Suddenly A Great Silence

Forgive me father, it has been 5 months since my last blog post.

It is a bit hard to keep an audience when you disappear. But you know, blogging does not come easily to everyone. Musicians tend to speak with notes rather than words. Songwriters are excluded of course but I know many a songwriter that can’t write a paragraph. Hooks yes, prose no.

So for those of you who were actually following my exploits in trying to put together a new CD I apologize. Life seems to come at you from so many angles that things get lost. Of course, life doesn’t come at you. You are life so it really comes from you and with you. But that is what it feels like. I guess the real feeling is being out of control.

I am not sure we are ever really in control. We certainly want to believe we are. It males us feel safe to think that we con control events. But how much control do you really have? Most things happen on their own. Like planets orbiting or hair growing it all seems to happen with zero input from me.

This is as true for creating a CD as it is for digesting food. I think I am controlling the process and then it all starts heading in a direction that seems quite wild and unpredictable. For example, I was certain that this album would be a mixture of solo piano music with ambient New Age floating kind of music. Some with piano some not.

Well the powers that be decided otherwise. All the solo pieces seemed to beg for my attention. New ones appeared that seemed to be right for the album. Unfinished pieces finished themselves. And I found a studio nearby to do the mixing, with a very gifted engineer and the two of us came up with a process that had us mixing 15 songs in about 12 hours.

It became clear that this album will be nothing but solo piano and I have nothing to say about it.  I really thought it would be otherwise but then there I was with 15 piano pieces completed, mixed and ready to go. My original plan of 7 piano pieces and then more ambient and atmospheric material just vaporized. Then I saw where the state of everything was and recognized that I wasn’t really controlling this process, I was just participating in it. And it was apparent that going with the solo piano pieces was not only the right choice, it was the inevitable one. It was never really a choice at all.

So there it is. The album has taken its final shape. Emptiness Dances, 15 pieces for solo piano. You can preview it here if you like http://gpwalsh.com/latest-releases.php. Hopefully it will not be 5 months before my next post. But since I don’t really have that much to say about it I will only say that that is my intent. We will see.

What’s In A Name?

I have been lamenting the whole process of making an album for a while now. Interspersed with my philosophical ramblings regarding music, where it comes from and why it does not obey my will. In the meantime some actual, concrete things have come to pass.

Most notably I have finally settled on the title for the work. And that is no small matter. The title, while just a small phrase has the imposing job of expressing in just a few words what will amount to just shy of an hour of sound. That title will either capture the imagination of a would be listener or send them scurrying back to old favorites. And if it does win the attention of a prospective customer and the title does not match the content, there will not be any repeat performances. So the title is something you gotta get right!

And here it is. It is going to be called “Emptiness Dances”. I promised myself I would not go off in this blog about anything metaphysical so I won’t go into a discussion of what Emptiness is and how it can Dance (being empty and all). Of course, if you ask I will be compelled to elaborate. Its up to you.

So leaving the whole non-dual thing out of it (I was going to call it “The Shunyata Shuffle”), the title gives the picture of what I intend to convey with my music. Music is such a strange thing really. Simple vibrations in the air have such power to move us, bypassing the brain and going straight to the heart and body. It does seem to come from nowhere and spin its magic so effortlessly. “Emptiness Dances” seems to fit both the solo piano pieces that will make up the majority of the record and also the more ambient pieces that will hopefully punctuate the solitary journey.

I reached another milestone as well. I finally achieving a sound on the mix of the title track that captured the energy I was after. As you have all heard me complain about before (uh… and often), I am not an engineer and certain aspects of the whole recording and engineering process I regard as black art, bordering on evil. But somehow by chance and stupid persistence I have finally managed to come up with a sound that I really like. No, more than that. Its a sound that fits me. And its a sound that seems to do that magnificent instrument, the piano justice. It is staggering to me just how much life and subtlety there is in a piano. You have 10 square feet of vibrating surface producing a bewilderingly complex sound. And every square inch of it sounds different from every other. Finally capturing that makes this project possible.

So now the album has a title, a theme, a characteristic sound and a title track. I do find it interesting and a bit perplexing how these things work. For a over month I have been stumbling around in the dark looking for a light (praying for guidance) and then suddenly there it is. The whole thing begins to come into focus and the path starts to become clear.

Please check out the new mix http://emptinessdances.com. Click on the solo piano section then on Emptiness Dances. I hope you hear what I heard.

G

Why Did You Write That?

I get asked that question a lot. Every composer does. I get that question and others like “What were you feeling when you wrote that?” or “What is this piece about?” Interviewers have to ask questions like that. And musicians have to make up interesting answers like “I’m trying to create world peace”, “I am vibrating the heart Chakra to clear your blocks”,  ‘I am protesting the war in ________ (conflicts vary by era)” or “I lost my _____ (girl, boy, mom, car, job, dog, faith, way)”

Unfortunately the real answer is not so interesting. “Uh… I dunno. Its what I thought of when I was sitting at the piano”

All the answers, I’m afraid, are after the fact. First I write the music and then I figure out why I did it. Or more accurately I make up a story as to why I did it. Well, that does not make for an interesting interview so we music types are obligated to go on all day about the shades of sound, the vibrational centers in the body and the importance of reducing carbon emissions. But is there really a connection between that and the act of writing a tune?

Not for me. Even if I really want to write a piece about something. If that particular something appears in the piece it is not because I wanted it. It is because the music gods wanted it and one of two things happened. I just happened to want what they wanted at that time or they made me want to do that in the first place so I could think I actually had some say in the process. Which, as far as I can tell,  I don’t.

All the explanations come later. I am really convinced of this. So if there is a connection between what I think I did and what actually happened it is pretty much a coincidence. Actually, its a bit of a delusion, a pretty delusion to be sure but a delusion none the less. I suppose we all want to believe we have control over things. We want to see a connection between what we do and what happens. It makes us feel safe. But is it true? Uh… not that I can see. But hey, it doesn’t have to be true to make me feel safe. As a matter of fact the more delusional it is the better I feel.

So let’s look at what really happens or better said what I really experience. A bunch of events occur, one after the other. I sit at the piano. My fingers move, sounds appear in my mind and a piece of music happens. I play it. I record it. Someone hears it. All of that happens of course. But did the one thing happen because of the previous? Or did it all just happen? I mean I could have sat at the piano and no new music happened. So sitting at the piano does not cause the song to happen. Nor does a song happening mean that someone other than me will hear it. So exactly where is the causal connection? I assume a connection but looking closely at my actual experience there is just a series of events.

So I will continue to answer people’s questions about my music, although I’m not really sure it I can rightly call it mine. Calling it mine is the tail wagging the dog. None the less, I won’t buck convention and I will continue to explain how I am saving the whales, ending global warming, bringing peace to heavy hearts. And I actually hope all that will happen. But the real answer?

I didn’t. It just happened.

G – http://emptinessdances.com

The Dreaded Categorization

“So what kind of music do you do?” Oh if I had a dime for every time that question was asked of me. I don’t know. In fact I have no $&^%in’ clue. I have tried to categorize it. I really have. Radio, music stores (there are a few left), record companies, promoters, distributors all want to know the answer to that question. Audiences do to. Even though the audience is the most open to not having strict categorizations they ask me that question more than all of the others combined. So everybody wants an answer, in words, of what kind of music I do.

Ok, it is a fair question. I personally regard it as unfair because I don’t know how to answer. “Oh its kind of a house, hip hop, new age, neo-classical, instrumental, pop thing. With ambient overtones and shades of polka.” “Earthy tones with a great finish and touches of cherry and limestone”. Describing wine is easier.

So where do I belong (other than in the home). For better or for worse I seem to fall into the New Age category. Predominantly piano at this stage of my career New Age is the only category where I fit. Classical? Neo-classical, Modern classical? Those might work but frankly classical is the kiss of death for a modern composer that is not trying to get played by the local orchestra. Besides I’m not dead yet.

And puleez no “serious composer” label. I am not serious about anything, especially music. Art is play. I play and some little voice tells me what to play and voila art happens. That same little voice has not told me to do anything that would land me in jail… yet. But don’t think I don’t see the similarity. It is all in what the voice says not the voice itself. Who knows what it will say tomorrow?

So New Age it is, I guess. I do like crystals. They’re pretty. Don’t know if they will balance my Chakras but hey if they do I can undoubtedly use the balancing. And if the goddesses allow me to sell a gazillion copies of my next record I promise to name my next child Sky or Ambrosia or Isis or something.

G

http://emptinessdances.com

Who Is In The Work?

The famed landscape photographer Ansel Adams was once asked why there were never any people in his photos. He answered “No you’re wrong there are always two people in my pictures. Me and you”.

Artist often get all caught up in their artistry as if the piece lived in a vacuum. As a composer I get to hear the piece first. That is all. And when I hear it is is a combination of the notes and my ears just like anyone else. Until the composition is heard it is just a bunch of meaningless notes vibrating in empty space. The ear, the hearer gives the notes their meaning, not the composer. The composition takes place in the ear and in the heart of the listener and it happens in the moment it is heard. Outside of that it can be rightly asserted that the song doesn’t exist at all. Would the music be music if there were no one to hear it? No, just vibrations of energy wandering aimlessly.

You are the composer not me.

So Where Does The Music Come From

I know that people get pretty fascinated by a piece of music. And they often assign some degree of specialness to the musician or composer or songwriter. Hey I have gotten dates because I was a musician so there are perks. I feel the same way about visual artists. Completely incapable of creating a piece of art beyond stick figures, I am in awe of artists and assign to them a status high above the rest of us mere mortals.

But where do these great creations come from? Rather than wax philosophical I will simply relate my own experience. What happens to me when a piece of music is being written? What happens is one of two things. I either hear sounds in my “head” or my fingers just know where to go, or at least get close to.And that is quite literally true. Not being a really gifted player I play a lot of wrong notes when I am writing. Funny thing is I know its a wrong note and the little voice says “Nevermind we’ll fix it later”. Now later comes and then I will say “I wrote that” but in the moment nothing could be further from the truth. It just happened. It didn’t feel like me and frankly, oftentimes it doesn’t even sound like me.

When I first started hearing voices (and I am so glad they were singing to me rather than telling me to blow up a subway or something) I was impressed by the fact that I couldn’t actually play what I was hearing. This was before computer music workstations that could digitize what I was playing and print me out a score. So I would play it as best I could, literally struggle to keep up, write it down before I forgot it (remember actually writing music notation on a piece of blank staff paper?) and then go back and try to learn to play it. I was never a great player so learning what I had written was often a chore. But this whole process did make me wonder. Other than taking dictation do I have any role in any of this at all?

Ok, maybe it is time to philosophize a touch. These are just observations mind you not a well defined or consistent cosmology. In my experience, my role in the process is a great deal like the role of the instrument. The same song played on a piano will sound completely different played on a guitar or a sax or a full orchestra or sung by a boys choir. Same song different instrument. So what is the purest rendition of “the song”? Ponder that! Every instrument conditions it, colors it, shades it. So what is it? What is that “thing” that is being conditioned, colored, shaded?…

The human body is one of the most remarkable instruments ever created (uh… evolved?… spontaneously generated?… seeded here by aliens?…) And when I say body I just don’t mean the structure I mean the whole package; body, mind, perception, consciousness, responses, the whole package. Just like the piano conditions the song so does the particular body/mind that is playing it or he/she who initially hears it.

I tend to experience the human being (uh… that’s me) not as an entity but as an instrument, vibrating in sympathy with the touch of an invisible hand. Like the guitar string vibrating when it is plucked and vibrating in a uniquely individual way. Now please don’t jump on that and think God or Spirit or Universal Consciousness or any of that sort. Ah the invisible hand, must be God. I have no idea what “It” is and in fact, any idea any of us come up with will be a speculation. I am not trying to say what “It” is. I am just relating my experience of “It”. I think all the words we use for “It” are all concepts generated to make us feel safe in the face of a supremely baffling mystery. Or worse, to make us feel that in some way we can control it, appeal to it, entice it, get it to somehow do our bidding or at least drop down a few boons now and then. My experience is “It” controls me. If what “It” wants to do happens to correspond to something I want to have happen it is merely coincidence.

Music for me is an experience I have that does not appear to originate in this body/mind (a.k.a ‘G’). On the contrary, this body/mind appears to me to be responding to it.

I started this blog to talk about what I am going through putting an album together and how I decide what gets used and in what order. It is indeed a complex and involved process involving dozens of large decisions and thousands of little ones. And it is true that all those decisions will get made. I just don’t think I will ever know who is actually making them. But hey, you know what? I don’t actually care. I don’t care why the waves break on the shore. I don’t care why a smile from a small child can stay with you all day. I don’t care why a seemingly random stream of sound vibrations can make you cry or jump up and dance. I don’t care why clouds float by in a blue sky, turn black and violently soak us in water and then the tree blossoms and gives me oranges to eat. It just does and I am just so glad that it does.

G – http://emptinessdances.com

He Starts To Decide (Maybe)

I am trying to create an album. Yes that is the antique term but I like it. I still use the term record too. I know it is now either a CD or a digital release. Too cold for me. It is a collection of work so album, like family pictures feels better.

But I digress as I often do when I can’t actually make a decision. It is always nice to wax philosophical when you don’t have a $&%^in’ clue as to what to do. Philosophy is nice and can often impress chicks at parties. But I have to make something real here. So I sort through all the work that I want to release to see who/what bubbles up to the top. Release is a nice word isn’t it. Releasing a work of art. Setting it free. Letting it have its own life among those who will love it, hate it, adopt it, judge it, bring it into their life. There I go with the philosophy again. See I still can’t make up my mind.

So I have about 25 candidate to make it onto an album that will contain 10, 12, maybe 13 pieces. No less than 45 minutes, no more than 60. That is the rule. Isn’t it? I don’t know where that rule came from (the Bible? the Vedas?) but there it is. I almost started to philosophize again. So how do I decide?

iTunes is a helpful tool here. Put all the tunes in a playlist and then random shuffle it to hear them in different orders. Then move them around myself and listen to the transitions. No it hasn’t helped me decide yet but it is a tool I didn’t have the last time I made a record.. er… CD… er… digital release.

One way I have chosen to decide is to postpone the decision. Excellent strategy no? Actually I decided to do something uncommon for me and ask the advice of others. That is how this blog came about in the first place so I guess it wasn’t a half bad idea. I don’t know why musicians always think they have to do it all themselves (ego under the breath) but many of us do. Which brings to mind a joke.

Q: How many guitar players does it take to change a light bulb?
A: Ten. One to change the light bulb and 9 to say “I can do that”

This solo artist tendency has been made all the more common by the fact that we can actually do it now, what with very sophisticated recording gear and high quality virtual instruments available cheaply in our computers (which we happen to be sitting at 16 hours a day anyway).

So all this talk and I am no closer to THE decision. But I have had some feedback from members of forums I belong to and where I have posed the question. So here is an announcement, a press release as it were. I will probably (well maybe, possibly) go with solo piano and solo piano with ambiance and/or minimal orchestration. Ok that is not a very compelling or definitive announcement but given that I could and probably will change my mind at a moment’s notice the moment someone says to me “What G, are you crazy or something” or the big record company exec asks me to accompany the Jonas Brothers (I didn’t even know who they were until I saw the ad for the movie on Fandango). Then all bets are off and I might record some of that Gangsta Rap I have been hiding from my friends (and my therapist). Irish White Gangsta or Guinness Rap. So put on those cool boxers that everyone can see and turn your hats sideways. DownTemp, ChillOut, New Age Gangsta, Neo-Classical, Spa music (shooting up the charts like a bullet)

G

To listen for yourself check out my site http://emptinessdances.com

My Life In Music

This blog came about as a result of a discussion board on Gaia.com. For those of you that don’t know Gaia it is a social network with a spiritual bent. It isn’t big but it is very, very supportative. In fact when I posted a discussion question there the leader of the group immediately sent out an email to pretty much everyone asking them to participate, welcome me to the club and give me feedback.

The post I put out there was simply me as a composer, looking for feedback from potential listeners of my music. Feedback that I hoped would help guide me towards creating my next album of work. I haven’t put out an album in 9 years (fodder for another post) and I had a lot of material so I have been wrestling with what the album should be. Solo piano? Full orchestra? Electronic and ambient? Combine them all?

The feedback was wonderful and has helped me enormously in crafting this next phase in my life as an artist.

As I was reading the responses and commenting back it occured to me that it might be interesting to some exactly what a composer goes through when completing a work or combining that work into a CD. Of course, it may not be interesting at all but welcome to the Web where absolutely anything can be discussed and in great detail.

So here is my first entry in “Key of G – Life of a Composer”. So let’s start out on a real positive note (pun intended). I imagine that people don’t realize how pedestrian and oftentimes tedious the life of a composer actually  is. Ok if you happen to be Sting or Paul McCartney or John Williams or Danny Elfman the world is waiting anxiously for your next creation. But for the unknown soldiers of composition, the piece precedes the audience. Sometimes by decades.

So, by the time something I compose has been heard by an audience (other than family and close friends) I have listend to it probably 1,000 times over a relatively short period of time. Now try listening to the same song that many times. I don’t care how much you love it or how classic it is or if it the theme song of you and the love of your life, you will beg to have it turned off if you hear even the first note. Such is the life of the composer. Well not all composers. Mozart wrote it the first time perfectly and that was that. Bach used to write his scores directly onto the copper plates to be printed. That was not my fate. I am one of those composers who edits more than he writes. Nor am I a gifter improvisor. So for me the first take is almost never the last. Actually you might say I never actually finish a piece I either run out of edit time or I get bored to death.

So when is it finished? When it says so. The piece of music does have a life of its own. We musicians love to think of our work as our creation. I speak of my music. Ha! That is really the slave praising the master. I don’t know who makes who really. Or where it comes from (another blog). But there is a point when no more ideas come, no more corrections are made and nothing new pops into mind when listening to the piece. If that happens for a long enough period of time. I conclude that the piece is done, at least for now.

So much for artistic vision.