These are melodic tunes in the lyrical sense: each turns on an internal continuity that is opened up and moved forward by feeling.  All parts composed and played (or improvised) by CWD.  More recent tunes sometimes use loop construction in the backing tracks.   Please click on individual pieces for information.  

Image is "Ambiance" by Ingrid Luongo.  Used with permission.  See a sampling of her work at https://www.facebook.com/ArtbyIngrid.




lyrical

These are tunes in which the guitar is or was progressive at some time, at least in some sense of the word.  Please click on individual pieces for information.  

The image is a detail of a splendid installation by Damian Ortega called "Controller of the Universe."  The photo is by Kelsey Bennett or Heather Morgan or both (see more of their adventures at http://pearldive.blogspot.com/).

avant-guitarred

Relatively finished tunes in the SoundCloud "Spotlight."  All parts composed (or improvised) and played by CWD.  Some of the more recent tunes use loop construction in the backing tracks.     For stories about the tracks, and recording information, please select the "featured" page and then click on the names of the particular pieces or their associated icons. 

Image  is "Guitar and Music Paper" by Juan Gris, the guitar's best friend in the visual arts (public domain image).


featured

The main theme of F.L.Y. was written in 1987, set aside, and then recorded in 1989 on four track cassette as part of a wedding present for Janie and Tony Liberto with the second theme composed pretty much on the spot.  When remastering it in 2013 in PT with BFD, I was really tempted to redo the bass, which needs more 'voice' and melody particularly in the B section which is too repetitious, but this is the original, played on the Rick 4001.  Posted now is a yet newer tweak.  It's a good enough tune that one of these days I ought simply to redo it from scratch, since the basic audio is of such poor quality.

The image is Boccioni's "Dynamism of a Soccer Player" (public domain image).

Five Long Years

My intent has been to add an oboe melody with string bass.  For now, this is GTR only, for inclusion in the "Virtual Solo Concert" series.

Image is Albert Bierstadt "Among the Sierra Nevada."  Smithsonian Open Access SAAM-1977.107.1_2

Solace

Written for P.O. during a tough time.  I was never sure whether this was a standalone piece or not.  But here it is.

Image is Oppenord's Preliminary Design for the Salon d'Angle Smithsonian Open Access CHSDM-18630_02

A Farewell To Architecture - GTR

The original title was "Vignettes Quartalettes" since this was an early experiment with quartal harmony.

This too I was always uncertain whether it should be a standalone piece or not.  Some parts definitely need something.  Will revisit at some point.

Image is "Steps" by Manierre Dawson Smithsonian Open Access HMSG-78.63

Vignette Silhouettes

This one is perhaps most of all an "unaccompanied accompaniment" that is and sounds incomplete, since it is the guitar track for a song that has yet to be written.  However, a dear friend said she liked it and so I am posting it here, for what it's worth, with hopes for completion before too very long.

This tune makes use, in two different segments, of the Prieto palindrome, a rhythmic motif by the marvelous drummer and composer Dafnis Prieto.

The image is a photo of a weathervane (attr. Leach.),  Smithsonian Open Access SAAM-1986.65.358_5

Recompense GTR

I wrote “Double Helix” in 1988 when I inwardly decided to ask May Sim to marry me.  This was written and recorded in the Spring.  I proposed to her on my knee at Christmastime.  

It is another four-track cassette recording.  The sound is not good.  The lead synth and main bass are guitar controlling the 1980-ish Roland SPV-355 voltage controlled synth.   That unit’s tracking was questionable and so you can hear a lot of squawking glitches in the bass, and one screwy note in the lead right at the climax.  (The total synth breakdown at the end I leave in as a fortuitous metaphor.)  

Posted here is a semi-cleaned up remaster.  Unfortunately, in 1988 I had not yet acquired the habit of recording everything dry and so there's some tinny echo that lingers inside the new reverb.  And I have newly MIDI doubled the original bass and arpeggiated guitar, but have not cleaned up the conversion from audio in Melodyne, so there are some wrong notes in those new tracks.  It would take a lot of time to fix those; nonetheless I leave them in the mix, as the (currently low-volume) synth bass on the left and virtual twelve-string on the right add to the sound despite the odd wrong note.  Will definitely fix those someday.  Though the number probably deserves a complete redo from scratch, the original recording – made in a few stolen late nights hours in the McGill dorm of Vanderbilt University with thrilling and idealistic visions of a shared future with this exquisite woman spinning my head and heart – has sentimental value despite its flaws.

Image is "Looking Up the Spiral Staircase of the Lighthouse" by Ian Cumming.  Permission pending.  See more of Ian's work at https://www.printscapes.com/Home/ctl/Printscapes_Item/mid/1189?MediaID=1880002

Double Helix

Here's one from the 8-track files, though it's only a four track piece, newly remastered.  It was recorded as a present for Genelle Wecker around 2001.  I called it "Genelle's Groove," then "Gennie's Groove," and then finally "G's Groove."

The drums - rather skeletal and definitely too mechanical - are composed (no loops) on the TR-505, which one recent reviewer called "The worst digital drum machine of all time."  Well, in 1986 I was excited to be able to buy such a thing.

The keys are the Casiotone CT-460, a plasticky mass market unit that had at best three halfway decent sounds.  Two of those are found here: a harpsichord and a synth.

It still lacks - and needs - a bassline.

This piece is notable for being the second of only three recordings of my brief flirtation with elementary kbd playing.  The uncertainty shows - sometimes I'm 'on' and sometimes not.

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G's Groove

Written as a wedding song ("Down the Aisle") in 1987, this was always already a piece for strings.  Here is a realization (2022), using Melodyne to extract MIDI from the original guitar and synth, and N.I.'s Cremona for the virtual instruments.  No doubt more detail and finesse could be coaxed out of the software, but I am pleased with the sound of this few evenings' work.

The image is Marc Chagall's "Le Violoncelliste" (1964), in an image from the fabled Phillips auction house.  I trust that Phillips, among the premier houses, will not mind the use of this web snip in return for promotional consideration:  https://www.phillips.com/article/41355417/marc-chagall-painted-cellist.  See www.Philips.com for more exciting availabilities.

Wedding March - from String Trio No 1 (1987)

This was a first foray into loop construction, with old-fashioned playing added.  About 1999 we bought a used Kawai keyboard that had some elementary MIDI features and some internal loops.  I chose a loop and 'played' it, breaking it up according to a decided rhythm and motif.  Then accent notes were added manually.  That forms the main part, the beginning and ending.  Then I used drum loops as inputs for the middle sections - which work well enough though they are too mechanical - also adding grace notes and phrases that reference the main part.  

The photo is one of my favorites, from my years homedadding and homeschooling.

Parenthood Redo

This is one of a number of kid tunes I wrote long ago.  This one was penned originally for Eva Foreman-Ortiz, first daughter of Carol and Peter.  Though the posted version is instrumental, it really MUST be sung with the following lyrics.  I invite you to sing along:

Oh the silly little clown dog wears a funny hat
and the silly little clown dog dances with a cat
And he makes the children laugh when they come to see-e-e ...
...the circus, just the place where us kiddies want to be.

Oh the silly little clown dog has a lot of fun
since he shares it with his friends he's not ... the ... on-ly ... one.

The clown hat is available here: https://www.etsy.com/listing/751868657/french-clown-pierrot-dog-hat.  I have used the image from this site with the gesture of the preceding promotion.

Silly Little Clown Dog

The outro is in nine, but who's counting?

This was originally written and recorded for Mark and Jennifer in 2002 or 3.  I redid the intro and outro to use it as an audio greeting card to honor a colleague on the occasion of her academic tenure.  The tune would no doubt be better as a part of a longer, more fully developed multipart piece.  As is, it is a fragment and is offered as such.

It is part of my practice of musical hygiene to avoid musical quotations and variations as much as possible.  This one bothered me because the 'B' section "sounded like something" but I couldn't put my finger on it.  Only several years later did I stumble upon the undoubted inspiration for that one section: the eighth movement of Ligeti's "Musica Ricercata."  So, variation it was, and is.  Ordinarily I wouldn't post it, but friends have said it's enough my own to share.

The original was recorded on the Roland BR-8.  The overloading in the final measures is due in large part to the error of having put the guitar and organ (a 1980s Casio ToneBank) on a single submix.  Remixed with intro and outro in Pro Tools in May 2023.

The image is generated by OpenAI's Dall-e, under the instruction "Celebratory Dance in the late period style of Kandinsky."  Digital associationism has its perks.

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Celebration In Six And Seven (variation on a theme of Ligeti)

The current version of this track, which I think of as penultimate - almost but not quite finished, because of some problems in the sound of the ending - is a remix of stems isolated from a 1986 master.  We allowed ourselves some new sounds and some reshuffling of Jo's vocal.  It is the only of seven tunes from those mid-'80s sessions to which we have allowed any changes other than sound processing.

Disagreements among the players about the meaning of the piece led to compromises in its reworking.

My understanding of the lyrics was - and is - as follows.  We hear a depiction of an alienated protagonist's consideration of a grim and really desperate sort of faith, one that doesn't flow naturally from the heartful, nor which really soothes his own bleak mind, and that leads to a stark and ultimately unsatisfactory choice: on the one hand embrace a despairing and hollow faith or on the other, choose suicide or unbearable anxiety and fear.  A positive glimmer comes from the (nonhuman) animals referenced and heard in the tune.  This suggests that we could - and perhaps should - embrace their sort of faith.  Perhaps their sort of 'faith' is simple confidence in the next breath, the next day, the next meal, the next mate.  How the whole song turns out hangs on how this is heard.  If it is offered by the animals as an out, a third way that breaks the man's grim dichotomy, it is different from the faith and heart and religion referenced up to that point.   It seems as if it should be so heard, since it is present in the sounds and in the lyric.  In that same lyric however, it is not at all clear that their animal faith is in fact felt by the driver as a third option, or whether he takes their "you might as well have faith" to reference faith of the more familiar and more suspicious human sort.   That central issue is left unresolved.  It's left entirely hanging whether the driver chooses 'faith' at all, faith of any sort.  This becomes the central fact about which the other parts of the song turn: do the animals offer another way?  Does the driver even see it?  We, the listeners, hear it and hope he takes it.

This cut, with the others under "College Band," plus one more, in CD quality, for download or CD, is available on the album "Matchmaker" by JC and the Buddagong on Bandcamp.

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Faith Drive

I probably should not post this track, recorded for and dedicated to Cam Wecker in 2000.  It's quite rough.  The Fripp inspired (though unmechanical) crosspicked rhythm guitar is about right.  That's the only thing.  Parts of the mostly improvised bass are good, parts are not.  The final section - faded here - was left a placeholder sketch and never finished.  The drums (composed hit by hit, no loops) remain in the original Roland 505 and so sound thin.  Above all, the lead synth sounds dreadful though it was the best sound I could coax at the time out of the late-70s era Roland PV synth.  I am nevertheless fond of this piece, which is one of a number of my things that meld a groovular feel with modernist touches.  Someday perhaps I'll clean it up.


Life on Planet Cameron (Excerpt)

A wistful piece for unaccompanied single-line guitar. One of the "prefaces" series culled from unfinished longer tunes. Others to follow. This one trades on an eight note nearly open chord and an implied loose time that rocks back and forth from the waist between regret and entreaty.  Dedication to J.E.B.  

Image is a beautiful mandolira from the Met (open access image).

preface to "What Should Have Been"

Preface to "What Should Have Been"

The title of this gentle preface is a ripoff of the great Fellini flick with a touch of the same meaning: I remember.  

The image is "Double Spiral on the Wall" (Google image; rights are not clear, though this is a photograph of a public mural so it should be okay to post; please contact me if there are any issues.  I would very much like to know the artist.  No information was available online.)

Amarchord

Oklahoma, 1995, I bought a wind chime tuned to B minor flat five flat 6 flat nine.  I loved the sound, and hung it inside where my two year old son, Aris, liked to bat at it to make it ring.  That is the origin of this one chord song in three parts.  The first part is based on a recording of Aris playing with the chimes, over which I improvised using elements of a couple motifs I coughed up based on the chord.  The other sections are rhythmic parts in moderate tempo, elaborating those same motifs.  I play guitar and bass, and wrote the drum programming (hit by hit - no loops).  This is one of a few recordings that feature improvised bass (except for the opening figure, the whole thing is jammed, even the final part in which I repeat some phrases I liked).  Original recording on Yamaha 4 track cassette with a cheap mic that doesn't do justice to those chimes.  Remixed in 2013 on PT 9 with BFD.

Chime In

This melodic, electro-acoustic piece in five was originally written for Jena with Ambrose, age 4, on cello.  This remix has Wes' original guitar with a doubled guitar part converted to synth flute (MIDIfied gtr).  Harp is modified loop construction from the JS-5 files.  Originally recorded in 2000 on BR-8, remastered in 2012 in PT9.

Skip, Jump, and Bop

Heavy funk-rock with a cocky swagger and lots of changes.  May really hates the solo, but I used to love riding the big electric tiger with a little metal slide, and despite this being a pale imitation of earlier forays, the solo fits the tune and the intent.  Wes on guitars and JS-5 programming.  Originally recorded in 2000 on the BR-8; remastered in 2012 on PT9.  This one's for P.M.M.

Image is a detail of "Catch the Power of Communication" by Ben Goossens.  Permission pending.  For more of Ben's brain-bending work, see http://www.fineart-portugal.com/author/220.

Filibuster

This snippet of a longer construction is somewhere in the jazzrock - progrock spectrum.  Someday I'll record the whole thing, as it's better in context.  Wes: guitars and JS-5 programming.  Written in 1994; an early recording from 1995 - dedicated to Randy Auxier for some environmental activism and called "Running Mount Dioxin" - is floating around somewhere.  This version, with loopy backing, was originally recorded in 2000 on the BR-8 and remixed in PT in 2008.

Can't help It

"Nautilus" and "Rejoinder" are two parts of one electroacoustic piece, here realized in MIDI. The first part, "Nautilus," begins with an ambient section; the melody enters at 2:51.  "Rejoinder" came about in the following way.  I had been working several evenings on a chromatic melody that would expand and contract gently to swim in and out of the spiraling chord progression from which Nautilus finds its name. I was trying hard to make it a pretty melody…trying rather too hard, perhaps, and getting frustrated. At one point, in a bit of a fit, I isolated the electric guitar and piano tracks and in a very few minutes mangled it as one might twist and compress and stretch a soft clay figure into something other than a figure (using Celemony’s Melodyne, which is usually used for pitch and time “correction”). I liked it. Sustaining a mischievous spirit, in a few more hours I added the strings to this Rejoinder, then the next evening added the drums and copy/pasted a few emergent motifs to provide some continuity and emphases. Voila! Instant musical Gehryism.

Staircase image by Elaine Plesser.  Used by permission.  See more of her work at: http://www.artistrising.com/shop/artist/13414/Elaine-Plesser.htm



Nautilus . . .

“Buns of Glory” is something of a sendup of Taebo-style quasi-martial exercise soundtracks popular in the 90s and after.  The tune was written to accompany a Karate exercise exhibition by “Team S. K.” of Bryan Hurst’s Superior Karate school in Stillwater, Oklahoma, around 2002.  The melody owes a hearfelt apology to R.V. Williams.  The bass intro is a rendering of Brandy’s “Superior Karate cheer.”  Recorded on the BR-8; remastered in 2007 in PT 7.  Wes: guitars and JS-5 programming.  The solo is improvised, though within a stock contour.

Buns of Glory

A moody guitar improvisation subsequently split, one copy MIDIfied and turned into a piano part, then tweaked so as to seem independent.   I’m fond of this piece, despite its faults (yes, the timing's off on the second bridge of fives), as an accurate capture of one very particular reverie.  

Recorded in 2001 on the BR-8.  Bass and keys on the JS-5. Remastered in PT9 in 2013.


Consolations

A series of vignettes descending into a sort of fugue state, this is a collaborative write with parts by Jo Connor, Peter Ortiz and myself.  I was never crazy about my part of the lyrics, snipped by Jo from a poem I wrote about a wintertime trip with these same friends in a snowstorm. 

The session felt like a swan song for this ensemble, and quite possibly for me an end to a ten-year foray into guitaristry.   With that as mental undercurrent, I was even more nervous than usual.  

The proceedings were rather hastily conducted.  We had aimed for a one-afternoon session.  I tried fruitlessly to nail the solo (which was worked out in advance, not improvised), with increasing frustration.  We had no ending.  We were forced to return for a brief second session, and fumbled about for an ending until Jo improvised on the drum machine.  It felt good.  Things fell together.  I recorded two takes of a concluding gtr part, both satisfactory, both heard here, superimposed.  Recorded in 16 track at High Heel Studios with Arnold Geher, owner and engineer, in 1986.  The version heard here is an original rough mix, supplied by Mr. Geher, remastered in PT using a bit of EQ, a very small amount of compression, and the Waves model of the Abbey Road TG mastering chain.  The parts are out of balance, but the basis is a mix - one of only two surviving - that was never intended to be final.

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Feeding the Drain

Peter Ortiz’s signature tune.  I do the fills and the lead.  Jo Connor’s vocals.  This version has Tom Lavrakas on bass and Peter and Tim Griffin on rhythm gtr.  Recorded at Davaid’s basement studio on 8 track in 1985.  Remastered in PT9 in 2012.  

Image is Dali's "Pierrot and Guitar," a cubist experiment of 1924 (public domain image).


Room Called Art

My pet name for the tune.  Peter Ortiz wrote the chorus; Jo Connor wrote the verses. I play running gtr lead / fills.  Jo on vocals. Tom Lavrakas on bass and Peter and Tim Griffin on rhythm gtr. Recorded at Davaid’s basement studio on 8 track in 1985. Remastered in PT9 in 2012. 

(Image is a sleeping baby's left eye.)  ((What side of the garden are you on, anyway?)).

Source for this image: http://www.demotivationalposters.net/image/demotivational-poster/1010/innocence-get-your-mind-out-of-the-gutter-demotivational-poster-1286268670.jpg.  No photographic credit is given; if anybody can tell me more about this cunning shot, please let me know and I will post full credit and links.

Expulsion (from the garden)

I loved Bobby Kennedy, so this was a hard lyric for me to swallow.  It’s a good tune, though, by Jo Connor, and I like my contribution: surging accents and fills and support for Jo’s slow burn of an ending.  Tom Lavrakas plays bass and Peter and Tim Griffin rhythm gtr. Recorded at Davaid’s basement studio on 8 track in 1985. Remastered in PT9 in 2012.

Sirhan Sirhan

“Seven Foot Smile” is Tim Griffin’s tune about a heroin addict girlfriend.  I hope he doesn't mind my posting it.  I never cared for the hook.  He never liked my lead or fills.  Too bad; they’re my third favorite thing about the piece.  My second favorite thing is the ending, which appeared out of nowhere one afternoon as a sort of portrait by Peter and me of Tim's ambling away from the relationship, hands in pockets, whistling.  My favorite thing is Tom Lavrakas' bass.  He really shines here; I think in the end he quite 'owns' this recording of SFS.  Peter and Tim Griffin on rhythm gtr.  Recorded at Davaid’s basement studio on 8 track in 1985.  Remastered in PT9 in 2012.


Seven foot Smile

This tune began with an original by Ken Casey that he called "Peacock Slough," written as a self-sufficient piece.  I took that as his 'part,' added my 'parts,' and it became this charming miniature, here descriptively titled.  I was visiting Ken's basement apartment in Hendersonville, TN.  He played his tune and I jammed over it.  The recording includes the original improvised child's xylophone and the guitar I recorded back in my dormroom, which is mostly improvised (even the opening figure is pretty much the first thing that came out, though I repeated it.)  The hissing sound right near the end is the sound of the water flowing into the pipes in the basement where we played from the landlord's flushing the toilet upstairs.  (I love those accidentals!)

Image is a detail of Seraphine Louis' "Bouquet" (public domain jpeg).

One Night in Hendersonville (Casey / DeMarco)

“Over the Hill” hangs entirely on the double-entendre of the title which is embodied in the one suspended note of the turnaround at 0:58 - 1:03.  (The double entendre is: both 'over the hump' and 'all downhill from here.')  Wes on guitar and JS-5 programming.  Recorded on the BR-8 in 2000.  Remastered in PT in 2022.

The image is Jane Andrews' "To the Inevitable."  Used with permission.  See more of her work at http://www.janeandrews.co.uk/gallery.html.

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Over the Hill

I thought about giving this to you in 1986, before the poem about our falls.  It’s not a great tune, and I probably shouldn’t even post it.  Moreover this was more my issue than yours.  But here it is, intended now and originally as a slightly inappropriate memento of a zesty year remembered with fondness and with gratitude.  The tune reaches toward hope, though dwells mainly in tragedy.  Four track cassette recording 1986, remastered in 2012.  Apologies to Steve Howe for the second phrase; it just came out and I never returned to replace it (ordinarily, even with quickie home fare, such a derivative phrase would've been overdubbed with another effort).

The image is "Our Lady of Nagasaki," a photo of a church statue that survived the bombing.

Nagasaki (for two guitars)

This page is dedicated to original home recordings, more or less scantily rehearsed.  (A few items are studio recordings with vocals.)  To navigate, FIRST click the 'playlists' -- that is, the headings "Featured," "Lyrical," etc., or their accompanying images -- THEN, for stories of and information about particular pieces, click on their titles or their associated images. 

A self-taught guitarist and amateur project musician, I'm also heard here on bass and percussion, and am occasionally caught coaxing sounds out of keys.  In all but a few cases I've done my own recording and engineering.

I’m in the process of remixing and remastering old tunes and very occasionally recording new ones, so material is being added fairly regularly.

Every effort has been made to contact the visual artists whose work so enhances this site for permission to use the images found here.  I indicate on the individual tunes, in the info section, whether permission is pending or has been received.  Every image seen on this website is either used by permission, is used with the expectation of imminent permission, or is being used under 'fair use' provisions.

Wes DeMarco

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