O Christmas Tree - Another holiday classic? Yes! Here is my arrangement of "O Christmas Tree", which we released in 2021. An attempt to convey the sweetness and depth of the season, I wish everyone a wonderful holiday.
Cryptic Triptych - For this week’s Monday Memory selection we have another cool swing jazz piece, very loosely based once again on We Three Kings - once I began arranging that carol, I just kept going and created this more abstract version, which became an independent composition. You only recognize the basis for the composition in the B section, all else is more of an abstraction.
Poem No. 2 - For this week’s Monday Memory selection we re-visit “Poem No. 2”, from my collection “Seven Poems”. I’ll repeat what I said before about this collection - I like music that gives one a sense of dreaming, and evokes spacious and dream-like atmospheres, taking one out of the mundane and into more rarefied realms. To that end, I wrote Seven Poems for guitar, and as the title implies, approaching music poetically allowed me to create forms and structures that I might not have otherwise realized.
We Three Kings - For this week's Monday Memory, and in keeping with the season, here’s a brand new video of a Christmas carol for you, the classic “We Three Kings”, filmed live in the Den. I’ve arranged it in a jazz swing style, very cool, to complement the waltz nature of the piece, while trying to hip it up a bit. Merry merry!
Awake - For this week's Monday Memory we have “Awake", a very easy student piece from the collection "4 in A in 4". All four of the pieces in this collection are in a mode of "A" and in 4/4 time, hence the title. One of my missions as a composer, as I’ve always said, is to create easy pieces for students that have current stylistic and musical relevance. These are some of the simplest pieces I have composed for students, but I gave them pleasing themes and forms that makes them seem like a more involved musical pieces - at least, that was my intent! I hope you enjoy “Awake”, the first little piece in the collection.
Skeleton - For this week's Monday Memory, we have a brand new video for you. "Skeleton" is is a quirky, rhythmic student-level piece which wrote a long time ago (in the late 1980’s), but we just now filmed our first video of it. In keeping with the Halloween season, I am joined by Charles, our resident skeleton, who tickled my back while I was playing. From the collection "Eight Dreamscapes"
Annie's Song - For this week's Monday Memory, I’m proud to revisit "Annie's Song" - a piece for my wonderful wife, who helps me so much in everything I do. I couldn’t make all the music I do without her. I hope you all enjoy hearing this very personal composition. From the collection “Seven Spirits".
The Equations of Beauty, i - For our Monday Memories offering this week, we have the movement “i” from “The Equations of Beauty”. EOB is a six-movement suite, and each movement is named for a mathematical constant or variable. This movement, “i”, represents an imaginary number, the square root of negative one. This number helps mathematicians move out of our reality into other dimensions, which is a cool concept no matter how you think about it.
Chant - For this week’s Monday Memories, we have a new video of my early simple piece “Chant”, which reminds me of medieval times, monks chanting in shadowed, echoing spaces. And since I discovered the secret of time travel, sometimes I just have to go back many centuries to clear my head and sit by a medieval fire and play some music. From the collection “Eight Discernments".
Autumn Streets - For this week’s Monday Memory we have “Autumn Streets”, a student piece I wrote in Germany in 2003. To keep beginners interested in guitar, I’ve made it a priority to create works that are fairly easy to play but are musically sophisticated, and also stylistically relevant in today's musical world, as an antidote to the phalanx on 19th century tutorial works that often confront guitar pupils. From the collection “Seven in Essence".
Letting Go - For our Monday Memories this week, we revisit an older piece called Letting Go. This goes back a few years, as my younger visage testifies. Filming took place during a concert called Primal Twang, which included guitar luminaries Eric Johnson, Doc Watson, Mason Williams, Albert Lee and more. Quite a cast to share a stage with. The concert was scripted and narrated by Dan Crary, and it’s a joy to relive some of those moments through this video.
Shadows Only Come From Light - This weeks' Monday Memory is a new release! "Shadows" is a composition I wrote for a friend’s birthday. This piece is in the poignant, mysterious style that I like so much to explore. Annie and I enjoyed letting the evocative title direct our artistic palette in the making of this video.
Lullaby for Caroline - Our selections for this week evokes a gentle and spacious atmosphere that blends the mystical edge between awake and dreaming. From the collection "Dreams and Lullabies".
Poem No. 1 - I like music that gives one a sense of dreaming, and evokes spacious and dream-like atmospheres, taking one out of the mundane and into more rarefied realms. To that end, I wrote Seven Poems for guitar, and as the title implies, approaching music poetically allowed me to create forms and structures that I might not have otherwise realized. For this weeks Monday Memory, we revisit the first in the series, “Poem No. 1”. From the collection “Seven Poems”.
Evensong - This lyrical and peaceful work is in lute tuning, and is the second movement of my suite “Glimmerings”. Here is a live video recording of “Evensong” we made in the Den.
InD'd - I wrote this virtuostic fanfare with elements of the baroque, and I could very much imagine this being played on a pipe organ as well as guitar. In Yamour tuning, D A D F# B D. Here is a revisiting of my performance of InD’d. From collection “Seven Spirits”.
A Minor Duet - A Minor Duet - A very baroque and canonic duet, an exercise in writing authentically in an earlier style, one of the many arts being lost today at an ever increasing pace of extinction. Maintaining relevance by rigorous development of experiential skills, I gave myself the opportunity to be my own duet partner. From collection Little Book of Duets.
Full Circle - Written for an old friend, Mark Valenti, who I met in Hollywood four decades ago. We have been through a lot together, and Full Circle brings us back around to the present after many years of life's vicissitudes. A very meaningful piece for me, and Annie and I had fun with the video post production too. In DADGAD tuning for those that want to know.
Yamour - This spirited piece emulates the sound of a band on one guitar, with a hint of jazz and a glimmer of Brazil. It’s one of my favorite works, and was a milestone for me compositionally to surmount the formidable challenge of composing with authority in what is now called ‘Yamour’ tuning, DADF#BD. I wrote Yamour for my friend and colleague, the fine Italian guitarist Andrea Vettoretti.
Snowflight - one of my early and most popular student pieces, I'm pleased to see this piece played all around the world by students of all ages. Seeing so many videos of Snowflight on the internet, we decided a while ago to make our own. From my collection "Eight Discernments".
Sweet Life - A very personal and lyrical expression of my long intertwining of music and life.
