Shades of Ivory

Since my first piano lesson I’ve had a foot firmly planted in both the classical and popular music worlds. Along with playing the likes of Mozart and Bach my work has included a lot of music programming that often required the emulation of “real” instruments. Practice has naturally honed these sound editing and computer skills, and now I’m using them in more imaginative ways, as demonstrated on this album.

I used no “real” acoustic piano, only digital piano sounds, some of which are indistinguishable from the models they simulate. Others are less perfect but had the advantage of my being able to edit and sculpt them, making notes start off slowly instead of suddenly, or sustain like an organ, or flow together smoothly and with vibrato like a flute, and much more. My playing was often edited and anything could be changed. Many notes were just typed into the computer, at any pitch, even out of range or between the keys, and so on. In short, this music was made in a surreal virtual world where anything was possible simply by manipulating the numbers and the data.

But it’s still music, an expression of ideas, emotions and, on this album, beauty. It’s still driven by my musical sensibilities and humanness and inspired by things that capture my attention in the real world – the call and response of the bellbirds at Studley Park in Kew (see Sanctuary), the thrill of playing a Bechstein piano sound for the first time (see Fantasia), the timing of a bouncing ping-pong ball (see Rebound), my fascination with controlled randomness (see Droplets), and especially by ideas in other music, like the repeating note in Chopin’s Raindrop Prelude (see Trance) or the tinkly riff in an odd time signature at the start of Mike Oldfield’s Tubular Bells (see Thirteens).

And the outcome of all of this? Shades of Ivory is a suite of 12 atmospheric five-minute piano pieces that flow seamlessly from one to the next, moving freely between how pianos are expected to sound and the often surprising results of digital editing.