Compositions from before, during, and after a summer 2024 trip to Cabo Verde, aka Cape Verde, a small West African multi-island nation and the westernmost country in Africa.

Walking Ears - Verde

In 2024 I fell in love with someone who I had seen as a good and trusted friend. In hindsight, there were some red flags (especially around communication) that I ignored, in part due to some issues of my own, and falling for this person led to a bitter and hurtful experience, in which I was not treated with kindness, and with the dust settled I might even call falling in love with this person the biggest mistake I've made in my adult life. It's far enough behind me now that I can see the clear lessons in it. 

The first three tracks of this album were written during (and immediately after) this unhealthy romantic experience. I don't normally write music about anything in particular but the quintet here is full to the brim with the emotions I was going through at the time. 

The "B side" trio was written many months later and is less emotionally charged (or at least, was written in a less emotionally charged mental headspace). The concept with the trio was to write a chamber music composition consisting of a series of short movements, just because I haven't done one like that before.

As for that heartbreak though, in the end it did teach me a lot. In bouncing back from it, I got into therapy for the first time to better understand myself and what I want out of relationships. I know better now of what to watch out for. If nothing else I have a better relationship with myself now after seeing what some of my prior unaddressed issues had led me to. 

Still, this album is dedicated to you, M. You were the brick wall at the end of the dead end road I used to be on. I hope someday, somebody teaches you what you taught me.

Walking Ears - "Love Story" Quintet and Piano Trio

First upload and opening track of an album of pieces, most of which are experimental in one way or another. Hope you enjoy!

Nerkstura

21 5 30

Part of a new album I've been uploading, featuring compositions written over the last several months of 2021. If anyone can pinpoint what all of these compositions have in common, musically-speaking, put it in the comments - there was a concept tying everything together but I'm not going to reveal what it was unless if someone figures it out on their own.

Cover art created using NeuralBlender.

This album is going to be called "Prohibited Topics," a tribute to the textbook authors and teachers whose work is being disrupted by right wing efforts to stifle education about racial disparity and structural racism in the US.

Prohibited Topics

21 11 21

Piano Concerto 1 - Movement 3

The Thing in my Head Smiled

24 2 24

Quartet + Sonata

Piano Sonata in B Minor

String Quartet in A Major - Movement 1

First upload off a new album, "Verde," much of which was written about a year ago while traveling in Africa's westernmost country, Cabo Verde.

Verde

24 8 11

An atonal, twelve-tone composition, taking some inspiration from the Webern approach to atonal music and just making it very compact. To me that approach legitimately does make the atonal "sound" easier to digest. Bite-sized pieces. Hope you enjoy!

24 6 8

Silly little piece based around a lovely but goofy synth tone that I enjoy. Hope you enjoy as well! Written in Cabo Verde, summer 2024.

24 7 28

24 5 24

I've always really connected with some of Shostakovich's chamber works, especially some of the more jarring, pissed off movements from his string quartets. Just really hit that sweet spot for me of being expressive, idiosyncratic, with lots of individual personality. Anyway this composition is very much inspired by that style. Not the first or last time I've written something inspired by his general "vibe." Hope you enjoy!

24 7 1

24 6 12

A somewhat sloppy but hopefully still interesting little piano improvisation recorded in Cape Verde, West Africa in 2024. 

24 7 26

Chamber music composition for plucked strings. Hope you enjoy!

24 8 16

Brief improvisation created while traveling in Cabo Verde, West Africa, summer 2024. Hope you enjoy!

24 7 27

Brief experimental piece created in Cabo Verde in 2024. Hope you enjoy!

24 7 17

Barebones electronic track written in Cabo Verde, West Africa.

24 7 19

24 7 30

24 6 20

No relation to the Taylor Swift song.

Movement 2 of a trio written around the time of a painful romantic experience that fell apart rather bitterly in Fall 2024.

Movement 2 was written after things (painfully) fell apart, and captures the sort of dour mood I was in at the time, feeling like I'd lost a potentially great love and a friendship.

"Love Story" Piano Quintet - Movement 2

No relation to the Taylor Swift song.

Last year I fell in love with someone who'd been a good friend (or so I thought) up to that point. This turned out to be a mistake and ultimately a bitter experience. It's rare for me to write music "about" anything in particular, but this composition was written around the time that everything happened with this person and is very linked to the emotions I was going through at the time. 

Movement 1 was written when I was in the thick of feeling head over heels for this person, though even then there was some frantic agitation I was feeling (a sign of things to come). PSA, love shouldn't feel like that as it turns out?

"Love Story"  Piano Quintet - Movement 1

First movement of a piano trio of short movements. Hope you enjoy!

Trio in A Major - Movement 1

Movement 3 of a piano trio of short-ish movements. Hope you enjoy!

Trio in A Major - Movement 3

Movement 4 of a piano trio of short-ish movements. Hope you enjoy!

Trio in A Major - Movement 4

Movement 6 of a piano trio of short-ish movements. Hope you enjoy!

Trio in A Major - Movement 6

Final movement of a trio of short-ish movements. Hope you enjoy!

Trio in A Major - Movement 7

Movement 2 of a trio consisting of short-ish movements. Hope you enjoy!

Trio in A Major - Movement 2

Movement 5 of a piano trio of short-ish movements. Hope you enjoy!

Trio in A Major - Movement 5

No relation to the Taylor Swift song.

Finale of a piano quintet written during and after falling in love with someone I really shouldn't have (a lesson I learned painfully)

The finale here is a set of variations on a theme, meant to reflect the obsessive rumination of the early stages after a heartbreak. Turning the same thoughts over in your head from slightly different angles, hoping for clarity. By the end of the composition, we do shift into that same old theme presented peacefully and restfully, meant to capture how, eventually, we truly do move past these things and come to terms with them. I certainly did eventually move on properly and now I look back on the whole experience with the clarity that only distance (and time, and introspection) can bring.

"Love Story" Piano Quintet - Movement 3

As of today, it's been exactly ten years since I first started a co-writing partnership with my friend Liam, and today we finished our latest composition. The composition is named in honor of the free software Finale Notepad, which Liam and I used to use for all of our co-writing. Finale's being phased out, perhaps due to the popularity of Musescore. We wrote this one in Finale, like in the old days, as a farewell to the software we got started with.

Written by exchanging a file by email, with each of us writing eight measures at a time. Hope you enjoy!

Liam's profile: https://soundcloud.com/liam-hynes-tawa

Archive of our prior compositions: https://soundcloud.com/liamhynestawawalkingears

Finale

I teach in US higher education (in a STEM field) & am a hobbyist composer writing in a few different styles. I recommend headphones. All of my music is released under a Creative Commons Attribution/Noncommercial license.

My bandcamp page is getting out of date again, but some older albums there can be downloaded for free or for a name-your-own price donation.

If anyone wants to try performing any of this stuff on real instruments please send a message and I can provide scores. Not sure how playable some of it is for human musicians though.

Unsolicited messages asking me to listen to your latest song will lead to you being blocked unless if I know you well and we've interacted a lot.

Hope you enjoy and thanks for visiting!

WalkingEars

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