Once upon a time, I was an avid electronic music composer. This was my primary creative pursuit in my 30's. Using money from a dwindling trust fund, I managed to buy thousands of dollars worth of synthesizers, computerized software, MIDI devices, samplers, multitrack tape machines, all kind of stuff like that. I hooked all that up to a computer using specialized music software (Dr. T was my favorite). I got off on creating strange musical instruments with special sound editing software, and had fun with sampled sounds.
I suppose my dream, like many others of my generation, was to become a "star" to achieve fame and fortune, the New American Dream. However, I was far too introverted for that to happen and this was not the kind of music you "perform" on a stage, though I suppose it could be pulled off, just have the background stuff and play the melody line on top of all that with the voices.
I'm not even sure I was that good a musician, though I was a very good synthesizer composer. I don't like my own voice and would had preferred to get someone with a better voice for the overlying voice. If I had managed to get this to the attention of some producer who could give me useful feedback, and done this in a real recording studio, I probably could had done this a lot more pro.
By the time I got in my early forties, I more or less gave up. I still occasionally composed and played as a kind of self-fulfilling hobby, but with no grand ambitions. I wound up selling all my once expensive equipment for a fraction of their origninal cost. For almost two decades, this music had been gathering dust in the form of a few cassette tapes and one PCM video tape. I recently discovered a way to convert audio tape to MP3 and also WAV. Since everyone is listening to MP3 these days, I found a way to get this music here for a possible audience.
Interestingly, I was sort of ahead of my time with my general music style at that time. Now there is a whole genre called "Trance" which is just like my own music, a lot of repetitious computer loops overhapping, fading from one to the other, with a melody line and/or voice on top of it all.
I had some technical problems with uploading my MP3 files since they are so huge. Most music uploading websites won't allow more than 5 megs at a time, and these pieces, about 20-25 minutes, are 20 - 25 megs each. (I may correct this by breaking each "album" into separate songs later.) I found this free filesharing program called www.fileswap.com . What you can do is click on these links, then hit download. It will take five to ten minutes to download. Then play it on your computer or your MP3 player. In fact, if you click on the links below, it will just start playing right on your computer.
The first album "Dr. Strange's Death Trip" is basically an electronic "Book of the Dead", a guide into the transition into the next realm upon the passing of the physical body.
The second album "Back on the Old Savannah" is a story about how the original human apes achieved self-consciosness - and went on to transform the world (for better or worse). It's a real 'jungle music' style album.
The third album "Voices From Beyond" is designed to be something like a meditation tape, and parts of it could work very well for that purpose. I was attempting to convey some kind of mind-blowing Cosmic Consciousness Experience, though somehow it fell a bit short of my aspirations. It's sort of like that picture you snap of the Grand Canyon just doesn't convey the actual experience of being there.
Anyway, I hope any of you who download can get into it. I'd love to hear your feedback. There is always the possibility I may return this kind of thing. Nowadays, I don't even need that big bank of synthesizers anymore - I can do the same thing with specialized sound-creation software with a key board hooked to the computer. Small is beautiful!
www.fileswap.com/dl/L5DxtgBz/Dr.Strange_-_Death_Journey.mp3.html
www.fileswap.com/dl/15i6ZLL/Back_on_the_Old_Savannah.mp3.html
www.fileswap.com/dl/YTkOGDDY/Voices_From_Beyond.mp3.html
