This album has been reworked, remastered, and released in collaboration with the charitable music project Playing to Pitch In. Spotify link: open.spotify.com/album/3GSMJAS4OA…b_TU6Gktqukfvr2Q

This album is designed as a continuous medley, with each track flowing into the next. Recurring themes and musical elements tie the pieces together (e.g., "Windswept Wilderness" reprises some elements from previous tracks), and some of the endings in tracks are intended as semicolons rather than periods (e.g., the final cadence in "Ocean Star" that sets up "Little Blackwater Sound", the counterpoint sequence at the end of "Waltz of the Pelicans" that sets the darker mood for "Wonders of the Underworld", or the unresolved chord at the end of "Wonders of the Underworld" that is resolved by the opening chord of "Shadows of a Spider Spinning Silk").

The album art depicts the contour plot of a random potential energy landscape.  I used the mathematical software Maple to plot several equipotential curves from a potential energy landscape generated by random point charges.  While this underlying mechanism for generating the picture has nothing to do with the album title, the resulting image somehow strikes me as both "orby" and "spidery", also with some of the curves "weaving" around others, so I decided to go with it!

Seven Dreams of the Orb Weaver (solo piano album)

Opening track in the "Seven Dreams of the Orb Weaver" album https://soundcloud.com/skai-eriksson/sets/seven-dreams-of-the-orb-weaver.  The album has been reworked, remastered, and released in collaboration with the charitable music project Playing to Pitch In.  Spotify link:  https://open.spotify.com/album/3GSMJAS4OA22ECx4wq7jDN?si=CzEcd-b_TU6Gktqukfvr2Q

This track serves as a prelude to the rest and for the subsequent track "Ocean Star" in particular.  The rest of the album is rather dark and emotional, so in this prelude I aimed for something light, calm, and peaceful with just a hint at some of the later darker themes.  The impressionist-style waterfall just after the middle of the song is indeed Debussy-inspired (it is just a simple pentatonic pattern similar to ones that appear in plenty of songs, but for me this type of pentatonic run is iconic of Debussy's Arabesque).  The 6/4 time signature gives a little extra space to elaborate on this riff, and I was pleased with how it sounds as a resolution to the cadence leading up to it.  While the song has a shifting tonal center, it is certainly not as tonally destabilized as Debussy's music, and this (along with the simplicity of the locomotive rhythm) affords an opportunity to prepare the listener for a climactic sense of arrival as the pentatonic run appears.   I wanted the middle section of the song to offset the minimalism that is present at the beginning and end of the song, and this Debussy-style riff serves as a nice centerpiece for that.

Ripples In Spacetime

This is the 2nd track in the "Seven Dreams of the Orb Weaver" album https://soundcloud.com/skai-eriksson/sets/seven-dreams-of-the-orb-weaver.  The album has been reworked, remastered, and released in collaboration with the charitable music project Playing to Pitch In.  Spotify link: https://open.spotify.com/album/3GSMJAS4OA22ECx4wq7jDN?si=CzEcd-b_TU6Gktqukfvr2Q Among the songs in the playlist, it was written first (around 2011 while the rest were written in 2021-2022).

Ocean Star

This is the final track in the "Seven Dreams of the Orb Weaver" album https://soundcloud.com/skai-eriksson/sets/seven-dreams-of-the-orb-weaver.  The album has been reworked, remastered, and released in collaboration with the charitable music project Playing to Pitch In.  Spotify link:  https://open.spotify.com/album/3GSMJAS4OA22ECx4wq7jDN?si=CzEcd-b_TU6Gktqukfvr2Q

This track is partly a reprise of "Ocean Star" and "Waltz of the Pelicans" with some additional elements.

Windswept Wilderness

This is the 6th track in the "Seven Dreams of the Orb Weaver" album https://soundcloud.com/skai-eriksson/sets/seven-dreams-of-the-orb-weaver.  The album has been reworked, remastered, and released in collaboration with the charitable music project Playing to Pitch In.  Spotify link: https://open.spotify.com/album/3GSMJAS4OA22ECx4wq7jDN?si=CzEcd-b_TU6Gktqukfvr2Q

Shadows of a Spider Spinning Silk

This is the 3rd track in the "Seven Dreams of the Orb Weaver" album https://soundcloud.com/skai-eriksson/sets/seven-dreams-of-the-orb-weaver.  The album has been reworked, remastered, and released in collaboration with the charitable music project Playing to Pitch In.  Spotify link: https://open.spotify.com/album/3GSMJAS4OA22ECx4wq7jDN?si=CzEcd-b_TU6Gktqukfvr2Q

The ending of the preceding track "Ocean Star" (the section after it changes to 4/4 time signature) resolves to a new key (E-flat major) serving as a lead-in for the current track.  

One may notice a "tempo rubato" in comparison to the other tracks on the album.  I played along to a metronome throughout most of the other songs, and I found it to be very challenging.  So, it was a liberating experience to not use the metronome for most of this song.  In the future, I will reconsider the benefits of a metronome and perhaps utilize a hybrid approach breaking free of the metronome more often.  Using the metronome makes editing much easier, but one of the powerful expressive tools unique to solo piano is the limitless control one has over the tempo.

Little Blackwater Sound

This is the 4th track in the "Seven Dreams of the Orb Weaver"  album https://soundcloud.com/skai-eriksson/sets/seven-dreams-of-the-orb-weaver.  The album has been reworked, remastered, and released in collaboration with the charitable music project Playing to Pitch In.  Spotify link: https://open.spotify.com/album/3GSMJAS4OA22ECx4wq7jDN?si=CzEcd-b_TU6Gktqukfvr2Q

One intention with this track was to have something (relatively) upbeat and playful to follow the more emotional previous tracks "Ocean Star" and "Little Blackwater Sound" before diving into the subsequent dark and indulgent tracks.  The upbeat mood winds down and darkens before concluding in a counterpoint sequence (with some hint of the melodic minor) intended to set the mood for the subsequent track.

Sheet music available on request.

Waltz of the Pelicans

This is the 5th track in the "Seven Dreams of the Orb Weaver" album https://soundcloud.com/skai-eriksson/sets/seven-dreams-of-the-orb-weaver.  The album has been reworked, remastered, and released in collaboration with the charitable music project Playing to Pitch In.  Spotify link: https://open.spotify.com/album/3GSMJAS4OA22ECx4wq7jDN?si=CzEcd-b_TU6Gktqukfvr2Q

Wonders of the Underworld

I grew up in the Florida Keys where both of my parents worked as musicians in the entertainment business.  My grandmother taught me to play the piano at an early age.  I ended up pursuing a career in mathematical research and teaching, but in my free time I enjoy composing music mainly for piano.

Seven Dreams of the Orb Weaver (solo piano album)

Skai Eriksson