Tag Archives: songs

Covers, Music

While my guitar gently weeps (instrumental)

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While my guitar gently weeps (instrumental)

One Tuesday afternoon at the end of a business day, I received news that a colleague in Ottawa was retiring and his co- workers had asked that everyone who knew him could send a farewell message at the same time – noon eastern that Thursday, and that every message should have a creative spin to the message that somehow involved the Beatles, Bryan’s favourite band.

I mulled it over and came up with a plan, and given my busy Wednesday didn’t get a chance to sit down and actually start putting my idea together until about 10:30 at night. I pushed hard until 3, and this is the result that appeared in his inbox the next morning.

I have tried to keep as much feel of the original together through the rhythm and melody lines, and then added my own flavour on the lead parts. I ended up using three guitars: steel string for strummed rhythm, hollow body electric for picked rhythm and melody, and my trusty Baretta for the lead work.

Music, Original Songs

Hello, Tammy!

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Hello Tammy

On New Year’s Eve, 2012, I was playing with my new iPad mini and exploring Twitter, when I saw a tweet from well known Canadian author Douglas Coupland, stating that he was going to nickname 2013 “Tammy”. I was at the time beginning to play around with the capability of the mini as a recording device using the GarageBand app, so spent the remainder of the evening and much of the first few hours of 2013 writing and recording a fun little tune, that ended up being somewhat “soundtrack-esque”

A great experiment, fully created, recorded, mixed, and posted on a little tablet one night!

Music, Original Songs

Tears in the Sun

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Tears in the sun

Built around a dissonant chord transition that we were jamming to one week, this piece came together quite quickly on a hot summer day. A soft Latin feel to the drum track and layers of soft electric and acoustic guitars. electric piano and a walking bass line made for a great backdrop for some sax and brass melody lines played on the keyboard, accented with some electric guitar improv breaks.

Music, Original Songs

Equinox

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Equinox

This tune started out as just the bass line that transitions from the first to the second section of the tune. I built all the rest around that, varying from 4/4, 11/8, 6/4, back to 4/4, then 6/4, and finally 4/4 again, with three changes in tempo. All of this came together on March 20 and 21, 2009, right around the vernal equinox, and I thought the change of seasons theme really fit the style of the piece.

Music, Original Songs

Dreaming All Day

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Dreaming All Day

This progression is a lot of fun to play over, a recurring altered chord progression using lots of picked open strings and variations of Am/G/F. I found myself getting onto a bit of a trance while playing it, so a recurring melody theme and the name seemed to fit.