Wednesday, July 15, 2009

Reminisce

Spent a chunk of today going through tracks that were recorded over 14 years ago back in the UK when my studio was then called "The dream sequence ". They chart my first steps in to the shiny new digital age; this was hastened by the theft of my entire analogue studio. I used the insurance settlement to purchase a 486 DX computer, Midi keyboard & professional sound card. The first pieces date back to Oct 95 & although quaint are not of a standard I would let anyone else listen to.... well perhaps one other.

As I go through them they evoke memories of my last few years in the UK before departing for New Zealand. You can see a consistent saving of work right up until Aug 97 when my studio was packed in a container & there is a gap of 6 weeks while I waited for it's arrival on these shores.

They consist of finished pieces, scraps, experiments & ideas. A lot of them are written for specific places I went to or people I knew. There is a collection of incidental pieces produced for a local theatre performance, tracks for my then 2 year old daughter & music from my visit to landmarks around Yorkshire like Brimham.

Listening to them now is as good as looking through a photograph album as I know what I was doing around the time of each piece, especially the last few poignant weeks as I revisited my old school, my grandparents graves & places that I was saying goodbye to possibly for good.


After today's session I think I may have to sift through these & revive a dozen or so tracks for my next project, although converting MiDi to CD standard sound is time consuming it will be worth doing. I am so glad I saved all this material.


Listening to:

The past........

2 comments:

Yorkshire Pudding said...

It's funny what time can do David. It's the same with poetry. After the passage of time you see things differently and you can analyse your own creations more objectively. I am guessing that there will be some real gems amidst the dross. You've just got to find them and polish them.

Daphne said...

Wow - really strange to look on your blog and find a photo of Brimham Rocks - - haven't been there for years - - must go back! Hello from a rather damp and blustery Yorkshire summer.