Music Group I
(See notes below)
Corporate Invitation (demo 2001)
This piece targeted publically listed companies; it was produced as an audio invitation for a hypothetical business event. Upbeat, playful, its purpose was to grab attention, inspire a smile, and generally set the tone to a successful AGM or public relations event. Did it work? Unfortunately, this coincided with our sudden move to Stratford, and it went into the box. But now after 18-ish years, the box is open again.
From the Night Chant (excerpt, 1974)
From a synthesizer to the inside of a piano – this was me enjoying the harmonics inside a baby grand in a practice studio at SFU. I called it “From the Night Chant”, inspired by chant material anthologized in “Technicians of the Sacred” by Jerome Rothenberg and introduced to me by Brian Fawcett. It has absolutely nothing really to do with Navaho culture, but this superb collection of ethnographic material has been a constant inspiration to me ever since. The piano signal went straight to a mono portable recorder with no further mixing or processing – and many thanks to the late Howard Broomfield who recorded while I played (left hand on the strings, right hand on the keyboard).
Jean’s Song (demo, 2002)
Here’s another marketing project, with a video component, aimed at the upper end of the personal gift market – as a 25th anniversary present from husband to wife. It worked. “Best gift I ever got!” she said. Shows you how anything can happen – (even when this customer told us in her background interview her favorite music was the bagpipes).
String Quartet (excerpt; 1974)
This was one of those pieces where you remember the exact moment you hear an idea, in this case the opening figure. I was on the way home from the SFU studio, stopped at the intersection of Barnet Highway and St. John Rd. in Port Moody. The commission was originally offered to Murray Schafer, but he wasn’t available and it rebounded to me; (beginner’s luck – and not for the first time). I’ll never forget the look on his face when he found out the piece won the first CBC/Canada Council award for young composers: pure pride. (Actually, – I cannot tell a lie – it tied for first place with a piece by Walter Boudreau.)
From “The Four Gated City” – Doris Lessing (except; 1979)
I forget who it was, but someone said I should read this novel about mental illness (!).
Well, I couldn’t put it down, and somehow got CBC producer Don Mowatt to commission a radio version and produce a broadcast for 2 New Hours. I kept trying to make my score go crazy – systematically nuts, using demented pieces of childhood nursery rhymes from the book. Great idea Bruce, but as we got into the studio at CBC Vancouver I knew I couldn’t use the piles of fragmented nursery rhymes, and realized I had to fake the whole thing. I quickly mapped out the time into sections, each with various fixed-pitch structures, and off we went, the musicians taking up the challenge and doing a great job of improvising the whole thing. Luckily David Jaeger in Toronto liked it.
Janet in a car (2002)
Another practice run for the musical portraits project. This came from a photo of Janet taken before we even met, sitting in a New York cab. When I played it for her; she wasn’t all that impressed – (but then, we all have our own self image).
