Here are my original A Minute’s Peace compositions from Day #15 to Day #28. A compilation of these pieces is available to stream or download here.
Lake For this piece, I tried to write something that felt like swimming in an icy Swedish lake while it's raining. It goes a bit Saint-Saëns at the end. It was very much inspired by the piece ‘Lunz’ by the artist of the same name.
Sunshine This piece is all about sunshine, love and hope. See, I can be cheery sometimes. I hope it puts a smile on your face.
Quavers This was written very quickly, and I wondered at the time if it was too minimalist, but sometimes all you need is a set of plaintive, Nyman-esque block chords and a four-note melody. And crisps.
Stockhome With this piece, I wanted to capture something of the calm, organised and civil environment I found myself in while visiting the Swedish capital. Stockholm, this one’s for you.
Out Of The Ether I sat down and this one just came out of nowhere. Some composers say the music they’re trying to write already exists out there in the ether and their job is simply to find it. I love that.
Hope I can’t remember much about writing this one, but it’s rather lovely. Like a few of my pieces, it feels like it should have words.
21 This one’s personal., and yes, that is a reference to Fleetwood Mac near the start.
A Minor Distraction I sat down and decided to write something like the main theme from In Bruges, which I absolutely love. This is part one of a two-part experiment in modality…
A Major Distraction …and this is part two. I say ‘an experiment in modality’, but it’s really just the same piece of music again, but in a major key this time. Which do you prefer?
Our Peggy, Oh Arpeggii aplenty! And another appalling pun. This one was inspired by a daydream where I saw fluffy bunny rabbits on space hoppers bouncing off clouds. Not really. I don’t even have a mind’s eye*. It’s just a load of notes I wrote. Hope you like it.
*Genuinely. Look up ‘aphantasia’.
March My friend David Chaney and I wrote this piece in 2003 for an album called Movements, where each track represented, and was written and recorded in, one month of a year. You can listen to the whole album here: https://warheadsmusic.bandcamp.com/album/movements-2
Film Major In memoriam.
Tresillo I think this was initially written in the 2000s, but I developed it a little further here. I’m also working on a latin house remix, because it really needs a full arrangement.
Afterburn I’ve always felt the final track on an album should have an end-of-album feel about it: often wistful, hopeful or bittersweet, and fundamentally leaving you wanting more. Musically, it’s often the chords that help achieve this. So I wrote this piece specifically to end the first collection of pieces. If you do want more, head along to pieces #29-56!