1999 comprises two distinct phases of my composing history. The first three months (March-June of 1999) were spent learning the crafting of midis and of music, mostly by modifying pieces from other sources, especially demo tunes that came with the midi editing software that I use primarily. These are not available here for copyright reasons. However, the first piece of music that I worked on was an original, and so were a number of other tunes completed in this period. Many of these are huge, sprawling, epic pieces. Only a few of them survived a systems crash at the end of the period. # Name (Length) Size Download Links Comments       1 Cleopatra's Theme (6:29) 18K Zipped (177K Unzipped) My First Midi, so don't expect too much! Notable for a verse that used inappropriate instrumentation to achieve an appropriate effect and the discovery of a simple chord that I could find no referance to anywhere else in musical theory - but that sounded absolutely great...... The song sounds absolutely apalling on an SB Live soundcard, unfortunately. 2 Audible Sensations (?) n/a   Original Midi #2, lost in the PC crash that ended this period. I can't remember the tune (or I would have recreated it) but I can remember thinking how great it sounded at the time... 3 Big Bangs (?) n/a   My third original midi was a piece of pure power pop that owed a lot of it's sound to early Bon Jovi, especially "You Give Love A Bad Name". It was almost complete when the file was lost in the systems crash. I still mourn it's loss; it would be a long time before I came close to a work that matched it in appeal. 4 Penny (6:02) 41K   Not available for copyright reasons. This was a remix of a demo tune that came with the sequencer software that I use to this day. The result always sounded like a Bread song to me. 5 Funky Cauldron (8:23) 176K   Not available for copyright reasons. Another remix of a demo tune. 6 Dangerous Times (7:04) 103K Original #4. This was inspired by the music from several computer games, and whenever I hear it I can't help but picture sci-fi combat of the type made famous in the Star Wars movies. Still evocative of moments of quiet terror, tension, and anticipation interspersed with the crash-bang-boom of all-out action - with a somewhat regretful overtone. Sounds almost OK on the SB Live, but at it's best on the Awe-32 soundcard. An SB-Live remix will be forthcoming at some point. 7 Camelot (6:24) 103K   Not available for copyright reasons, this was another remix of a demo tune. I should explain that by "remix" I mean taking the basic melody and percussion and tearing the rest apart to rearrange it in my own way, resulting in what is virtually an entirely new song - but one that is clearly derived from the original. 8 Just Another Pop Song (1:32) 21K   Not available for copyright reasons, another remix of a demo tune. 9 Hotmix Slowburn (4:35) 64K   Not available for copyright reasons, another remix of a demo tune. 10 A Ditty Of Distinction (10:26) 119K Well, it's length is certainly distinctive! This tune relies VERY heavily on a blend of sounds only available through the Awe-32. Even so, this has not really aged all that well - so the title is actually something of a misnomer these days. But at the time, I was quite proud of it. 11 Confontations In Real Time (21:22) 350K   No, that time is not a mistake! A combination of two different pieces of music from a game, each having something the other lacked - a melody line in one case, and some internal variation in pitch in the other (as opposed to plodding along playing exactly the same notes for over 4 minutes). Mixing the two (and making a few changes in instrumentation) produced this epic, which internally was the most complex piece created to date (1 July 99), with large-scale variations in balance, stereo effects, and a large number of instrumental variations from section to section. There's even a change in tempo in the middle! Loses an awful lot if you can't hear it in stereo, and doesn't work very well on the Soundblaster Live. Unfortunately, I can't make it available because the original ten-second loop was undoubtedly copyrighted. 12 Dot's Father (5:29) 95K This was my first original piece that held all the hallmarks of what would become one of my characteristic styles, which has been described as "cinematic", by which it was meant that the piece tells a story. Inspired by the context of Aerosmith's "Janies Got A Gun", this is the story of an abusive father and his young daughter - and what happens when he pushes too far.