Welcome to my music!
Here you will find Youtube and Soundcloud playlists with my favorite tracks I’ve written, arranged and recorded, (both commercial and non-commercial) along with some background information on each of them.
Note: if you are looking for chamber music, please visit my scoreexchange profile.
No other people were involved in producing these tracks unless otherwise mentioned. All of the tracks feature me either playing samples and synthesizers on the keyboard / wind controller, recording myself playing my extensive collection of acoustic instruments, or are from my notation software (Sibelius using Wallander NotePerformer). Please let me know what you think! You can contact me here.
Power of the Season: Epic Orchestral Christmas (EP)
Power of the Season:
An Epic Orchestral Christmas
A commercial EP released at the end of 2023 by the primary music library I work for, KQM Production Music. I wrote this EP for our library, and co-produced it with our CEO, Kaitlin Moore. There will be a full album later in 2024, but here are the first six full tracks. This is an epic orchestral Christmas album based on standard Christmas carols and holiday songs. The album primarily features orchestra, along with some electronic elements and epic percussion. All tracks have live orchestral violin and viola overdubbed over the samples; other live instruments mentioned in descriptions. Enjoy!
Note: for licensing inquires, please email info@kqmproductionmusic.com or licensing@syncstories.com.
Joy to the World - A joyful action track for a joyful song! Modulates up a step for the second time through the tune, when the low instruments take the lead.
Silent Night Horror - I call it child horror - A child’s worst nightmare on Christmas! Features live whistle the first time through, and both live recorded and sampled textures and effects. Even the thunderclap near the end was recorded during an actual thunderstorm at my house in Wilmette, IL one day.
Away in a Manger - Cinematic pop in a warm and uplifting track. Features live solo fiddle and tenor recorder, as well as live guitars (standard 6-string acoustic and Nashville-tuned 6-string acoustic), and a (synthesized) hammond organ. Also makes use of two melodies for the song - the Celtic Christmas melody of “Flow Gently Sweet Afton” I usually use today, and the one I learned as a kid. They intertwine the last time around.
We Three Kings - A dark action track with a mysterious introduction.
What Child is This? - A warm and darkly nostalgic track. Features live tenor recorder at first, and then a warm orchestral version after that.
O Come Emmanuel / God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen - A dramatic trailer action medley, passing between the two tunes a couple of times and ratcheting up the energy each time, ending explosively. Gotta love power toms!
Orchestral Concert Music
These are pieces I’ve written for orchestra with no synth elements. These can be played live (and some have been).
Overture for the Planet Earth - This is the newest orchestral piece, finished in February 2020. This piece was written for the Symphony of the Verdugos (where I play principal viola), which premiered the piece in December 2021. It was written in the vein of John Williams and Aaron Copland (though I added my own twists). This version is currently the mockup.
Flags in the Park - This piece was written for the Pasadena Community Orchestra, another orchestra I’ve played with, in the summer / fall of 2019. It was premiered by the Pasadena Community Orchestra on June 4, 2022 at their (hopefully once again) annual “Concert in the Park”. I decided to write a piece in the style of a Sousa march, as those work well in the context of an outdoor concert like the Concert in the Park.
Into the Pit - This was written for the 2016 Alabama Orchestra Association’s Composition Competition. It’s a concert piece using some modern film scoring conventions to tell an action/adventure story.
The Dark Journey - The Glendale College Community Orchestra premiered this piece at their Spring 2017 concert. I wrote it for their reading session in 2015. This is the mockup. This piece explores certain modern film score tropes in a concert context (dramatic string and brass chords, rhythmic string ostinatos and broad, soaring melodies among other things).
Love on a Pretty Day - This is an orchestral love theme.
The Star - Spangled Banner - My orchestral arrangement of the American national anthem. Written for the 4th of July in 2014.
Hybrid Orchestral / Electronic
Either entirely synth-oriented tracks or orchestral tracks with enough electronic elements that it could be hard to play them live.
Through the Window - The original idea was background music for an imagined scene of someone looking through the window of their old childhood house and remembering old times but realizing that they can’t go back to that and things are different now. As it developed, it got a bit darker and more epic, so I’m not sure that’s the most appropriate scene anymore, but here it is. I overdubbed live violin and viola over the string samples for this version of the track.
A Solemn Quest - Written as the first in a series of “Expressive Synth Tracks”, with the idea of trying a more orchestral approach to electronic music than the minimalist music I had done before, and using a midi wind controller on some of the sounds to add a different sort of life to some of the patches. This one still tends towards a minimalist aesthetic, but it’s my favorite of that set. Almost all the sounds are purely electronic / percussion, except for one (synth) flute patch. After a synth bells introduction, we slip into a dark electronic groove with epic percussion. Another track from the expressive synth project, “Going Places”, is on my main SoundCloud profile but not in this playlist.
Calming Waters - This is a track I made based on a riff in the synth bells that I liked (the opening riff of the track). I have the strings cascading down through suspended chords. A more rhythmic section comes in with timpani and hi-hat loops, followed by a return of the opening pattern and more cascading strings, and then towards the end I recorded myself playing low pennywhistle. I also overdubbed myself playing live violin and viola over the samples for this version of the track.
Dark Spy Main Title - I got the idea for this from a somewhat major melody over a minor riff that I was playing with one day (the melody is technically more spanish phrygian rather than major for all you music theory people out there). It developed a little differently than I expected, and it gets much more electronic in the break section.
Operation Night Raid - An action cue, with a mysterious middle section.
The Haunting Woods - I was trying out Korg’s Gadget app for the iPad, and came up with this track using that with the Korg iM1, iWavestation and Odyssei apps. It features a Mixolydian melody played on digital pan pipes, over loops from the Wavestation and bass, pads and sound effects from other Korg Gadget synths.
Folk Originals and Arrangements
Recordings I’ve made over the years of folk songs or tunes, and a few original tunes.
Lament for a Lost Age - Written in October 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, as something of an elegy for the people lost in the pandemic. In the style of a Scottish lament. This version features solo fiddle and piano accompaniment. See here for the sheet music [PDF].
The Concert March Set - A work-in-progress arrangement of a traditional Cape Breton set that we are currently working on at the Scottish Fiddlers of Los Angeles for our April 2023 show. This is my favorite new set from that show, and this is my own arrangement, multi-tracked with me playing all the parts. Fiddle and piano for the first three tunes, followed by 3 fiddle tracks, piano, guitar and bodhran for the reels. I’m still working this one up, so I’ll have another version later. The Concert March / Miss Lyall’s Strathspey / King George IV (Strathspey) / The King’s Reel / The Old King’s Reel / Miss Lyall’s Reel / Sandy Cameron (Reel).
Jig of ‘A’s / The Sunshine Jig - Two tunes I wrote in the summer of 2020, which will be featured in my forthcoming tunebook. See this page for more information and links to the sheet music for these tunes. This is a full arrangement of these tunes, featuring fiddle, high E tin whistle, guitar, piano and bodhran, all recorded live.
Little Pink - A hybrid acoustic / electronic arrangement of this haunting old-time ballad I recorded in 2022. Features vocals, clawhammer banjo in F modal tuning, retuned 5-string fiddle, and some synthesizer and percussion tracks to fill it out. My version of this song is based off a version from Tom Collins of Banjo Quest on Patreon.
Hard Times Come Again No More - An arrangement I recorded of this Stephen Foster song. I started learning clawhammer banjo in 2018 and worked out this arrangement of the song, then added harmony vocals and alto and soprano recorders for the instrumental break. The bass is sampled, everything else is me playing (or singing) live.
The School Set - Two jigs I wrote during finals week my 2nd semester at California State University, Northridge while working on my Master’s degree in Music Composition. You can tell I’ve been tutoring too many undergraduate harmony classes when I start using augmented 6th chords and Neapolitan 6th chords in my fiddle tunes! See the Tunebook for the sheet music.
The Original California Set - Three tunes that I wrote while learning mandolin the past several years. I recorded the mandolin initially, and added alto recorder, fiddle, guitar and bass (plus a synth pad) on this track. It’s kind of like an old-time string band, but the recorder and synth pad change things up a bit…
The Ashgrove - An arrangement of the traditional Welsh tune that I came up with while experimenting with my lap harp. I have a solo harp version as well, but for this version I used tenor recorder for the melody (and harmony near the end), viola for a counterline, and harp and guitar for the accompaniment. All live, no samples.
The Traditional Irish Set - A track I recorded for the Chicago Music Library (where I used to work) because I was tired of only having synth tracks to send for Irish requests at CML. This track was later sold to the music library I currently work for, KQM Production Music. This track features three common Irish tunes: The Irish Washerwoman, Trip to Sligo, and the Kesh Jig, with fiddle, low whistle (and high whistle on the Kesh Jig), plus guitar, bass and bodhran. A viola, which splits into a duet, provides a counterline on the Trip to Sligo. All the instruments are played live by me except the bass, which is sampled.
Drive the Cold Winter Away - Not something we have to worry about here in LA! (In fact, being from the Chicago area I actually prefer winter here to summer here). But I do like this traditional English tune, and I arranged it for solo lap harp a few years back. A year or so later, I recorded this arrangement, with the solo harp playing the first pass and then tenor recorder and guitar (playing both melody and accompaniment) joining the second time through while the harp joins the guitar on accompaniment.
Breton Dance - I got into 90s and 2000s era Celtic New Age music a while back, and this tune features in several of those recordings. I haven’t been able to find the actual name - my sources usually just refer to it as “Breton Dance” or “Breton Tune”. It’s presumably from Brittany, the Celtic-influenced region of northern France, where they seem to have a lot of minor-key tunes like this. This is my take on a New Age style version of the tune, featuring acoustic guitar, fiddle, pennywhistle (all live), and sampled upright bass, synth choir and a patch I made in my piano software that I call my “Dream Piano”, which I used for a bass drone in this arrangement. I also use Dream Piano drones in some of the other tracks in my demo reel - it’s become one of my signature sounds in slightly (or fully) electronic tracks.
Amhrán na Leabhar - Another track from my Celtic New Age explorations, this one featuring low D whistle on an Irish air, which translates to “Song of the Books”. I learned it from Matt Cranitch’s book “The Irish Fiddle Book”. Accompanied by various synth patches - an organ pad, the Dream Piano bass, a drone bass, a physically modeled plucked string patch (the counterline), and a harp sample. Recorded in 2015. This tune is in Dorian mode, though the harmony is pulled from Aeolian mode and even Harmonic minor as well. I have a guide in my Theory Guides section on how modes work if you want to learn more about that.
Lament for Hammered Dulcimer - I wrote this lament while improvising on the dulcimer one day. I recorded it, then took it into my sequencer and added a flute pipe organ patch behind the dulcimer.
My Kantele - Written shortly after I got my kantele in 2012. I recorded the kantele and then added a variety of synthesizer parts to fill out the rest of the track, including a synth wind effect that opens the track.