Piano, Instrumental Music, Songs, and Electronic Music
Besides classical piano, I enjoy experimenting with a variety of types of music. The top menu sorts the blogs into approximate categories. Some blogs might go into more than one category. Where there’s interest, I create sheet music for free download. Let me know if there’s something you would like made available. I often shoot video of performances, but for electronic creations I sometimes make videos using AI. Some videos are a mix of video I’ve taken and AI-generated video.
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Siren’s Song
Odysseus and his men come out of a storm and encounter the sirens. The crew have a different view of the sirens though. Melody uses chromaticism and sequences of diminished chords, and features a trio of slide guitars meant to provide a haunting and luring sound.
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Red-Hot Gig (featuring Peter L)
A “future jazz” composition with surreal video. The inspiration began with Pinky’s Bar at 9:30 & E at burning man, but this was all lost as the music morphed completely into a gig set in the nightmarish depths of Twin Peak’s Black Lodge.
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Green Heat
I wrote this in memory of the Cuban musicians in the Buena Vista Social Club.
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Prokofiev, Sonata No. 7, Part 3, “Precipitato”
This is an amateur performance of one of the more difficult pieces I’ve ever attempted. Prokofiev let his true feelings about Stalin spill into his three “War Sonatas,” nos. 6-8, written in 1942. The war sonatas are tumultuous, chromatic, and dissonant. The finale to no. 7, the “Precipitato,” is a relentless tocatta in septuple time.…
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Drum ‘n Bells
Music transmission going around the world from New Mexico to Madagascar to China to Burning Man and back to New Mexico. Video consists of actual travel footage, sometimes modified or augmented with AI. Some of the AI slop was so odd that I felt compelled to use it. Locations include the Very Large Array in…
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Visions Captives
Piano composition for 4 hands with latin rhythm and jazz influences, chromaticism, and cluster chords. Sheet music and recordings with a count-in of the separate parts to play along with are free to download with the links below.
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Mojito
Latin jazz composition with Peter Mustacich on saxophone.
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Goldberg Variations 1-3 + Aria
The 30 Goldberg variations run long for most listeners, and are a large project to learn. So here’s a short version of just the first set of 3 plus the beautiful aria which is the basis for the variations.
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La Soiree dans Granade
A habanera (literally “music or dance of Havana”) by Claude Debussey written in his impressionistic style. A very beautiful and atmospheric piece.
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Prokofiev’s Diabolical Suggestions
First performed by Sergei Prokofiev in 1909, this piece earned him his place as a leftist and “bad boy of Russian music.” It is from his Four Pieces, opus. 4, no. 4. After a demonic start, it becomes sheer terror, and is now considered a modern masterpiece. Great fun to play.