAY 2019: Piano Memories

#eighty-eight is an 88 bars solo piano piece written, performed and recorded by edmond redd to celebrate Piano Day, on March 28, the 88th day of 2020.

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“ Piano Day, an annual worldwide event founded by a group of likeminded people, takes place on the 88th day of the year, because of the number of keys on the instrument being celebrated.

The aim of the day is to create a platform for piano related projects in order to promote the development of musical dimensions and to continue sharing the centuries-old joy of playing piano. “
(Extract from the pianoday.org website)

Listen on Spotify: https://spoti.fi/2xcFV3X
Listen on Apple Music: https://apple.co/2UaMaya

Official site: https://www.edmondredd.com
Like on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/edmondreddmusic
Follow on Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/edmondredd
Follow on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/edmondredd
Subscribe to the Youtube channel for new videos: https://bit.ly/3dozivV

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Copyright ©2020 edmond redd.
All rights reserved

#eighty-eight

Traditional Irish folk song. #SCFIRST 
My Lagan Love
Marianne Lihannah sings verse 1 and 4 of the beautiful and mysterious, 'My Lagan Love', over Nyckelharpa drones, with a little nyckelharpa solo in the middle.
You can also watch it on YouTube here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pb0EpR2rFto
MY LAGAN LOVE
words Joseph Campbell (a.k.a Seosamh MacCathmhaoil, 1879-1944)
tune traditional Irish (the Belfast maid)

The words of the 2 verses I have missed out are:

Verse 2:
Her father sails a running-barge
'Twixt Leamh-beag and The Druim;
And on the lonely river-marge
She elears his hearth for him.
When she was only fairy-high
Her gentle mother died;
But *dew-Love keeps her memory
Green on the Lagan side.

Verse 3:
And oft-times, when the beetle's horn
Hath lulled the eve to sleep,
I steal unto her shieling lorn, ("shieling" - a shepherd's summer hut, like a barn or a cottage)
And thro' the dooring peep.
There on the crickets' singing-stone
She spares the bogwood fire,
And hums in sad, sweet under-tone
The song of hearts-desire.

*Dubh (pronounced doov or dew) = dark. One usually meets the sidhe at the crossroads, or at the crossing from day to night.

The Lagan river in this song, is the Lagan near Belfast. Campbell was born in Castlereagh Road, east Belfast, just a couple of miles from the Lagan.
In his youth he suffered from some "nervous" problems and often went for long rambles along the Lagan's banks.

To quote from Mary O'Hara's notes on this song, from her book "A Song For Ireland", - "The leánan sídhe (fairy mistress) mentioned in the song is a malicious figure who frequently crops up in Gaelic love stories. One could call her the femme fatale of Gaelic folklore. She sought the love of men; if they refused, she became their slave, but if they consented, they became her slaves and could only escape by finding another to take their place. She fed off them so her lovers gradually wasted away - a common enough theme in Gaelic medieval poetry, which often saw love as a kind of sickness. Most Gaelic poets in the past had their leanán sídhe to give them inspiration. This malignant fairy was for them a sort of Gaelic muse. On the other hand, the crickets mentioned in the song are a sign of good luck and their sound on the hearth a good omen. It was the custom of newly-married couples about to set up home to bring crickets from the hearths of their parents' house and place them in the new hearth."

From Wikipedia:
"My Lagan Love" is a song to a traditional Irish air collected in 1903 in northern Donegal.
The English lyrics have been credited to Joseph Campbell (1879–1944, also known as Seosamh MacCathmhaoil and Joseph McCahill, among others). Campbell was a Belfast man whose grandparents came from the Irish-speaking area of Flurrybridge, South Armagh. He started collecting songs in County Antrim. In 1904 he began a collaboration with composer Herbert Hughes. Together, they collected traditional airs from the remote parts of County Donegal.

While on holidays in Donegal, Hughes had learned the air from Proinseas mac Suibhne, who had learned it from his father Seaghan mac Suibhne, who in turn had learned it fifty years previously from a man working with the Ordnance Survey of Ireland. Campbell said that mac Suibhne knew the tune under the title of "The Belfast Maid", but did not know the words. A song by this title was published in various early 19th century broadsides, with the first lines "In Belfast town of high renown / There lives a comely maid".This ballad now has Roud number 2930.

The Lagan referred to in the title most likely is the River Lagan in Belfast. Campbell's words mention Lambeg, which is just outside the city. The Lagan is the river that runs through Belfast. However, some argue that the Lagan in the song refers to a stream that empties into Lough Swilly in County Donegal, not far from where Herbert Hughes collected the song.

My Lagan Love

Spotify

My Lagan Love | Marianne Lihannah

Arabesque#pianoday2021

Piano addict - Composer - Singer/Songwriter
Please send me a message, if you want to work with me. 

When I compose, I try to create pieces with heart, which move other people.
I love creativity, conversation and collaboration just the same as music, nature and open-minded people.

I write and produce modern classical music like piano music, soundtracks and music for media in the first place. But I also love to compose singer-songwriter songs and music for theater, art and other... Check it out!

If you like my music, please push the like button, repost and share it to reach more people with my musical creations. Thank you so much for listening! <3

PIANO DAY 2019: Piano Memories

MACRIMA

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