Mappa Mundi

A Little Give and Take

This is a little melody that stuck around in my head for years before I finally found an opportunity to work it out. The song plays with call and response type interaction in different places and on different levels.

3:55

Sun Done...

 One of my goals, when using altered meter, is to have the current of the piece feel naturally connected regardless of how abruptly the changes may occur. There's a tension that comes from odd time signatures that I like, but I always want the music to feel as if it flows. The opening section here, along with subsequent repeats, is a rather involved mix of quick-changing 5,6 and 7 beat measures strung together. Hopefully I've pulled it off. (Some themes turn up later in ...Moon Soon.)

6:22 

South Street Dreams

This tune follows a distinct story line. In trying to present a day in the life of a homeless city dweller, the piece begins by representing morning light breaking over skyscrapers towering above a dark alley. Our subject emerges onto the busy streets in search of another day's survival, at the end of which he unsteadily (for whatever reason) makes his way back to a lonely bed in a box.    

9:22

The Runaround

 This one started with a basic little piano figure and, to be frank, never really went anywhere from there. So I left it simple.

The picture? I just thought it was cool.

3:17

Aurora Australis  

I've always wanted to experience the Northern and/or Southern lights. Though neither occasion has yet come to pass, writing this tune did present the opportunity to imagine being in the outback with night falling, watching colors pour across the sky.

7:24

Skipping Sacred Stones

 One day I found myself daydreaming a tune which evoked (at least in my mind) an image of a couple of young monks-in-training returning late to a class after goofing off down by the water.

Yes, I'm easily amused. But it did give me the chance to try some unusual instrumentation.

4:34

Uds in the Monastery

While in the Middle East my daughter had occasion to visit Petra, in Jordan. She related to me a story about finding a guy in the "Monastery" playing an ud (akin to a lute) who invited her to play guitar with him. I don't they they were actually able to cobble together a real Johnny B. Goode jam, but the hands-across-the-water vibe prompted me to write this tune.    

3:25

...Moon Soon

 I loved warm summer nights when I was young (school being out probably had a lot to do with that). There was something about being a creature of the night that was at once exhilarating and scary.

Some of the themes in this song derive from ideas in Sun Done...

4:19

The Silk Road

Marco Polo's tales are the stuff of legend (if not always reality). I envisioned the explorer as an older man around whom children would gather to beg for a story of his travels. The tune is written in 6/8 and features extensive use of leitmotif (a fancy-pants name for recurring themes associated with ideas or characters). In my obsessiveness I even created a melodic phrase for a little dog I imagined accompanying Polo on his adventures. I need to find a hobby.    

8:19