Listen to my stuff...
You can do this, where there is anything to listen to, on the pages for the individual works, but I’ve also put all available listening material together here for convenience (in alphabetical order of title). Just click on the title of the piece you’d like to hear and either the SoundCloud ‘widget’ or the standard MP3 player will appear and play. (So far, sadly, I’ve been unable to do this with the YouTube player for reasons of compatibility.)
Most of my music is pretty hard to play, and a good deal of it has never been played, so if you happen to stumble across these pieces and run a suitable ensemble with very good players please get in touch!
Standard disclaimer
The recordings here labelled ‘(MIDI)’ are computer-generated mockups of my pieces written entirely (or partially in the case of 60 Minims) for ‘real’ instruments. I’ve been doing these for a long time, with ever better sounding virtual instruments, and I now feel they’re good enough for public airing (I use little in the way of extended techniques, so most of the sounds I require are covered). Clearly these recordings are no substitute for a live performance — they’re hyper-accurate, for sure, but mostly lacking a human dimension. However, in many cases they’re all I’ve got, or at least, all I can make public: the works are unperformed; or if they have been performed they haven’t been recorded; or if they have been recorded the copyright belongs to someone else. In any case, they’re a distinct improvement on trying to fumble through this stuff on a piano!
Setting aside all this disclaiming, I’ve come to regard these recordings as some sort of art objects in their own right, quite separate from any possible live performances or recordings. So I urge you to try and ignore the idea that they’re pretending to be something else, and enjoy them (or not!) for what they are.
Compatibility note
From my testing in current versions on Mac and Windows, not all browsers handle the players for YouTube, SoundCloud and plain MP3s embedded in these pages equally well... and the weird thing is that it seems to vary from day to day, but this is how things stand as I write:
- Chrome is fine on both platforms, as is Internet Explorer in Windows (albeit with a hideously ugly and enormous console for the MP3 player).
- Safari is fine on Mac, but gets no audio out of SoundCloud in Windows.
- Firefox is fine on Mac, but doesn’t play anything in Windows.
- Opera is OK for YouTube and SoundCloud on both platforms, but won’t play the MP3 player on either.
And finally, here is the music...
- 60 Minims (MIDI) (4:54)
- Bebop (MIDI) (4:13)
- Cog-Dance (MIDI) (10:53)
- Concerto for Trumpet and Orchestra (MIDI) (27:08)
- Double Entendre (MIDI) (11:00)
- Face (MIDI) (2:27)
- Five Pieces for Saxophone Quartet (MIDI) (8:02)
- Hall of Mirrors V (MIDI) (8:58)
- in heaven... (MIDI) (10:08)
- Invisible Cities, dialogue 6–section 7 (extract) (1:30)
- Invisible Cities, section 2–3 (extract) (1:30)
- Invisible Cities, section 5 (extract) (1:31)
- La señora es un vagabundo (MIDI) (3:40)
- Life & Times (12:13)
- lovesongs (MIDI) (17:00)
- Lullaby (MIDI) (3:13)
- Music for an Imaginary Ballet (MIDI) (22:57)
- Music from the Heart of a Dog (extract) (1:31)
- Porterstraum (MIDI) (2:23)
- Return of the Son of the Bebop Variations (MIDI) (15:00)
- Short Change (MIDI) (0:34)
- String Quartet No.1 (extract) (1:31)
- The Bebop Variations (MIDI) (14:45)
- The Bossa Nova Variations (MIDI) (7:55)
- The Europeans: Spring in the Park (1:03)
- The Europeans: Stately Introduction and Silly Waltz (0:39)
- The Europeans: The EuroAnthem (0:57)
- The Europeans: The EuroAnthem Returns (1:02)
- The Europeans: The Turks Are Coming (2:01)
- The Europeans: Two-part Canon on the EuroAnthem (1:03)
- The Europeans: What Europe Needs (1:00)
- Trumpet Concerto, movement 1 (extract) (1:30)
- Trumpet Concerto, movement 2 (extract) (1:30)
- Trumpet Concerto, movement 3 (extract) (1:30)
- Variations on a Theme of George Harrison (MIDI) (20:20)