Visiting David Solomons

It has been already 3 years that I had last visited my music friend David W Solomons. It was about time, and on the Monday bank holiday I drove across the Pennines to Manchester to have a meal with him and chat, about music and other things, listen to his latest recordings and let him hear my newest recordings. He has been very productive in creating new recordings, and has made a great collection of music videos on his YouTube site.

Music Videos

Added a new page on the Virtual Philharmonic website: linking to my music videos. There are currently only two, which I made in January and February 2009.

One is "The Snow is Dancing" from Debussy's "Children's Corner". I played this music back in 1980/81, it was one of my favorite music works for piano, capturing the spirit of snow fall. Now I recorded this music with the "Steinway Piano" from the Garritan Personal Orchestra, version 1. I used several parallel tracks to be able to control velocity of different music themes independently. No live play there, all sequenced.

The other is "Internet Symphony Eroica" by Tan Dun. Is not really a symphony, as it is only a few minutes long... This music was in the "You Tube Symphony" which was performed in April 2009 with internet musicians. I had tried to create a purely synthesized version, no live play here.

If I have time, I would like to record more music videos, using some of my landscape videos as backdrop. But this is a very large effort...

46 Improvisations on 46 different Instruments

At the Emergence Pod 1, Barnsley, 23.February 2010. (Picture © 2010, Bob Clayton)On Tuesday I participated in that challenge about ageism: I pledged to perform 46 improvisations on 46 different instrument. This was a good test for the new MAESTRO-2 computer with Sonar 8.5 and the Garritan Personal Orchestra 4. I arrived around 16:00 at the gallery. It took about one hour to get the stuff from the car and set up everything. Then from 17:00 - 21:30 I played as if I would be at home: anything that came into my head. The Sonar template had a total of 250 different tracks, for the MIDI and the synths. I had chosen to use several variants of the instruments but still count them as on (for example I used 3 violins, 3 celli, several flutes etc. In the end I did not use all these variants, but I was able to fulfill my pledge and create a total of 50 improvisations. Had the MIDI recording running, so I might eventually go through and release these recordings.

At the event itself there was not a large audience. During the day the press and even TV (BBC Look North) had been here, interviewing Brian Lewis who had pledged to create 73 paintings in 24 hours. But when I came, the media buzz had been over, and there were only two painters, a photographer, and a poet there. I played my improvisations - and I hope that my music had inspired them a little.

My first Film Music: "The Spooky House" (2003)

A few years ago I had been asked if my MIDI rendition of Edvard Grieg's "In the Hall of the Mountain King" could be used in a Short Film - and I granted a license. The film was "The Spooky House", by Dennis Miller (Monkey Ltd Films).

Today I found out that it is on YouTube:


My MIDI rendition is from 2:43 until 5:02. This is my first (and so far only) time that my music had been used in a film.