Torley Lives

See Torley as a boy in his "Techno Kid" years! BEHOLD!

I decided to do this because I have loose ends I didn't get around to in 2004 after my music composing career was interrupted: namely, sharing more details about what went into the making of my music. Some of the finer anecdotes have been covered in my aborted [SELF-REVIEW] series (which I got distracted from), but I figured it'd be a good idea to lay it out in a single post, knowledge which may hopefully be of use to future readers. So here goes — and a particular thank-you to longtime fan Jamie Edwards for the encouragement!

I really got into producing techno (electronic, or whatever they call it these days) at a time when soft(ware) synths hadn't fully or even considerably matured, so there was a lot of hot air and derisive mockery. My early teens was when my strong belief of being more of an AND than an OR person started to develop, and I found myself using both hardware + software… as well as pieces that were a combination of both. The entire list is exhaustive, but most of my core physical pieces included:

     » Read more…

Contained within for your senses is solo piano 7, a broad palette of mostly-relaxing piano music, the summation of a lot I've learned thus far. I've received previous (precious) comments that earlier installments of solo piano were amenable to being played in shuffle mode and one would blend into the next. This is even more true here — 6 hours of beautiful music for FREE!

 
Have a listen! Press play and the music will flow…

» DOWNLOAD MP3s - The links are on the right.

» DOWNLOAD ALL MP3s - ZIP file, wait for it to download.

» DOWNLOAD COVER ART - Painterly goodness by Wynter Bracken.

 
Nevertheless, there's a rich diversity to be found, even with one basic piano sound running throughout the entire collection: a variety of tonal tasting, eclectic chromaticism, and an abundance of styles which I've interpreted in my own, flavorful "composite alloy" way. If you're not sure what that means, this is it: I've influenced (and namedropped) certain great pianists who've come before me taken what I liked most about each of them and added it to my own wealth. This in turn gets shared with you!

From cascading arpeggi to building chord progressions to spaced-out moments suited for a cosmic beach of the mind's ear, it's all here. From stalwart minimalism to muted tones spanning octaves to flowing, pastoral delicacies, it's all here. From tightly-timed lock-'n'-stock rhythms to flexible melding of jazz + classical minds, it's all here. All of these were improvised live, with perhaps only a fleeting glint of ideas acknowledged beforehand, before I put my fingers on the keys. And most of them are de facto miniatures, 2-something minutes or less in length. (There's a good reason for this, keep reading!)

So, why 176? The story harkens back to the very first solo piano album, my first foray into sharing original music in quite some time. If you've noticed, I have an affinity for the number "4". I realize it's bad luck in some Asian cultures because the word for it sounds like death itself, but superstitions be danged, I've created my own culture.

A piano has 88 keys. Half of that is 44, which was the same or close to the same # of pieces included in some previous solo piano releases. And what's 4 x 44? 176.

Continuing and growing in the spirit of my previous solo piano outings, there are virtually no usage restrictions on these: please feel free to listen, relax, enjoy, use them in open source podcasts/commercial films/etc. and share them uninhibited-ly.

Even better — and HARK! if this applies to you! — if you can and would like to treat (or any of my other piano music) these pieces with electronic glitch/DSP effects (similar to the wondrous pairing of Ryuichi Sakamoto + Alva Noto), or simply remix them in any other fashion, as they say, be my gracious guest. Just promise to show me what you came up with! I may very well blog about it.

But if I were to be strict, since this music is free, do not resell it or the "curse of the number 4" will come true! Check out the Creative Commons license, yo.

Finally, for those of you who know — and enjoy — my other creations, notably Second Life video tutorials, it's due mention that the works of solo piano 7 have and will be used as soundtracks for future vidtuts.

Special thanxies go to my beloved wife & pet JennifeRavenelle, who's so incredibly supportive of my creation that it keeps me going — her early "beta testing" shaped the direction of this series — Jeroen Wijering for the kickass embedded media player, Wynter Bracken who did the painting for the fab cover art… and to you in advance for listening!

There's a lot here, I understand. Explore at your own pace, comfort… tell me your favorites, and if this music helps your life, I'd appreciate knowing.

All the very best in your love and life,

Just when I reckon I'm done with solo piano, I'm not: even with the "one basic sound" a piano has to offer, there's an expressively wide range of tonalities within those 88 "ivories" — and thus, the series continues…
 

DOWNLOAD
» solo piano 6 - individual pieces
(get the "192Kbps MP3" links on the right)

» solo piano 6 - all 45  pieces
(339 MB, wait awhile for the download)
 

COVER ART

 

SAMPLES
"Love Swash" - Shortest, sweetest. Gliding chords, the perfect ender for an afternoon bender.

"End Titles" - Slow-paced, beautiful melodies cascade over the speakers while the credit rolls.

"Music for another love scene" - Inspired by Vangelis' score for Blade Runner, without the saxophone. This is one of the most romantic improvisations I've ever done. (I detuned the piano sound slightly.)

"Newfield" - The name's a deliberate reference to Mike Oldfield, specifically interlocking arpeggi which he's fond of using. This starts @ 1:57.

"Newage" - A pastiche of new age/ambient piano chord progressions and melodies. In that respect, it's somewhat of a Frankenstein monster, yet it's so tender!

 

STORY
Time goes by, and things that once mattered so much don't anymore. Emotional outbursts gel into subdued acceptance, panicked crises become tavern tales, and wild youth mellow down. At least most of the time.

What I'm trying to say here is: with the experience I've accumulated across the previous series of piano improvisations (and yes, all of solo piano 6 has been improvised too), I've turned my head backward, observing in retrospect how much some themes have been strengthened and developed while others faded away — like a sonic natural selection. I have this tendency to like something while I'm playing it, dislike (or even hate) it while listening to it right after recording, then loving it months down the road.

Going into solo piano 6, I dubbed it "Really Repetitive Piano Music" from the outset because my intent was to do an over-the-top sendup of Philip Glass' Études for Piano and related works. Part of this cheekiness was motivated by the fact that Carly Comando's "Everyday", undeniably similar to Glass' music for The Truman Show, sounded as if it could've been a member of an extended family — and I hesitate to say "rip-off" as that isn't fair, but I like to think, "What if, in alternate history, she was Glass' daughter?" Peculiar as that may be, consider that Noah Kalina, star of the "Everyday" YouTube phenom, looks like a younger Philip Glass. (I had to get that out of my system, and I've a picture comparison coming up in a later blog post.)

Anyway, I may be making this seed seem larger than the tree it spawned, so I moved on: I recorded some improvs and tried to make them as repetitive as possible — "Lifecycles", "Eloquence", and "Monot" are among the most representative of being similar to the former influences — but found this very difficult to do. I'm inclined towards change, variation, and while it's sometimes subtle, I don't like to bore.

Incidentally, the cover art was manifested forth from a picture of my face and some custom text run through the Apple2 module for XScreenSaver. It never ceases to surprise me how terribly disparate influences can connect within my art, and in this case, I was prompted to do this after reading Steve Wozniak's iWoz autobiography (my gosh, on sale for US$3.21 at Amazon.com!). What's so special about Apple2 is it emulates the television set fuzz and distortion of the original, lending what we call character.

I suppose I'm quite a character. Accepting my lot in life, I continued forth, letting the notes fall where they did, and now, I'm sharing it with you.

It's been awhile since I last shared some videos of me playing the piano! (solo piano 6 MP3s are coming up this weekend, more news on that soon.) I put "new" in quotation marks in the title, because these recordings date back several months to before I moved to the US. I rediscovered them on my laptop's hard drive (funny what data computers can hold…) and thought, "Aye, gotta put these on YouTube!" And, I currently don't have a grand piano, but would entertain the possibility in the future.

As you can see (and hear), I had some fun with these, setting each in its own visual theme. They are:

1. Discovery process - So-called because I named it for the act of me digging up these sonic gems.
    
   
    
2. Surveillance - Sounds like it looks like! I noticed this recording had horizontal-line digital artifacts, so I figured, instead of making it all pristiney, I'd really gruft it up with scanlines, static, waveyness, and other suspicious dirt. It's good practice for if I want to do more intentional degradations in the future.
    
   
    
3. Action movie heroes - Bold, rapid-velocity, and lots of ostinato action. There's a part inspired by Tchaikovsky interspersed with chording similar to the Secret of Mana soundtrack. Yes, that's how deep my influences run. (Wow, I sure move my body a lot.)
    
   
    
4. Crossover potential - Tinted this one blue, noir-ish like a paranoid David Lynch film (I've been liking him a lot lately). Name relates to me crossing my hands over. There's a childlike playfulness, yet looming menace in the air. And yes, 'round 4:14 is a definite reference to Yanni.
    
   
    
5. You call this minimal(ism) - Had fun with diffuse bloom. Something that came out of my inspired listening sessions to Steve Reich and Terry Riley. Funny story: I was gonna name this "Reich-tastic", but then realized how offensive that might be. I ended up naming the next one…
    
   
    
6. Right-tastic - Golden tones abound. A slight flanger on the sound (did you notice it without me saying so?) Tap-tap on the piano to keep tempo. Observe what my hands are doing, the name makes sense.
    
   
    
7. A cover of Vangelis' "Alpha" - This has gotta be one of my fave synth tracks of all time, and doing an homage to it with visions of a figure-skating Carl Sagan (Cosmos!) + Michio Kaku in my head is the way to go.
    
   

Enjoy!