Synth Harmony: Electronic Keyboards with Don Slepian

My mind goes wandering in Chinese gardens

They say the secrets hidden in thick bushes

--excerpt from "Chinese Gardens" by Liilia Morrison

With the foot pedals under my feet I was mixing in celestial voices, cascades of bamboo percussion, and a panoply of spacey sounds from virtual synths Rob Papen's Blue II and Spectrasonics's Omnisphere.  Underneath that is the electric piano sound from the Kurzweil 2600.

No one can tell what's hidden in your gardens

My mind goes wandering in Chinese gardens,

from "China Gardens" by Liilia Morrison

Recorded in October of 2017, using arpeggiation from SpectraSonic's virtual synth "Omnisphere" combined with conventional piano and strings from the Kurzweil K2600.

Anyone who knows performing musicians knows that they are not always in their "right" minds, or in their minds at all.  Here, obviously, I was floating above it all.

  No poem for this one.  What happened?  How did I get into this strange night club and what's wrong with that bass player?  I try one door after another, dreaming of my escape.  There are strange robots dancing together in this room.  Door slam, this room is better.  Someone has discovered triple meter.  A side venture into blues, the robots grooving along.  Perhaps I'm in New York City walking on the sidewalk above a subway grate feeling the steamy hiss.  Cue the movie music, very late night edition.  Off we go to a final cadence in dissolving tonic tonality, a final fizz.

Birdsong brings relief

On a wandering path with some feelings of urgency.  The reverberent echo accents the virtual chiff of my digital pipes.

Childish simplicity.  Some bells reminiscent of my years playing Saron in the gamelon.  Now a new diversion.  There a new path.

Nearly understood phrases underscore bells.  Lydian harmonies, raised 4ths, mellotron swells and soaring sounds of voices never understood.  Breaking rules of harmony to cherish a melody.  Like church bells, rising chromaticism, silent movie musical dramatics.

“Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.”  Rumi

Romance is not the absence of loneliness.  Looking across a barren plain for a friendly face.  Love must be kindled from within.

The Rose that Grew from Concrete

Did you hear about the rose that grew

Funny it seems, but by keeping it's dreams,

Long live the rose that grew from concrete

William Blake

Here I depart from sounding like a guitar and play as a pianist.  The chorus stop swells and fades from one of the MIDI foot pedals under my left foot.  I dream of breaking free of the concrete in my life, walking without feet, flying without wings.

Madi Cook

Here in "Flowing Water" I am playing with the sound of the Classical Guitar played on the keyboard.  Sometimes it's like a harpsichord on a lute stop, other times it is reminiscent of the nylon acoustic guitar without trying too hard to imitate it.

I only play this because of my love of the nylon classical instrument, played only by fingers without a pick, held close to your chest with the vibrations entering your heart.  Many a night I fell asleep while embracing a guitar, only to wake and gently put it into its case.  On keyboard I can play things that I wish I could play on guitar but really can't.  However, the keyboard is not a guitar and I never forget that.  It takes me to different places.

Love and harmony combine,

Joys upon our branches sit,

William Blake (excerpt)

This is my favorite work from the fall 2017 recording season.  I find both Blake's poem and this music quite romantic.

Russian winter is setting in. Another shot of Vodka called for at once.  The cavalry gallops over the Steppes, Cossacks with their swords out as brass, strings, and percussions rise to the challenge.  More Mussorgsky chords ensue, then a chain of harmonic suspensions until the left hand gallops up with a noble theme and the Red Army Choir calms everyone down.  Then Baba Yaga shows up with an overactive coffee percolator which percolates in arpeggiated contrapuntal rhythms to the theme.  After an impressive display of horsemanship the Caffeinated Cossacks dismount and pass the melody to the Celestial Bells.  The bells and the coffee percolator perform a charming pas-de-deux as the bubbling music and the sunset both slowly fade, late-night FM DJ style.