I’m haunted with Hampstead Heath in the north of London, and have walked its fields, forests and hedgerows for years in my many visits to England. For this Monday Memory we share “Heath”, a student piece I wrote in 1993 in fond recollection of this magical place.
For a spooky Monday Memory, in keeping with the season, here is Skeleton featuring Charles, our resident skeleton. He even scratches my back during the video, which creeped me out. I love this season.
This week we look back for our Monday Memory to the late 1980s, with “Hejira”, a short piece in a fast gigue tempo. This is a video Annie and I did in 2022, and playing Hejira rekindles much earlier times, composing in my apartment in Los Angeles, and connecting my life musically from then to now. From the collection Eight Dreamscapes.
For this week’s Monday Memory we revisit “Inkling”, which I recorded on Just Intonated guitar. I’m using the just intonation in an unusual way, by not playing in the key for which the guitar was fretted. I was seeking a spicier, unusual sound and I achieved it with intervals that don’t exist in our standard scales. But this piece can still be played on standard fretted guitar and sound pretty cool, just a little less spicy!
For this week’s Monday Memory we offer “Whirlpool”, yet another student work from the collection “Pretty Easy Pieces times Seven”. An incisive and rhythmically insistent short piece in odd meter, I wanted to compose a piece for the book that was cut from a little different cloth than most student compositions. To me, “Whirlpool” evokes an image of an eccentric swirling dance.
“So the Sun Says” - This week we have another new piece, and new video! Annie and I just filmed “So the Sun Says”, an uplifting piece in E major with a hint of fiddle music, maybe at barn dance, mixed with streaming sunshine! This takes me back to childhood family events with long evenings of music making. I look back more and more to those nostalgic days and realize how joyful and formative they were for me, as a composer and player. I’m happy to share “So the Sun Says” with you.
I’m more and more drawn to music as a very real gateway to another time, especially times with a slower pace, more open spaces, times that are less filled with relentless distractions - let’s ignore for the moment any negatives and focus instead on what magical potential of actually experiencing another time would bring to us . . . I think music is one of the portals through which we can actually make the psychological journey to earlier ages in a very real way. That’s what I often try to do with my compositions when crafting them in earlier styles. With “The Candlemaker” I get the feeling of visiting the workshop of a long-ago candlemaker, when the daily darkness of the world was only illuminated by wick and flame. Enjoy “The Candlemaker”.
"Spanning Rivers, Bridging Time" is another new video we are premiering this week. A longer work, approaching seven minutes, "Spanning Rivers, Bridging Time" is an epic journey for solo guitar, an emotional statement in multiple unbroken sections. In Memory of Paul Adler.
This week we have a new video for you - It's time for “Fancy Pants Dance"! To me, the vibe is joyfully renaissance, and I can envision a jaunty and ebullient dance to go with it, which I will not be doing in the video. What I love about music is that it can help you time travel and feel the spirit of another era. Annie and I hope you enjoy “Fancy Pants Dance”. From the collection "Pretty Easy Pieces times Seven" for solo guitar.
For this weeks “Monday Memory” we are revisiting Roasted Green Tea. In this composition I experimented with a groove that makes you want to move. The title refers to hojicha, the delicious roasted green tea in Japan, and it was during a cup of this during my tour in Japan with Dai Kimura in 2019 that I improvised the essence of this groove, and only later in 2021 did I create a composition from those tea-inspired ideas. Who said classical guitar can't be both multilayered and fun?
Written first for piano, I wrote “Canticle” in London in 1991. The piano version has been recorded by Japanese classical pianist Mitsuko Kado, and the guitar version was recorded by Stephen Robinson. However, I never played the piece myself until now. So today we offer a new video of “Canticle”, and Annie and I hope you enjoy it.
“The Current” - Looking way back now. Here is me, long hair and all, playing “The Current” at the Ambassador Auditorium in 1991 for their Gold Medal Series. I had my new (then) Sahlin guitar, playing in front of a packed concert hall of 1,200 people. Blurry video to be sure (transferred from VHS!), but what a glorious memory.
“The Wizard’s Tale” is our next Monday Memory, and is a brand new video fresh from the Den. From my newest collection “Pretty Easy Pieces times Seven”, the Wizard’s Tale is one of my favorites in the book, eliciting a feeling of magic and passing through the portal to another realm.
“Not alone” - This week we look back five years to the heart of the pandemic, with a rare example of me singing and playing ukulele. My desire was to create an inspirational and uplifting piece during lockdown, and I hope “Not alone” will bring a little light into your Monday!
For our Monday Memory this week we revisit “Shadows Only Come From Light”. This is a composition I wrote for a friend’s birthday two years ago. “Shadows Only Come From Light” is in the poignant, mysterious style that I like so much to explore. Though we filmed and released this video two years ago on YouTube, we finally just released the audio track on Spotify as well. We hope you enjoy “Shadows Only Come From Light”.
For this week's Monday Memory we have a new video. "The Old Gardener" is a stately piece that brought an image to my mind of a man, so in tune with his garden and nature, that he reaches a state akin to zen enlightenment. This piece also inspired a short story of the same name.
“Ride” is the first movement of my suite “Glimmerings”. All the movements in this suite are in lute tuning and capoed on the second fret, giving a lighter and higher sonority to the instrument. “Ride” has a compelling groove that calls to mind a swift twilight journey with a hint of danger.
"Rainwalk" is from the collection "Pretty Easy Pieces times Seven" for solo guitar. Students have a hunger for playable works in an accessible, non-dated style, and "Pretty Easy Pieces times Seven" is my most recent offering to fill this need.
