17 posts tagged “mulberry harbour”
I found myself playing the guitar part of this piece a lot during a time of personal loss and grief. That may be enough to put you off right away - and if you're enjoying the brightness of spring then it's probably best to move on now - but if you're heavyhearted and want something to reflect on, then this is for you.
Sometimes you just need to languish in it a bit, going round and round, until gradually
you find some sense of comfort.
Photo by haikus59
This one's a short and restrained nocturnal instrumental with classical guitar, piano and oboe.
Photo by crystalflickr
One of the most haunting and arresting books I've read in a long while was Cormac McCarthy's The Road, a novel punctuated with the recurring phrase "he glassed the blacktop", as the Father and boy undertake their tense journey of survival. The blacktop is their only means to escape, holds the hope of delivering them to safety, while also harbouring threats which demand constant vigilance and mistrust. And so they persevere day after day, pushing on into the unknown, the Father striving to remain optimistic and maintain his son's belief and security.
Download the mp3
Photo by marktaylor7
As a child going to Anglesey to see my grandparents each summer, the car journey from Liverpool always seemed impossibly long until we crossed the Menai bridge, connecting Anglesey with North Wales, and I knew that we had nearly arrived - and my excitement and anticipation could finally bubble over. My grandparents' old sheepdog Bryn evidently experienced similar emotions regarding the bridge - whenever he was in the car with us, he would acknowledge it with a celebratory bark - and so we came to refer to it as "Bryn's bridge".
Photo by benlove79
Photo by icyblue
Sometimes phrases that are very familiar to others manage to bi-pass your radar for years and years, slipping by unheard, unread or never spoken in your presence or direction. I only recently heard the phrase "In a brown study", which is odd as I'm sure there have been plenty of opportunities for someone to use it around me, as I slip off into another introspective daydream - and as always happens with a new word or phrase, once it's out the bag you can't stop coming across it in the following weeks, jumping out at you left, right and centre, making you wonder how you ever avoided exposure to it in the first place.
So when this short track was in progress, there was no question of what it should end up being called.
photo by TheeErin
Here's a new track which grew out of tinkering with a repeated guitar figure - double-tracked, harmonised and looped to within an inch of its life...
Photo by botheredbybees
This instrumental was written for a recent soundtrack project, and features violins and cellos at the heart of the track - something I hadn't done for a while, spurred on in part by getting hold of the the Miroslav Philharmonik library for Reason. I expect there'll be more on the way soon as I explore it. So far I've been mostly impressed, apart from the over-elaborate vibrato on some parts.
Photo by Pandiyan
The melody on this track is played on a bowed saw, or 'singing saw' as it's sometimes known. Bend a saw blade, find the sweet spot with a bow, and away you go. I love the sound you can make with it, almost like an acoustic version of another personal favourite, the theremin. Compared to the theremin, it's physically more demanding - and perhaps not as much fun as waving your arms about - as you have to maintain an 'S' shape to make a note, but the advantage is once you have a note it's a little easier to control the pitch. I also think the saw is harder to reproduce electronically than the theremin because of the fragility of the note's tone and sustain, and the sound made by the brushing of the bow hair on the metal.
My Groups
-
A & R Updated: 16 minutes ago
-
ALL MUSIC Updated: Yesterday
-
Songwriters Updated: Yesterday
Neighborhood
Explore friends, family, friends & family, or entire neighborhood.
