Soft Machine³ - Arts Tech and Other

Mirages is one of two such discs produced recently. Some of this music was used in a film sound track, so I’m going to call it a successful attempt to make “improvisation” more like “composition”

Mirages – Audio CD

Improvised Compositions in Real Time by Richard Walker Performed live on a Kurzweil PC88-mx synthesizer

 

These compositions were inspired by my then-newly-acquired synthesizer. The piano is an instrument which does not permit infinite sustain or volume swell (crescendo after attack), or vibrato, or echo-delay. Having a sustained “string” sound aids the improvisational composition method in that it gives you more time to think ahead. And, different instruments inspire different compositions, so I find the synthesizer is the composer’s friend.

This disc also illustrates an alternative to the notion that one must sequester oneself for many years attempting to write “The Greatest Novel (Symphony, Poem, …) Of All Time.” Instead, one makes the creative process an everyday event, improvisation and composition being merged with the practice and study of music.

Most difficult to achieve in “real time” is a long harmonic, melodic or developmental arc, and I hope I have succeeded to some degree.

 

I’ve always liked the first track quite a lot; one friend speculated on which modulations I used to get a certain effect he liked. There are no “wrong notes” at all — the only things I would fix are the occasional too-long pause or too-loud dynamic change. I have taken the liberty of cleaning up my favorite pieces a little.

 

So, here is track 01 of Mirages, a piece composed in the time it takes to listen to it. Too bad no-one ever offered me a good living just to crank these out …. I would have seriously considered it, who knows what might have been.

 

Richard_Walker_Mirages_01_v4.mp3