Between 1999 and 2002 I made a total of 8 CD’s of music. I just gave them to a few friends and relatives at the time. The styles of music may or may not be to your taste, and I admit that quality is variable. Anyway, I present them all here for you to listen to, in the order that I made them, so that you can hear the journey I went on as a composer/musician…

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CD1 -Speechless- 4th June 1999

My first CD. Although this is made entirely using my PC soundcard’s built-in sounds, I had recently got myself a Phat Boy MIDI Performace Controller, a little box of turny-knobs which allows you to play with the sounds in real-time and record it as MIDI data. This enabled me to sweep the Resonance and Filter Cutoff parameters of my sequenced parts. Although by no means did I use this on every track, you can hear it on tracks 1, 4 and 9. I used the Phat Boy on odd tracks on later CD’s too. Listen out for it, see if you can spot it. If you’ve no idea what effect I’m referring to, think of what they do with Trance music, how the sounds often gradually change resonance while they are playing. You know what I mean right? If not then you’re a dumbass.

(only joking, you might not be into trance music or anything like that…)

Anyway, about this CD. Yeah, my first CD, and full of good ideas, but made using limited sounds. If I’d made this in 2003/2004 with what I’d learnt by then, it would have really kicked ass…

Oh, and by the way, Uncle Bertie fans may recognise track 3…

1 It’s Strange Out There

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 9:44
2 Harp

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 4:17
3 Mr Wobbly Feet

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 1:54
4 Trance Atlantic Float

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 8:44
5 Land of the Thousand Pianos

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 10:32
6 Happy Day

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 4:37
7 Sad Day

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 4:56
8 Another Happy Day

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 6:47
9 Strange Day (Clockwork Dreaming)

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 5:46
10 Intimate Interlude

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 1:50
11 Far Out Echoes of a Storm

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 9:09
12 Cold Winter Trees

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 3:23
5:12

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CD2 – Echoes Inside – 3rd February 2000

Although this was the 2nd CD I created, most of the music on it was made before the music on CD 1 was made. Tracks 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 8 and 9 were all made in 1998 using my Kawai K4 synthesizer (manufactured in 1989?) sequenced using Cubase software on an Atari ST computer. Track 7 was made in 1999 on my PC around the same time as CD 1, but it was too long to fit on that CD. Track 5 was a new track made in 2000 using a completely different approach to anyone of my other pieces of music. It was created using a sample-based music software program called Acid, and it was pieced together entirely from samples.

1 Dream Choir, part 1

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 1:43
2 Echoes Inside, part 1

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 4:42
3 Together

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 8:31
4 Pulsating

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 8:41
5 Stutter Tutter

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 4:24
6 Fairytails From Heaven, part 2

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 13:24
7 The Secret Valley

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 25:28
8 Echoes Inside, part 2

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 5:00
9 Dream Choir, part 2

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 1:43

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CD3 – Beautiful Strange – 11th August 2000

When I first finished this CD, I thought it was the best thing I’d ever done, and I didn’t know how I would ever top it. Of course, in hindsight I can hear many flaws. It was made on my PC, using the soundcard’s built-in sounds, which is why it sounds the way it does. Still, it has some great melodies and harmonies in places though…

Dreamy Swirly Fields 28:15
1 Part 1

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2 Part 2

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3 Part 3

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Birds Fly Through Sunshine & Trees 17:33
4 Part 1

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5 Part 2

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6 Part 3

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Sometimes I Just Don’t Know 25:28
7 Part 1

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8 Part 2

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9 Part 3

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CD4 – Blue Sky – 23rd February 2001

All of the music on this CD was made using a Kawai K4 synth, which is why it sounds the way it does. Tracks 2 to 7 were made in 1998 and sequenced using Cubase software on an Atari ST computer. Tracks 1 and 8 were created in 2001, with me directly playing the K4 into recording software on my PC.

1 Blue Sky Morning

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 2:30
2 Down Through the Valleys & Over the Hills

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 16:27
3 I Am Confused

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 6:06

Majestic Synthetic
15:47
4
 Part 1

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5
 Part 2

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Girl With the Sunshine in Her Hair
28:58
6
 Part 1

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7 Part 2

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8 Blue Sky Evening

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 2:52

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CD5 – Imagination - 25th March 2001

I wanted to create a continuous flow of music, where one track ran seamlessly into the next one, just like Mike Oldfield did with his album The Songs of Distant Earth. So I went about making these individual pieces which would all make up the whole by blending into each other. However, when it came time to actually make the CD, I couldn’t find a way to have each of the tracks as seperate tracks on the CD and also blend into each other. In the end, I decided to make two very long tracks instead. There’s some good bits in it, but looking back, I think I really needed to get over this obsession I had with making very long pieces of music just because technology made it easy to do so.

1 Track 1

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 27:07
2 Track 2

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 36:42
Extra Tracks:
3 Synth Groove Thing

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 5:24
4 Summer Breeze

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 4:39

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CD6 – Sky Pictures - 2001

This was where I started to use more sounds, rather than just sticking to my soundcard’s built-in sounds. There’s some good moments here, and there’s some good sounds, but if I was working on this CD now I would probably work a lot more on making the arrangements tighter and editing down the tracks a bit.

1 Grey Clouds & Confusion

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 7:49
2 Spaced Out

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 5:55
3 Up High in the Sky

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 7:08
4 An Ache Too Far Away

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 2:47
5 Get Up & Have Fun

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 5:28
6 Drifting Train of Thought

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 9:27
7 Sunday After Bristol

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 10:27
8 Chords & Sunshine

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 5:45
9 Walking in a Daydream Tomorrow

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 5:44
10 Little Flower

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 2:08
11 Flying Like Sky Pictures

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 11:16

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CD 7 – Misleading (CD1) – 2nd November 2001

After getting used to using more sounds on the Sky Pictures CD, this time I decided to experiment more with strange melodies and strange arrangements. I called the CD Misleading because of the way things were less predictable this time. Some of the pieces suddenly change to a totally different tempo. I liked the idea of catching the listener by surprise once they had settled into a particular rhythm. This was originally going to be part of a two CD set, but I never quite finished CD 2 (although I very nearly did…)

1 Weird Music

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 5:12
2 Drowning Blue Reflections

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 5:09
Changes in a Different Room 18:18
3 Part 1

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4 Part 2

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5 The Eternal Search For Alternative Questions

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 14:41
6 Beautiful Nature and the Absurdity of Modern Life

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 14:53
7 Silhouettes at Sunset

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 13:22

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CD 8 – Secrets Under The Trees – 9th January 2002

Although this was the last of the 8 CD’s I made, it’s by no means my favourite. Although I love track 5 tremendously, and I think track 7 is pretty good, I’m not that happy with tracks 1, 2, 3, 4  and 6. I really should have spent longer knocking these pieces into shape a bit more, because I really could have done better with these ideas. I think I’d learned my lessons by the time I was working on newer music after this (see my Compilation CD and my Individual Pieces; I’m much happier with those)…

 

1 Wonder Mumble Pondery

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 12:03
2 Psychadelic Pondery Mumbles

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 8:46
3 Triangles & Sunsets

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 8:25
4 Hypnotic Mumblings

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 7:22
5 Dark Blue Ponderings

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 9:12
6 Light Blue Ponderings

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 8:46
7 Secrets Under the Trees

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 19:09