Cellos and Violin - Shrinking Down and Exploring Someone's Body

A melodic guitar instrumental initially written for lyrics. I had so much fun with the improvised melody on the demo that I went ahead and made it an instrumental. 

GEAR:
 - 2013 Fender HSS Mexi-Strat with Floyd Rose and JB Humbucker
 - Ibanez Mikro Short-Scale Bass
 - Apogee Jam 96k
 - Apple GarageBand

12/19/18: Replaced file with lossless AIF
05/02/19: eMastered mp3
08/12/20: Final version 2.8

Shut Up & Play

Summer Bound & Top Down

iTunes

Written: 2018-19
Duration: ca. 25'
Commissioned by J.K. Billman
Premiere: Euclid Quartet, Mostly Modern Festival, Arthur Zankel Music Center, June 25, 2019
Publisher: Bill Holab Music: http://www.billholabmusic.com
For more info.: https://robertpaterson.com/string-quartet-no-2

PROGRAM NOTES
In some ways, String Quartet No. 2 is similar to my String Quartet No. 1: the five movements are stylistically diverse, I use a few snippets of pre-existing music, and the music, while idiomatic, is technically demanding. As with my first quartet, this work explores technical and aesthetic ideas I didn’t have a chance to explore in other works.

The first movement, Colored Fields, is inspired by abstract expressionist painters such as Mark Rothko, Kenneth Noland, and Barnett Newman, but also pointillist painters such as Georges Seurat and Paul Signac. There are textures that emerge and submerge using articulations that gradually shift from soft to loud, or short to long, and there are a few transitions that utilize a technique I call pitch phasing or phase modulation, as opposed to tempo phasing. In these transitions, two or more instruments gradually modulate (raise or lower) notes, motives, or phrases by gradual, very refined, microtonal, non-chromatic increments, settling on new pitch areas that directly reflect the previous areas, just modulated up or town. The movement ends softly with a virtual desaturation of the rhythmic material. I remove notes, one by one, until there’s nothing left.

The second movement, Rigor Mortis, is inspired by a comic strip by David Lynch that newspapers ran for many years. In this strip, Lynch sketched a stressed-out, pitch-black dog, looking very mean and almost buzzing with anger; it looked like it was about to explode. Every strip began with an accompanying paragraph that read, “The dog who is so angry he cannot move. He cannot eat. He cannot sleep. He can just barely growl. Bound so tightly with tension and anger, he approaches the state of rigor mortis.” This made me envision musicians playing with such ferocity and tension that the music seems to eventually cancel itself out, anger imploding in on itself.

The third movement, Dolente, is sad, lush, and mournful. The only request I had when writing this quartet was to incorporate a Norwegian fiddle tune or theme by Edvard Grieg, so I chose themes from Grieg’s String Quartet No. 1. The form of this movement mimics the form of a song by Edvard Grieg’s entitled Spillemaend (Minstrels, or Fiddlers). The poem that Grieg set in 1876 as the first of Six Ibsen Songs (Op. 25) is based on the Norwegian folktale of the fossegrim, a male water spirit who could teach the art of violin-playing, but often at the price of personal happiness. In some versions of the story, the poor violinist drowns in the end. Like the song, and echoing the second movement, this movement beginning with the protagonist’s longing, his desire for the beloved. Next, he encounters the fossegrim, who promises that becoming a master of music will allow the protagonist to become master of his beloved. In the final stanza, the protagonist becomes a master fiddler, but he is now a cursed, wandering musician deprived of earthly love, so he drowns himself.

The humorous fourth movement, Scherzando, capitalizes on effects that at times, often make the string players sound inebriated. I make use of copious glissandi and tempos that fluctuate between 3/4 and 6/8, giving a sense of unease.

The final movement, Collage, is similar to the first movement in that it is inspired by the visual arts, and specifically, collage painting and works by surrealists. Many themes from the first four movements are brought together in this odd-metered movement.

String Quartet No. 2 commissioned by J. K. Billman and is written for and dedicated to the Euclid Quartet.

The Indianapolis Quartet: Robert Paterson - String Quartets 1-3

String Quartet No. 2 - IV. Scherzando

Suite for String Orchestra
Duration: 15'
For More Information: https://robertpaterson.com/suite-for-string-orchestra
Publisher: Bill Holab Music: http://www.billholabmusic.com/composers/robert-paterson/
Purchase Sheet Music: http://billholabmusic.com/store/index.php?main_page=advanced_search_result&search_in_description=1&keyword=%22suite+for+string+orchestra%22

PROGRAM NOTE
Unlike some of my previous works, Suite for String Orchestra is not inspired by an over-arching programmatic theme. Although there are some technical and motivic relationships between some of the movements—particularly the first and fifth—the movements are generally unrelated and are meant to be noticeably distinct. It is in five short movements and is intentionally written in an “old-fashioned,” somewhat archaic style. I initially played around with the idea of titling this work Old-fashioned Suite or Old Time Suite, but there seems to be a sufficient sprinkling of “new fangled ideas” in this work to make these alternative titles seem inadequate.

The first movement, Allegro vivace, is written in a “mid-20th century American” style. My model for a few of the sections in this movement is the evocative, German phrase Sturm und Drang, which literally translated means “storm and stress.”

In the second movement, Trapped waltz, I imagine an ethereal, yet cognizant waltz floating above the stratosphere, looking for a place to rest, but hobbled and shackled by a pounding rock and roll drumset. I see this as a metaphor for the various dances throughout history that have come and gone but are continually vying for attention in contemporary culture. The movement fades out at the end, as if the waltz is eternally looking for a place to settle down. Admittedly, I was somewhat inspired by the collage works of Charles Ives.

The third movement, Nocturne, begins slowly and sadly, and I imagine the pulse in the beginning as similar to the gentle breathing of someone who is asleep. The middle of the movement is much more intense and violent, and the end is as soft and calm as the beginning. The first chair violin and the first chair violoncello have brief solos in this movement.

Although material from the middle of the fourth movement, Balinese scherzo, is derived from a Balinese scale, the beginning is somewhat chromatic and the ending is essentially based on the E-major scale. This movement is distinctive in that the orchestra is asked to play pizzicato almost the entire time.

The fifth movement, Finale: allegro moderato, is the movement that is most reminiscent of the first movement. The ending combines material from the beginning of both the first and fifth movements.

Suite For String Orchestra - III. Nocturne

Now available on Spotify 
Composição: Paulo Pellegrini
Lima Júnor - Voz, Violão e Gaita
Sandoval Filho - Bandolim, Teclados, Baixo e Cajon

Por Mais Que Eu

I like music of the seventies and eighties a lot. I took my favorite weapon and composed and played this instrumental as a peaceful guitar warrior.

On youtube: https://youtu.be/nIWg2g0Xr_k

"One doesn’t need to become a peaceful warrior. By virtue of living here, on planet Earth, each and every one of us is a peaceful warrior in training — to the degree that we strive to live with a more peaceful heart… but also recognize that there are times we need to live with a warrior spirit." --Dan Millman

Peaceful Warrior - Nicolas Project

Our third track in a series of electro/pop/rock tracks we have been writing

LYRICS:

Hold your breath, your serenity prayers and your sorrow
Feel your chest burn, bury your best girl tomorrow
You’ll turn blue
We’ll come through
And bring stories of 21 years for you to borrow

Tongue-tied and you lie on your side, wait to recover
The fine line in-between a surprise and a shudder
You’ll hold tight
It’s alright
You’ll find time to reveal your disguise to another

Your mind stares down
Your eyes have drowned
Future you need to know you’ll pull through
The rest of you doesn’t want to pull through 
Cos that’s not what you want to do

Hold your breath and your hopes and your prayers and your sorrow
Feel your chest burn, bury your best girl tomorrow

Ten weeks and the memory fades into an echo
Your heart speaks to the hope that it keeps beside your pillow
It’s all clear
You’re still here
The dam crumbles, it washes you out from the hollow

You buried your best girl you’re gonna be fine
Oh, you’re gonna be fine

Bury Your Best Girl

Thanks for listening!
This is the acoustic version of this song if you want to check it out
Keep rockin'!

https://soundcloud.com/patrick-safikhani/finisterrae-freefall-demo

Finisterrae(Acoustic) - DEMO

Try on these 2 Space Suits "Classical" ver1.0 

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2 Space Suits

"Classical" 2 Space Suits

A joy to create! Probably one of the newest songs written for the album, the guitar was written a while before the lyrics, I've been wanting to do something with this tune for a couple years and the effervescent Matt Warren has added that cherry on top!

Cracking vocal track from the Cheshire based singer/songwriter, once again really makes the tine what it is - all of the collabs do, cant thank Matt enough. Man of your talent!

Video shot & edited by me, clicking and missioning around North Norfolk, UK

We hope you enjoy, whoever, and wherever you are ✌😀 ✌😊

Beachy Journey Rainforesty Movies (feat. Matt Warren) • single

Another song about friend(s) in need

LYRICS:

It seems to me that we’ve done it all wrong
It came to me when I was writing this song
Gonna start again and we can start at the end
Didn’t need to mend, think I just needed a friend

I’m falling apart
You’re driving a stake through my heart

You came to me when you were needing a hand
Afloat at sea, we put you back on dry land
You threw it all back in the drink
You blew it on smack and down your sink

We’ll try another time
Just one more time
One more time again

Dry Land (Try Another Time)

American composer Robert Paterson is a true New Yorker—born and bred in Buffalo, he lived in Rochester and Ithaca for over ten years, in New York City for over twenty years, and now lives in Saratoga Springs, near the Adirondacks. Paterson’s colorful music embraces a wide variety of themes, everything from goddesses and online dating to mathematics and the environment. His music is filled with emotion and fierce rhythmic energy, marked by elegance, wit, and meticulous craftsmanship. Named Composer of The Year by the Classical Recording Foundation at Carnegie Hall, Paterson is the winner of the Alfred I. DuPont Award, and his opera Three Way won the Grammy® under Best Classical Producer of the Year. His music is often a Best of the Year pick on National Public Radio. His orchestral tone poem, Dark Mountains, regularly airs on NPR’s Performance Today. Three Way premiered with Nashville Opera, then BAM (Brooklyn Academy of Music), and across the United States. Minnesota Orchestra, Louisville Orchestra, The Oratorio Society of New York, Buffalo Philharmonic, Albany Pro Musica, Albany Symphony, Musica Sacra, Austin Symphony, Vermont Symphony, and ensembles worldwide perform his works. Paterson gives masterclasses at the Curtis Institute of Music, New York University, the Aspen Music Festival, the Cleveland Institute of Music, and more. He is the Artistic Director and house composer for Mostly Modern Projects. Robert is a lifelong vegan and advocates for animals and the environment, celebrating the natural world with ground-breaking works such as his Triple Concerto, A New Eaarth, Listen, and I Go Among Trees.

String Quartet No. 2 - IV. Scherzando

Robert Paterson Composer