| Title | Description |
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| By Light Entangled | A little while ago, I was listening to my ancient record collection. Yes, records -- vinyl records! Anyway, I was listening to the song 'Discipline' from an album of the same name by the group King Crimson. This song is rather interesting. The guitarists, Robert Fripp and Adrian Belew, play interlocking note patterns. One pattern might by slightly longer than the other. The note patterns, therefore, go in and out of phase with each other. The bass and drums join in, creating a complex overall sound. This reminded me of subatomic particles being able to exist in different quantum states at the same time. Could I write a song like that? That was the challenge, and this is the result. You can hear it as five beats to the bar or three beats to bar or whatever, but it doesn't matter. It's got a good beat and you can dance to it! |
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| When Angels Come to Earth | Did you ever see the movie City of Angels? In this movie, angels are everywhere. They're invisible. They wear black trench coats. And they monitor human behavior. Nicholas Cage plays an angel who falls in love with a stressed-out doctor played by Meg Ryan. He decides to make the ultimate sacrifice: he gives up his angelic powers so that he can be with her on Earth. It was a very touching movie. As I recall, there was a lot of good music in the movie, too. I tried to capture the mysterious idea of angels on earth in this piece. The theme is stated at the beginning in the bass with a church organ sound. The rest of the piece is a series of variations of that theme -- it is stretched, compressed, flipped over and sounded in imitation with itself -- and it even ends happily. |
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| A Sweet Dream | For this piece, I wrote a theme and variations in the style of Bela Bartok, the 20th century Hungarian composer. It was inspired by the accompanist at my church; he's a concert pianist and he can really tickle the ivories. He often plays his own musical variations as part of the service. Musically, my piece is written in A Phrygian (A, B flat, C, D, E, F, G, A) -- one of the ancient church modes. It has a thoughtful quality, similar to the Minor scale. However, if you play the Phrygian mode upside down, you get the A Major scale (A, G#, F#, E, D, C#, B, A). The major scale has a majestic quality. I use this contrast in qualities in some of the variations provide interest. The music drifts from one mood to another: happy, sad, right side up, upside down -- as in a dream. When the sound finally fades away, can you really remember what you thought you heard? |
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| May Kindness Surround You (Like the Cosmic Microwave Background) | Yes, I get carried away with my song titles. I'll bet that you have never heard a hit song mentioning the CMB in the title! The CMB is everywhere, you see. But, you can't see it with the naked eye. It's a remnant of the big bang, the event that started the universe. It is glowing at 2.725 degrees Kelvin. What does it all mean? I just wish that goodwill towards all people was as pervasive as the CMB, that's all! |
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| The Certainty of Uncertainty | Scientists tell us that it is fundamentally impossible to make simultaneous measurements of a particle's position and velocity with infinite accuracy. This is the well known, but not very well understood uncertainty principle. Well, doesn't it mean that uncertainty is certain? Alright, alright, my brain will never understand quantum mechanics. In my frustration, I wrote this song. If you try to tap your foot to this ditty, baby, you?ll get your toes in a tangle because you're uncertain where the beat will be or not to be! Still, it's got a beat of a kind, and you want to dance, dance, dance. I recommend that you move your body any which way, all higgledy-piggledy-like. |
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| The Long Path to Love and Love and Love | This is a short song with a long title! The search for love can be arduous. In her song 'The Same Situation' from the album Court and Spark, Joni Mitchell sang, Joni Mitchell's song is languorous and quite beautiful. My song is fraught and filled with tension. I prefer to lose my sadness in the disco beat. At the end of the music, there is an amen. Perhaps there is hope yet. May your search be brief and successful. |
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| Zitterbewegung | What on earth is a 'zitterbewegung'? In German, it means 'jitter' or 'quivering motion.' Because of that confounded uncertainty principle, subatomic particles can jump into and out of existence at will -- without violating any conservation laws. So, the vacuum is not really a vacuum at all; it is a plenum, a region of ceaseless, jittering activity. So, how would this sound, musically speaking? With this piece, I try to answer that very question! It begins with those particles wiggling around playfully. If you listen carefully, you can hear the electrons, the quarks and even the gluons. Then, in the middle of all this, a cosmic voice, perhaps the creator himself/herself/itself, sings an infinite melody. Of course, the particles must have the final word -- they?re having too much fun. |
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Coming soon: Supa Nova!