Most are familiar with standard musical genres – rock, jazz, funk, classical, etc. as well as fusion that combines two or more genres such as jazz and rock or rock and classical.

I’ve been writing music for most of life but can’t seem to find a genre. Songs tend to move between different styles, which makes it difficult to describe my music to new listeners.

I’ve created this blog as an introduction to some of the songs and extended compositions in my catalog.

My initial offering of twenty songs is organized into four general categories. In this first post, I’d like to introduce a song from each of these categories.

“Nothin’ But Good Times” is an instrumental rock/fusion piece with a relaxed, melodic, slightly funky character. The groove is steady. The harmony is not. The overall tonal profile is G major / E minor with excursions in B minor, E major, and C major. The principal musical impression is that of a sustained groove through a variety of musical styles.

“Golden Age” is a melodic and harmonic journey. Although it follows a standard I-IV-V progression, making extensive use of stacked 4ths, the harmonic structure of “Golden Age” has an expansive, other-worldly quality. The pulse is steady with melody, harmony and sustained instrumental textures moving between verse and a chromatically descending chorus.

“Game On” has more of a progressive rock/cinematic character shifting between different key signatures and time signatures in a dramatic, driving, and evolving manner. Following an enigmatic opening in C minor, we enter a virtual world by way of a gaming/action sequence in A minor. The main section is dark but driving, alternating between 11/8 and 13/8 time. In contrast, the melody played with flutes and strings is searching ultimately taking us back into the computer game.

“A Strange Cheese” is an impressionist/odd-meter contemporary piano composition. The piece is rhythmically and tonally unsettled moving between A minor, D minor and F major, wandering into G minor and C-major territory in between. Where the previous three pieces can be described as instrumental rock, “A Strange Cheese” is decidedly Neo-Classical.

What’s Next?

Future posts will explore other songs in these categories eventually moving into more extended pieces. I hope you enjoy the music.