Got Me Thinking

A piano sketch written at night
.
Piano sound: Spitfire ORIGINALS - FIREWOOD PIANO
www.spitfireaudio.com/originals/

Sketch Notturno 3 - 20 - 21

Levitated Mortality

I was just testing out a new mic and ended up recording a performance of this Jackson C. Frank song. I used to play this a while back, and tried to record it a few years ago. I'm better at recording now.  I'm still not much of a finger picker, but I've learned some from learning to play this song.  Still, I tracked this as a "in the moment thing", mistakes and all.

Hope you enjoy the listen.

Tumble in the Wind (Jackson C. Frank cover)

Remake

Remove your clock,
so that we have some more hours to find out,
how we feel,
right here, right now, right now, right here…

Remake yourself today,
no regrets, just recreate.
Release yourself right now
feel like it makes you heal your wounds.

Pretend like we could close our ears
to stop all the noise,
to hear ourselves again,
right here, right now, right now, right here…

Goodbye to all the options.
Goodbye to all the almosts.
Goodbye to back and forward
and welcome to here and now.

Rejoin your heart again.
Cause look, it still remains.
Stop it and don´t restrain, right here, right now, right now, right here…

New Country

Remake (Acoustic Version)

Inspired by Fazil Say.
Music&Artwork by @eltac-amirkhanov

Oblique

Oblique [S4]

Written: 2016-17
Duration: ca. 20'
Instrumentation: bass-baritone and piano
Mostly Modern Festival: Matthew Treviño, bass; Amir Farid, piano
Publisher: Bill Holab Music: 
http://www.billholabmusic.com/store/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=103_137&products_id=2763
View Score: https://issuu.com/robertpaterson/docs/paterson_night_songs__score-perusal
For More Information: https://robertpaterson.com/night-songs

MOVEMENTS
I. City Dusk (Text by F. Scott Fitzgerald)
II. Lullaby (Text by W. H. Auden)
III. Birds Appearing in a Dream (Text by Michael Collier)
IV. Insomnia (Text by Dana Gioia)
V. Flying at Night (Text by Ted Kooser)

PROGRAM NOTE
Night Songs is a song cycle consisting of settings of poems by different poets that reflect on various aspects of nighttime. The cycle is structured as a somewhat linear timeline, as if the songs are meditations by a single individual.

The cycle begins with a setting of City Dusk by F. Scott Fitzgerald, is a nostalgic exploration of the memories someone might have as he or she sits in the park at dusk. This person is in the park as the lights go down, and begins to feel sad, but remembers a time when this place wasn’t dark and lonely, but filled with lights, music, and people. He also remembers one specific person, a woman with blonde hair who loved to dance, who in this case, I interpreted as my wife Victoria. The second song, Lullaby, is a setting of the poem of the same name by W. H. Auden, and is a constructed as a love song sung to someone who is sleeping, and is about the inevitability of death, and looking after someone you love. In the third song, a setting of Birds Appearing in a Dream by Michael Collier, I use bird-like motivic patterns to provide structure for the colorful, figurative descriptions throughout Collier's text. The fourth song is a setting of Insomnia by Dana Gioia. In this poem, the narrator is full of regret, and finally realizes the value of people over possessions. The final song, a setting of Flying at Night by Ted Kooser, is a poem that is all at once about what the title suggests, but also about how so much of what we experience is interconnected and tied together by light.

Night Songs was commissioned by David Neal and made possible, in part, with funding from The Community Arts Partnership of Tompkins County.

Night Songs - V. Flying at Night (Text by Ted Kooser)

(c)2021  Guitar, bass, Composing, programing, recording, mixing and mastering by Robert Grigg
A fun little ditty!

Video Link!
https://youtu.be/P5MKya1bNpU

The Rooster Walk

The Essence of Gravity - for Mixed SATB Choir
Duration: 18’
Commissioned by Robert Geary and the Volti choir of San Francisco
Publisher: Bill Holab Music: http://www.billholabmusic.com/store/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=103_137&products_id=902
For More Information: https://robertpaterson.com/the-essence-of-gravity

PROGRAM NOTE
In The Essence of Gravity, I use a few key words, phrases and phonetic sounds rather than an elaborate text. Since there are so few words, I designed the text myself, and it is made up almost entirely of onomatopoeia words. The word ‘gravity’ in the title not only refers to the force of attraction by which objects tend to fall toward the center of the Earth, but also to a sense of seriousness. Each movement reflects one or both of these definitions.

The first movement, Echoes of War, contains words and phrases that make me think of war. A type of weapon called a “gravity bomb” also inspired me. This weapon is delivered by aircraft and does not contain a guidance system; it follows a ballistic trajectory. Until the later half of World War II this described all aircraft bombs, and the vast majority until the late 1980s.

The second movement is entitled Love and Kisses. Although love is an undeniably heavy subject, this movement is intended to be much more playful than serious. Perhaps it is more about the emotional pull that people have on each other.

Before I composed the third movement, Infinite Oceans, I walked along San Francisco’s Baker Beach and Lands End. Although I’ve been to the ocean many times, I am always struck by the seemingly infinite-sounding tides and lonely-sounding foghorns I often hear in the distance. This movement is inspired by the gravitational pull of the moon, the primary force responsible for the ocean’s tides. This movement also alludes to the stories of the mythological Greek Sirens that lured sailors to their deaths with their beautiful singing.

Although many people might not think of machines as evoking a sense of gravity, they seem important in ways that may not be readily apparent. Without machines such as the Space Shuttle, we would not be able to explore outer space. For better or worse, they are integral to our modern way of life. In this sense, the fourth movement, Machines, pays homage to the machines that enrich our lives by allowing us to defy gravity.

Eternal Reflections

The Essence of Gravity - III. Infinite Oceans

Another acoustic track about teenage folly, loss of innocence and peer pressure

LYRICS:

When we were young we felt so strong
The songs we sung, the words were wrong

Tell us a story of your broken hearts
When the water turns black and the ocean parts
Follow your leader on up to the park
And we can all stand by as your eyes go dark

When you were young you grazed your knee
You couldn’t tell, they couldn’t see

Eyes Go Dark

“Without Delay” is the new Cybophonia single.
It was born from a strong need to come back to the new, radically changed, discographic landscape, from which I struggle to stay away.
I have always enjoyed creating music and experimenting with new forms of songwriting. That’s why, during the past several years of silence, I have not remained inactive. Without any particular ambition, I started writing songs with an organic approach. I resurrected my voice and embraced my old acoustic and electric guitars, minimizing the digital input and cut-and-paste style that characterized all my previous projects. I moved away from the EDM genres, to revisit my youth passion for indie guitar pop, which had never really left me.
I hope this new phase will be appreciated by loyal listeners, however unsettling it may sound at first. I also hope that it will win over a new audience who have not heard Cybophonia’s previous work.
Thanks for listening.
Eros

Without Delay

26/02/2021

Get the music

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.

The Essence of Gravity - III. Infinite Oceans

Robert Paterson Composer