This was originally written for the
piano and string trio, consists of viola, cello and contrabass. In the
beginning, I simply tried to construct the flow of chord progression on the
piano, and then shifted my focus on the arrangement. At that stage, I took some
of my actual friends at that time in my consideration to perform with or, at
least, to impress them. One of them was my former band mate, who mainly played
the keyboard in the band but he was also enthusiastic for playing the
contrabass for a students’ club of Mandolin music. Others I had in my mind were
a couple of girls I acquainted with in English class. Both girls belonged to the
university’s orchestra and played the viola and the cello respectively. In
terms of performing together, I knew that these girls were below the standard.
But as for my intention for impressing them, actually one of them was the girl
I fancied to do so. The reason why was quite simple, she was the source of the
inspiration that made me write this tune and when I finished writing, I titled
the tune Dear My Angel. Needless to say, to whom I addressed the tune by calling
her not by her name but My Angel.
This summer themed tune was originally written for an abandoned conceptual work, which was supposed to describe a story, and this tune was assigned just before a decisive turning point of the story, where a bitter split up takes place between the main characters. The original demo also featured lyrics to go with, which described one character’s personal views on the excursion for a beach resort with his close friends at that time, based on my similar experience. In those days, I was a beginner in many aspects; to drive a car, to play the guitar and, in general, to live a life as a young adult. At that time, perhaps I was not aware but actually was experiencing things new to myself and was growing up to a new stage of my life. In this perspective, the split up was inevitable to take place.
Now, I no longer drive a car but still play the guitar.
This is the 5th Movement of my conceptual composition titled Impressions of a Day.
This composition is consistently written under a principle that each Movement basically accommodates three deferent ingredients, and the same principle is applied to this 5th Movement as well.
The first ingredient starts with fugue-like theme written for brass instruments’ ensemble. This signifies the arrival of the sunset. It is followed by the 12-bar-blues arranged in Jazz manner, which is meant to describe the initial impression of entering into the night time at a town. With a certain expectation for things to happen and a subtle joyful feeling of liberation from working time, we may roam about the street, thinking about what to eat, where to drink and then after… you look around the street while the blues goes on, featuring solos by the guitar, piano and saxophone. At about 4:09, it goes back to the fugue-like theme to conclude the impression of your hang about.
The second ingredient, which starts from around 4:27, is all about drinking and the process of getting drunk a bit by bit. This section comprises of a couple of themes already appeared in previous Movements. These themes could have some meanings individually but the main point here is they are played at the same time since around 5:01, regardless of whether they would harmonise each other or not. This unprofessional musical manner represents the effect of alcohol, though the video serves only a pint on the screen.
It followed by the third ingredient, from about 5:19 to the end. As the video implies, this section is about getting out of the premise, for going back to the street at night. As it is already mentioned, due to the effect of alcohol, the viewers are shown wobbly images of climbing up the stairway heading for a way out. The music speeds up little by little and gradually features more instruments until it fades out. The implication here would be the more you struggle, the more alcohol’s effect would be accelerated.
The chord progression of the intro, which is also used in the middle for the guitar solo, was written in the summer of 1989 as a part of an abandoned conceptual work. Other sections were all written in early 1990 when this demo was recorded.
Apart from using the wah-wah pedal on the guitar and featuring of subtle twists in the rhythm programming, this tune is quite simple and boring stuff. In other words, I only wrote this tune for preserving the said chord progression by using it in this way rather than forsaking it as a part of the lost project altogether.
The original recording also featured lyrics, which was designed to describe a story about a non-English speaking boy fell in love with a girl, who only speaks English. Perhaps, this idea was unconsciously inspired by Que Te Quiero, one of my favourite tracks from the eponymous Katrina & the Waves album from 1985. The song was about an English speaking girl, sung by the band’s singer Katrina Leskanich, fell in love with a boy ‘down in Mexico’. I don’t think my attempt was successful but the reason why I chose to call this tune Love-Ya’ came from the idea for the lyrics; I didn’t want my boy character to be so fluent in English that he would deliberately misspell ‘luv’ instead of ‘love’, but I also wanted to include an unusual spelling in the song title… the conclusion was Love-Ya’.
In the video version, 6th Movement is divided into two parts. However, the original demo recording was consistently written under a principle that each Movement basically accommodates three deferent ingredients, and the same principle is applied to this 6th Movement as well. The reason why I divided this Movement into two video parts is, on one hand, I thought the total running time of the whole work is too long to be featured in a single video and, on the other hand, I wanted to expose the intro section of the part two video in the most effective way. Anyway, in the original scheme, the following three ingredients were assigned to the 6th Movement: i) drinking in a pub, ii) a girl and iii) new morning. Among them, the video version of Part One covers the first two ingredients, ‘drinking in a pub’ and ‘a girl’.
The first ingredient titled ‘drinking in a pub’ is merely a continued section from the closing of the previous Movement, with the additional chord progression that forms the main body of this section. This added chord progression was originally written as an independent tune that was supposed to be a Punk Rock song a few years ago. Although in the original scheme, as I have mentioned above, the beginning of the 6th Movement is assigned to express the impressions associated with drinking in a venue like pubs, the video version shows the image of stairways for the way out of a venue at the end of the previous Movement. Therefore, in the video version, I put some images associated with impressions of wandering out on the street at night. I guess this change of story could give the composition a wider room for general consensus rather than sticking to its original scheme inspired by real incidents I experienced at the end of 1989.
By the way, people around me often suggest that this section, especially its intro, reminds them of Christmas music. To which, I would prefer to say that basically, this tune has nothing to do with Christmas but the incidents I mentioned above actually took place a week before Christmas of that year and, coincidently, the demo recording of this section also took place in early December in the following year.
The second ingredient titled ‘a girl’ starts from 1:58, which is a quiet section played by a couple of acoustic guitars. ‘A girl’ was actually involved in the incidents of the night that inspired me writing this composition but the important thing was not what I did but how I felt, as far as this composition concerns. This section is about a confused effort that would go in vain, desperately trying to look for a girl already disappeared into a city at night, regretting his own behaviour less than half an hour ago, where he tried to play it cool and calmly let her go. His clouded confused mind will receive a blow of synthesizer fanfare, which will take him further up into the depth of the night.
Guitar Instrumental in A, written in 1987 / 1988, recorded in 2013
‘Guitar Instrumental in A’ consisted of a
couple of primitive recordings I made in 1987 and 1988. Before I bought a
multi-track recorder in the summer of 1988, all I could do was to record musical ideas popped out in my mind by usual cassette recorder. In those days,
I didn’t have any ideology nor thought over writing a composition but I was
just a genuine guitar freak.
Most part of this composition was
written and recorded in its first sketch recording that took place sometime in
1987. Unlike other sketch recordings I made in those days, I tried to record this particular one in full length as an individual tune, regardless to disadvantages of live
recording to do so. I still remember soon after I finished the initial sketch
recording, I went out to shop something to eat after midnight being satisfied
with what I have done.
When a new section seemingly fits to the
tune emerged in the following year, I just made a sketch recording of the
specific section that ends where it connected to the beginning section of the main
theme. Since then, this tune had been abandoned and forgotten utterly untouched
for decades.
Recently, I discovered these sketch
recordings and listening to them encouraged me to re-record the entire work
including the latter section. In this new attempt, I didn’t make any audio
recording but only focused on shooting a video, comprise of various sections
being shot separately. As I mentioned in the video’s description section, the
main theme of this tune is inspired by Black Muddy River, a song by The
Grateful Dead. I think the first bridging section 0:50-1:26 could be improved
more suitable for a solo guitar work. The second bridging section 2:09-2:45 is
the additional one wrote in 1988.
As the title of this tune clearly shows,
this is absolute music. Therefore, there’s nothing else to talk about this
tune, which has no ideological background at all.
