Poor Tom

I first came across the words of the anonymous poem / folk song Tom O'Bedlam many years ago in a sci-fi book by Robert Silverburg of the same name. At the time, I assumed the poem had been written by him, but actually it is centuries old  (dating back to 1600 or so).

I stumbled across the text of the old song in full while googling something (I can' recall what), and I found myself applying the lines

"Any food. any feeding,  feeding drink or clothing, come dame or maid, be not afraid, Poor Tom will injure nothing"

to a fragment of tune in my head, and the rest of the piece grew from there.

The sort of fanfare section towards the middle of the piece is supposed to relate to the god-like visions that Tom experiences in Robert Silverburg's book.

There is a sister song to this one, Mad Maud, which I am currently working on and hope to publish on here in a few weeks.

I hope you like the tune...

Dance of the Gaelic Ghouls

With this piece I was aiming for something a little bit creepy and halloweeny, maybe even a bit scary. I don't think I've succeeded too well, but I quite like the end result.

Aspens

I thought I had finished this one several weeks ago, but when I published it on Soundcloud, it didn't sound right. I've tweaked it a little and extended the opening section: I am happier with it now.

The inspiration behind "Aspens" is GM Hopkins' Binsey Poplars, which laments the chopping down of some much loved trees. The opening section, mentioned above is supposed to represent the "airy cages (which)...quelled or quenched in leaves the leaping sun".

Who's the Bear on the Harp

This track started life as a copy of the opening theme from Marillion's Grendel, of which I was a massive fan when I was a boy (and let's be honest, I still rather like it and I think it's unfair to dismiss it as a rip-off of Genesis' Supper's Ready).

I played around with the tune; inverted it, adjusted the timings a bit etc, and it started to take on this sweet soft Christmas Lullaby sound.

It's is now really too bold and brassy to pick out the original Grendel theme, but I think it's interesting to record where inspiration starts.

This is the first of a new collection of pieces which haven't yet been published on Band-camp. I will post the links when they are ready.

Happy Easter (which is, by the way, a pagan celebration of spring: Nothing to do with Jesus at all until the Christians usurped it).

Six Nations Disaster

While watching the 6 nations rugby this year, I was playing with the melodies to "Swing Low Sweet Chariot" (for the England fans), and "Flower of Scotland" (yup, that's for the Scots). Trying to combine the two, I came up with this. It's very short, so go on take a listen. You could take it as a symbol of Scottish/English union in the light of the up-coming referendum on Scottish independence, if you wanted to, or you could equally see it as an example of how the two just don't fit together... I'll leave it up to you!

I was going to post this for last weekend's show-down for the title. Let's just say neither England's nor Scotland's playing left me feeling very inspired. Maybe next year...

Here's the tune.

The 4th Dominion

In Clive Barker's Book, this is the first (recently) 'foreign' dominion that Gentle travels to with the mystif Pie. I don't want to get bogged down with the details of the book, which can be found here if you are interested, but it's important in that this the first time I have tried to actually get the music I'm writing to tell the story, as opposed to just letting the composition grow organically.

OK sure, most of this piece also just grew in the writing, except for two  areas where I did deliberately try to make the music say something.

Firstly, the piece starts with a simple theme played simply on a scratchy sounding violin. It sounds amateurish, and is meant to. The theme repeats and develops and becomes more sophisticated: more accomplished, perhaps. I intended this to reflect Gentle's rapid relearning of magic as he travels into and through the 4th Dominion.

Secondly, towards the end of the journey through the 4th, Gentle and Pie encounter the bodies of the old priestesses frozen deep in the Jokalaylu glacier, imprisoned there by the old god Hepaxamendios. Enraged at  the cruelty delivered on the Priestesses, and empowered by his newly re-learned magic, Gentle frees them with a serious of fist smashes through the ice. This episode is reflected towards the end of the piece            (at 10:10)

Personally I think this is the best thing I've written to date: I'm actually rather proud of it! This is it in its first draft. A slightly more polished version but with a wackier ending (which I'm still not too sure about) is available on bandcamp here for either free listening or small fee downloading (let me know which version you prefer).

The 3rd Dominion

This is a shorter piece at about 4 mins 20, and is the completed version of the "happy new year" post  below, who's widget isn't working. It can also be listened to for free, or downloaded for a small fee at Bandcamp here.

The piece was originally inspired by seeing some dolphins swimming off the coast of Kintyre in Scotland, whilst on a short break staying here, which was pretty awesome (corny as it is, sometimes only 'awesome' will do!). I tried to get the twinkling of the sea shimmering at the start of the piece, and the flutey arpeggios are supposed to be the arched leaps of the dolphins breaking out of the sea.

The 3rd Dominion of Clive Barker's book "Imajica", is where the goddess Tishallule (I think that's the correct spelling) inhabits a body of water known as "The Cradle". She causes the waters of the Cradle to solidy under cover of cloud and re-liquify at the touch of the Sun.

I fancy that the music represents that moment transformation, but that's probably in my own head. Make of it what you will, but I hope you enjoy it.

As always, comments and constructive criticism is welcome.

The 2nd Dominion

Hello again, Blog. It's been a while, but I am re-enthused by someone's kind comment on my Summer Fete post, some posts below. I notice that the 2 most recent pieces of music aren't working so I'm hoping that this one successfully replaces "Yzordderrex". I hope you enjoy it. It is also available (in a slightly more reverby version) for the listening to/downloading of at bandcamp, here:

The Second Dominion

(Yzordderrex is the Autarch's city in the second dominion in Clive Barkers book "Imajica")

Yzordderex

Happy New Year

CRADLE by texpete

Bend of Bay & Swerve of Shore

Bend of Bay by texpete Swerve of Shore by texpete

These are the last of old tracks I re-jigged on Sibelius 7. Posting frequency will probably revert back to two or three a year from now on.

Loch Fada - Revisited

Loch Fada v3 by texpete

Summer Fete - revisited

Summer Fete v2 by texpete

So, having discovered how to work that widget, I have decided to upload the reworked old stuff to SoundCloud and copy the widgets to here. First up, "Summer Fete", which is also available to download at http://thenoillybriggorchestra.bandcamp.com/album/almost-too-exciting-to-contain.

Look out for your other faves over the coming days/weeks.

Nisi Nirvana

Nisi Nirvana by texpete

Well: there's that widget.

Nisi Nirvana is my latest tune, named after a character in the book 'Imajica' by Clive Barker. I have translated her name to "If not Heaven" for download on Bandcamp, at

http://thenoillybriggorchestra.bandcamp.com/track/if-not-heaven


Her story is a kind of parody of the christian nativity, and I think it makes a nice secular, irreligeous yuletide hymn, although you will need to supply your own words, or just hum along with the Nolly Brig Choir of Ruffians.

I'm hoping to be able to come up with another 4 tunes to sit alongside this one in a suite based on Clive Barker's book, one for each of the 5 Dominions which form the 'Imajica'.

The Nolly Brig Orchestra

Hello Blog: long time no blog.

I've just checked in and discovered that file factory (which hosted the original files linked previously) seems to have deleted the files, so those links no longer work. No great matter: it was a horribly cumbersome way of going about things. I will work on getting the SoundCloud widget up on here.

I also want to introduce The Nolly Brig Orchestra (that's going to be my musical nomdeplum if you will) who's music is also available to preview for free (and download for a small fee) at ...

http://thenoillybriggorchestra.bandcamp.com/

... and after whom I have re-named this Blog  (I'm not sure if that is going to work. We shall see.)

Most of the stuff from the earlier posts has been polished up and reworked and, even if I say so myself, doesn't sound too bad. Note that the sound quality of the free previews is not as good as the download .wav files so if you think its sounding a bit 'woolly' then that's probably because it is.

Since I last posted, I have upgraded to Sibelius 7 (music notation software) with its new sound library, and on the whole, I'm quite impressed. I've been working on a new project as well as tidying up the scores from the earlier posts. News on new stuff coming soon..

And yes, I promise not to leave it so long until my next post, this time.

Loch Fada

Loch Fada rests in the centre of the Colonsay, a small island to the west of Scotland.

Waltzin' Bipolar

This is my latest. I quite like it, although the ending is maybe a bit abrupt. It's growing on me though. I have now put all these pieces on Soundcloud.com, where you can listen to them without having to download the file. You can still download and keep the files through FileFactory.

I'm not sure how the links to soundcloud work: I haven't paid for any "widgets" (whatever they are). If you search on soundcloud for "texpete", you will find the files.

Ferries

Xmas Day

I make no apologies for this one. I had too long a nap after my xmas dinner this year, and then couldn't sleep. This is the result of too much wine and me just wasting a couple of hours experimenting with with fast notes. It's not exactly 'Christmassy', and almost certainly not what the baby-jesus would have wanted.

Summer Fete

This is my first effort. The title was suggested by someone who said it reminded him of a summer fete, and although this is more happy coincidence than intentional, I was pleased to hear that he at least thought it was pleasant! Let me know what you think, and maybe suggest a better title.

The files, by the way, are hosted for free by filefactory.com, and therefore you will encounter the usual adverts, warnings of download limits & short delays. Occasionally, you may need to 'try again later', but please do not be put off. You don't need to pay anything to get the download: just simply

a) click the 'DOWNLOAD NOW with FileFactory Basic' button near the bottom of the page
b) complete the two word spam-stopper, and then click the button just below once more
c) wait for the countdown timer to get to zero
d) click again near the bottom of the page on the "Download with FileFactory Basic Text"