Sorry for the delay on this page, but here it is finally. This here is a forum of sorts to present my music, since at the present time I do not have enough moolah to release anything AND record labels are being stupid. Ah well. To start this off, I first started composing music back in middle school, not much but things came up in my head for various reasons, mostly simple pop melodies that my brother and I elaborated on. I had this program called Music Studio, and thought it was the coolest thing since Belinda smelled ass so I used it often. I wrote pieces that were just notes scattered across the staves. I thought I was making a new style of music or something. Ha. Then came the EP that my brother and I wrote and recorded as The Pride Gang called "Open Up". We were both very much into lesbians at the time so all the songs were sung from a lesbian's point of view. But not very PC things, there was this one song about getting artifically inseminated. It was recorded on a Panasonic boom box with the computer playing the back-up and either of us singing in our butchiest voices.
When I got into high school, as my listening repertoire was augmented, so was the stylistic changes in my music. I started using sound effects machines and videos to create songs, and this old Casio keyboard that had about 10 patches on it. I made everything (home recorded-on a boom box), without any vocals by myself or any present human, from songs about porn (yes, using porn tapes) to rhythmic studies by splicing up sound effects. Thank god in the 12th grade I was granted an independent study to explore other music and utilize more tools, such as MIDI, analog synth, etc. Most of my MIDI composition sounded like Philip Glass and I can't listen to much of it today, the imitation is too dead-on. Though using the extent of the reverb in the synthesizers (which wasn't much) and some of the midi controllers I was able to start the style I'm doing now. There is a very specific point which I remember doing this. It involved a song with a beat that only played for about two measures, and lots of slowed down "fret noise" and "seashore" sounds.
College was a big help for my visions to become reality, I must say. After enrolling in the Electronic Music I course at Boston University, I learned to actually produce and mix my own stuff, record analog and digital sources (and onto each as well), use tape loops, more MIDI, mostly classic technique. The first thing I recorded in the studio that I was very happy with was an accident. I had looped my voice and had the damn thing playing for maybe 20 minutes and AHHH ideas came about. So I had this loop going, reverberations upon reverberations, a tape of interviews from Radio Netherlands (mistakenly put in backwards, but the effect was appreciated) with delay on it, and live improvisation with an analog synth called the ARP Odyssey, which I became acquainted with in high school....the result is here (please click) a snippet of that session, all recorded live called "Laurilea Jones". I still use it to send to record labels, very proud of it.
Here is the studio I worked in at Boston University.
So thus went the exploration into my musical theories...the main one of which is that MUSIC doesn't necessarily have to contain any certain structure, or even have to be on a staff. (THIS is not a new idea...) But to have music be a sound environment that one can actively place their thoughts into, or perhaps not, by strategic use of reverberation, delay, slow droning chords, and emotion, maybe. Opening your window can be music. Listening to traffic and trains going by can be an integral part of what you are experiencing. So I am setting out to put the emphasis on MOOD rather than MUSIC, using elements organic and created, though there are certainly discernable musical events, such as chords and chord progressions, and melody (some of my pieces don't, but ALL utilize sound in a listenable form, a sound ENVIRONMENT if you will, definitely). Though these evolve much slower than in traditional music. But dammit, not slow enough to make you bored. Big sound, lots of reverb and delay. The melodies are "sorrowful" as my brother put it, I don't think they are happy but I don't think they are sad. They are just THERE. I love having a chord or note being held through big spacey backgrounds and then at a breaking point changing to another. It's very redeeming. Are they pretty? I think so. Everyone else doesn't :-). The reactions I've gotten were that people very much like listening to it, and would like to listen to it as part of living. Which is great, my music has been called soundtrackesque and visuals of sorts are in my head when recording. Most of the recordings were/are done under stress or tension, which recording and composing help extinguish. But it seems to be trapped there in the recording. So what you essentially have is a document of raw emotion, not intended but definitely present. There is too much present in the music, I sometimes feel. It's very dense, but very open. Blahhhh. So I present to a web audience some snippets of material I have. Some of this was recorded in a studio, some of this recorded in my bedroom with a 4-track and a groovebox (which is my current favorite place of composition, since it is immediate and more personal) Enjoy them. Email me and let me know what you think..I could go on and on about my music, but I don't. As you can see when trying to describe it, I'm at a loss for real coherent thoughts or words. It's just what I do. I like it. It's "ambient", it's "soundtrackesque", it's scary, but it's great :-) Listen with open ears and closed eyes or whatever, get back to me....