Period VI began on 3 Jan 2001: I went public. This was the result of a combination of two factors: the growing pressure from the few who had heard isolated examples of my music, in other words a growing fan base; and my chance discovery of the Toon Inn, run by the genial Dan Meyer, a web site specialising in the hosting of Midis, with a whole section for original music. I sent Dan an email with a couple of my midis as examples of my work, and the rest is history, as the saying goes. In fact, one of the sample pieces I had sent Dan, "Electric Melancholy" was his MIDI-Of-The-Day the same day as I received his invitation to send the rest! Awards started to roll in. For similar reasons as in 2000, my productivity went off the chart. Over the next 4 months, 34 midis were completed. This page: 3-Jan-01 to 10-Feb-01. # Name (Length) Size Download Links Comments       69 Sunset's Birthday (2:52) 40K I mentioned back on the 1999 page that there were two inspirational sources for music about sunsets - the natural phenomenon and the nickname of my best friend. This was written for her birthday. It needs a serious remix to get back to it's best with the SB-Live. 70 With A LIttle Weirdness (8:06) 159K This is progressive rock with infusions of the Dr Who and Addams Family themes (which are far more closely related than you might think. Definitly a little on the weird side.... Needs only a very slight remix to work for the SB-Live - and then I think it might come out even better than the original Awe-32 version. Just don't be sure you know what to expect when you hear it... there's an awful lot of variation and unexpected twists inside! 71 Arrythmia (4:25) 15K And you thought the last one was weird! "Arrythmia" breaks all the rules - bars of 3/4 are followed by bars of 5/4 in even pairs. Yet, it all sounds like it's in time - until the drums start! Only then does the arrythmia, or "bad rythm" become aparrant... As should be fairly obvious from the preceeding, the was an experiment in alternate rythm structures from start to finish. That it came out listenable - but tricky - proves the value of the experiment; I'll have to try something similar some other time.... 72 Walking Home (4:49) 161K I was walking home from doing my shopping one afternoon, humming to myself, when this piece came to me out of whole cloth. The Awe-32 version sounds exactly as I envisaged it. The SB-Live sounds just don't work, I'm afraid. 73 Iron Fist In A Velvet Glove (6:17) 139K You can find out more about this song in the techniques section, on the page dealing with Problems. For now, suffice it to say that for a while this was my most popular work - and that for all that time, I couldn't stand it - even though it had sounded good enough when I was working on it. But when I heard the award-winning version, it sounded absolutely appalling. It was more than 6 months before I could hear what everyone else was hearing in it.... and in the process, I learned a valuable lesson about composing. Which is why it features on the relevant techniques page! This needs a big remix to sound its best using the SB-Live, but all the ingredients are still there, audibly. 74 Soaring On My Angel's Wings (5:24) 98K This was a tune that fell through the cracks. It was never one of my favorites until the day I went to rate my music, to update my personal favorites list - when I discovered just how good it really was. It scored an impressive 99%, rocketing it straight into the top 5... Again, we're into serious remix territory to suit the SB-Live, but the current version still holds a lot of appeal. I think maybe the intro put me off.... 75 Crasophobia (5:28) 75K "Crasophobia" is (I hope) "fear of the future". I know that such a menatl illness exists, but had a lot of trouble pinning down just what it's name was. This is a counterbalance to my usual optimistic pieces about the year to come, of which I seem to do one every year. Maybe I was feeling depressed when I started working on this, I don't know. It achieves it's objective extremely well - but it's an uncomfortable piece of music, and for that reason has never been one of my favorites. Only slight remixing required to suit the SB-LIve. And a decent piano sample. 76 Spirals (8:10) 167K On the other hand, this song came very close to the favorites list. The title derives from the way I derived the lead and bass melodies - plotting a series of spirals and seeing where the points intersected, in time, intensity, and pitch. The result is definitly not the sort of melody that you would normally expect to hear, with strange key shifts both up and down - but it holds together, somehow. IN some ways this sounds better on the SB-Live than it did on the Awe-32, without remixing. 77 Shimmer (4:06) 53K This has been a favorite for a long time. An old-style waltz played with modern instruments and 4/4 time. It doesn't quite work as well on the SB-LIve but the essentials are still there. 78 Nova Bossa Mersey (8:04) 148K Like the last tune, this is a synthesis of two opposing types of music - a bossa nova in the mersey style. It was a lot of hard work at the time, but it sounded great! It still does, for that matter - or would if the SB-Live's instruments would cooperate. Unfortunately, some of them sound wildly out of tune - whereas they sounded great on the Awe-32. Please, if you have an SB-Live, DO NOT play this until I've been able to remix it!!!