Solo in D

Written in 1986 / Recorded in 2012

Though my main instrument is definitely the guitar, I rarely compose things for solo guitar. This was my second attempt at creating this sort of stuff but was not done voluntarily but rather from a request within a band called The Greybirds.
The band was formed sometime in May 1986 with my college mates at that time and a singer, who was my high school mate from the past. We started off with rehearsing some cover songs including one of The Who classics The Kids Are Alright. Because the song starts with harmonised voices following a strum of the guitar chord of D, the singer demanded to change the intro to something alternative, hopefully with something original. Since I was the only person within the band who was capable of writing such a piece of music, I wrote a brief intro in accordance with the singer's demand, which is presented in this video.

There is only one recording of this piece survived from that era, from a rehearsal of the band in a studio during the summer of 1986. It was tempting to make a video with featuring that old material in the audio track to make things easier, but I decided to learn how to play the tune again and capture the music with better audio quality in front of a webcam. Though I struggled a bit to play such a thing written in a long ago in a style I am not familiarised with, I reckon the tune deserves to be challenged and be recorded in this way.

The earlier recording mentioned above is now available in the video below, being featured in a virtual album titled K's Early Years. No worries, it is featured on the opening track of the video for those who can't afford plenty of spare time:

Side 2/2 - Track 1: Solo in D (recorded in 1986)

Lost Love Story: Summer's Gone

Written and Recorded in 1996

Lost Love Story was a conceptual work I planned to write in 1996. It was supposed to be a collection of works for delivering a story but soon after I have completed writing and demo recording a few tracks of them, I decided to abandon the plan as a whole. This tune is one of rare survivors written for this botched project.

Now I don't remember why I wrote this for various formats and arrangements here, but despite it's relatively a simple work from mine, I think it is well written. Or, at least, it makes me a bit sentimental whenever I listen to this lovely tune though I don't know why...

The Blues of Mine

Written and Recorded in 1991

This was more about a tribute stuff I have made to show my respect to Jim Morrison and The Doors, especially for their blues music in the later part of their career; from 1969 to 1971. Originally, it accommodated a lyric quoting from some words attributed to Jim Morrison, which I came across through reading some of his biographies, but it was mainly addressed to a girl in my circle at that time. For making this video, I removed these embarrassing words I sang along with this backing track, which has been presented here.

In terms of music, it's all about the blues being played in urban and dry taste, including a musical quote from one of my favourite Doors songs, The Soft Parade.

Mari - The Soft Core Project : Phase 1

Written and Recorded in 1996

This was originally meant to be a song addressed to a mean girl I came across in a work place in 1993. Despite the ideas for writing this tune grew up while I had to see her almost everyday in the office, it took three years before I eventually materialise equivocal ideas into this form. Though this tune was another new material for my personal recording scheme dubbed as The Soft Core Project, unlike other tracks, I declined to call it merely Untitled with its numbering system but to name and shame the girl in question by calling it with her real name. Additionally, due to the nature of the said recording scheme, wicked lyrics for counter-attack purpose have never been written.

Musically, this tune has Todd Rundgen's Marlene as its source of inspiration as well.

Genius at Sensitivity

Written in 1991 and 1994 / Recorded in 1996 and 2012

Initially, this thing was written as a personal love song during the autumn of 1991. It only featured piano part for providing the accompaniment and voice parts for delivering the lyric, which was inspired by words I have exchanged with a teenage girl by the time of writing. Since it was a private love song, I didn't see any necessity for furnishing the song with any additional instruments and left it behind as the source of inspiration has left me too.
In 1994, when I made the second demo recording of this song, I added newly written three extra keyboard parts; alternating strings, French horn, and harpsichord, to furnish the tune musically. At this point, writing of this tune has completed.

This video consists of a couple of demo versions I made afterword; an instrumental version made for my personal recording scheme dubbed as The Soft Core Project in 1996, and another instrumental attempt I made for a video version in 2012, Since the former is played in faster tempo than the latter, it may disruptive to some of viewers, but from the composer's point of view, this edition is capable to present every single element that has been written for the tune except for the lyric and because of this reason, I picked up this video to be quoted above.

Acoustic Blues - The Soft Core Project

Written in c. 1987 / Recorded in 1996

A short instrumental tune for solo acoustic guitar. This was originally written back in the late 1980s, when I was early twenties. At that time, I only made a sketch recording as an idea for feature composition, then the idea was soon forgotten and was discovered nearly a decade later, while I was reviewing old cassette tapes to pick up some ideas for my personal recording scheme dubbed as The Soft Core Project.
Due to a requirement of the scheme, this new attempt was recorded in two parts; intro part by solo acoustic guitar, followed by the main part accompanied with bass and drums, alternated with making use of the rhythm machine. The latter part is omitted from this video because I felt it doesn't sound good and is unnecessary for presenting this brief but smartly written composition.

Assassination Theme (from 'Zone') 1991

Written and Recorded in 1991

This tune was written for a students’ theatrical performance called Zone, to which I was deeply involved during the autumn of 1991. In its initial phase, we started off with gathering random ideas for the project and I wrote some original tunes in accordance with the basic scheme provided by the director, who was my close friend at that time. The basic structure for this tune came from another track I wrote for the project called Talk Session Theme, which was rejected by the director along with an associated idea I have provided with the tune. Ironically, despite he was reluctant to set the assassination scene as the climax of the performance, he could not resist the pressure from other participants so that the scene was left to be performed.

The original demo recording of this track was played as background music in the scene and the melody written in the whole tone scale gave a cue for the lighting technician to change the colour, from green to red, for informing the actors the timing of the bang at the end of the recording.

For making this video, I tried to insert a roaring, performed by an actor who played the role of the assassin, as natural as possible within the flow of music. I also made an effort to synchronise the movement of actors in order to reconstruct the original theatrical performance with better audio quality.

Untitled #1 - The Soft Core Project: Phase 1

Written in 1991 and 1996 / Recorded in 1996

After the break up of my band called Culotte, in early 1996, I reluctantly decided to go back to make music with using the rhythm machine. Whilst I continued to write new materials from scratch, I also reviewed some of my past works to be renewed for this new recording scheme. Ideas for this tune came from reviewing an old recording of a spontaneous jam I took part with my band called Elegance in the summer of 1991. The running time of the original jam was over half an hour long and it contained many impressive licks and phrases provided by a couple of guitarists there and me mainly played the keyboard. I picked up such impressive motifs and reconstructed the jam as efficiently as possible, with adding newly written bits for making overall consistency as an individual work. The result was yet a nearly-twenty-minute-long material separated in two parts.

Taking the opportunity of making this video, I tried to combine these two parts together, with eliminating unnecessary repetitions and relatively unsuccessful solos. In my self estimate, I think this video is the best presentation of what this quasi-composition was supposed to be.