Unexpected Item - A Work In Progress

This piece is 50% a cheat on '12 things i've composed in 2012' in that it was written in the spring of 2011. It was however arranged in the last 10 days. I'll decide whether or not to count it in my total of 12 when I see where I am at the end of the year! 

It's a C major blues - the kind of blues that incorporates a couple of chords from the diatonic cycle of Vths as well as the 'blues' chords of I7, IV7 and V7. It's very short and absolutely something not finished - a work in progress. My brain, or my 'taste' as Ira Glass might put it (see project page) decided that this had to be played in a stride arrangement. Stride is, ahem, slightly above my playing capability right now. The average person's brain, I think, tends to solve the problem of needing to jump the left hand up and down the piano by paying it lots of attention and putting the simpler right hand on autopilot. When you want to take a solo you somehow have to get your brain to be able pay attention to the right hand at the same time - or to put the left hand on autopilot. Or you just have to have internalised the spatial arrangement of the piano to such an extent that you know where every note is from 10 paces with your eyes shut. People have managed it in the past so it can't be completely impossible no matter how daunting it seems. It's almost certainly a matter of patient practice. Hopefully at some point this year I will be able to post it again in a more complete way.

So - at the moment it's just 12 bars - here repeated twice. No middle "solo" section. 

This is definitely something that comes straight from the heart of the part of me that is still a clown. If I remember correctly I was experimenting with shifting the melodic pattern across the pulse. The title comes from a phrase anyone who has encountered the self-service check-out in a supermarket will recognise.

As before - this is a unlisted youtube link. If you feel inclined to share it with your friends - please feel free to do so - but I'd appreciate it if you directed them here first so that they can see the context in which it's been written.

388 - Technology Test

This is a piece I composed last year. Actually it's the first piece I've composed since I was taking A-level music almost two decades ago.

I didn't really set out to compose anything when I started. I was having a play, as you do when you're learning jazz. Experimenting with diatonic passing notes in even quavers. I played something I liked - so I repeated it a few times until I'd fixed it in my head. Then I asked that all important question what happens next? And I came up with some more stuff and then asked the question again. And after about 10 bars I realised I should probably write it down.

It's very simple. A bunch of diatonic passing notes taking a journey round the Cycle of 5ths (with added 7th harmonies). 

This is posted as an unlisted video on YouTube. If you do want to go so mad as to link to it - I'd appreciate it a lot of you would direct people to this blog so they can understand the context in which it's been posted. Thank you.

When I thought about it I realised that the piece was a little bit subconsciously influenced by Yann Teirsen's music for Amelie and maybe a little bit by Satie's Gymnopedie No 3. Although, of course, it's not in quite the same league as either! I have some personal reasons why those two pieces belong together in my mind that helped me come up with a title.

The piece is named after the 388 bus route which goes from Mansion House to Hackney Wick via the Bethnal Green Road.