Synth Harmony

Synth Harmony

By Don SlepianMusic
Download on the App Store

Synth Harmony episodes

  • Melancholy Fanfares

    A curtain of gloom

    Like evening mist of autumn
    Hangs in poetic brain.

    Nosheen Irfan

      This was recorded in September 2017 as I first experimented with the four HD camera setup.  Things were not coming together easily or going well. This darkened my mood.  I must of been daydreaming of 16th century festival music mixed in with my own swirling thoughts.

    Solo live improvised performance, Kurzweil K2600R MIDI module, Infinite Response MIDI controller digital keyboard.  I put on the walnut veneer on top of the keyboard since I was so very tired of black metal.  Yes, that's a Korg NanoKontrol sitting on top where I change my sounds, connected to a Mac Mini running Plogue Bidule which makes everything work like magic.    

    8 min
  • Bamboo In The Rain: Part Two

    My mind goes wandering in Chinese gardens

    Where sacred lotus flowers bloom in vain
    I'll never see or touch those crisp, white blossoms,
    Nor thrill to rustling bamboo in the rain.

    They say the secrets hidden in thick bushes

    Can only be revealed to emperors.
    Not even they can see the garden in its fullness
    Until their road has ended, life has run the course.

    --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.  

    6 min
  • Bamboo In The Rain: Part One

    No one can tell what's hidden in your gardens

    That only emperors may fathom joyfully.
    I lie here on an ordinary meadow.
    My answer here, too close to really see.

    My mind goes wandering in Chinese gardens,

    Where sacred lotus flowers bloom in vain.
    I'll never see or touch those crisp, white blossoms,
    Nor thrill to rustling bamboo in the rain. “

    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.

     

     

    7 min
  • Mystic Harmony: Part Two

      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.

    5 min
  • Mystic Harmony: Part One

    Birdsong brings relief  

    to my longing  
    I'm just as ecstatic as they are,  
    but with nothing to say!  
    Please universal soul, practice  
    some song or something through me!  
    --Rumi

     

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

     

    7 min
  • Grandeur: Part Two

    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.

    "Aye yah, aye yah", say the voices. 

    9 min
  • Grandeur: Part One

    “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.

     

    9 min
  • Flowing Water, Part Two

    The Rose that Grew from Concrete

    Did you hear about the rose that grew
    from a crack in the concrete?
    Proving nature's law is wrong it
    learned to walk with out having feet.

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

    it learned to breathe fresh air.

    Long live the rose that grew from concrete

    when no one else ever cared.
    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.

    4 min
  • Flowing Water, Part One
    you are my strum,
    my tune,
    and all my guitars

    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.

    4 min

About Synth Harmony

From the publisher's feed

Electronic keyboards up close and personal.