Wednesday, February 23, 2005

Thursday Afternoon

This story begins in January 2002...

Up until that point, I had never really felt comfortable with any of my compositions. I had tried so many styles and directions and was thoroughly confused about what to do. One of my practice methods had been to relax and run freeform mods over key signatures.

It was early in the afternoon, overcast and drizzling. My son, Caleb, was just hanging out playing with toys. A sudden inpiration came to me..

I booted up our old iMac, turned on Cubase and clicked on my Korg X3.
I cleared my mind. And just thought about the beautiful scene that I could see out the apartment window. The leaves catching the drops, the water bouncing off the bricks..

And then..

I just played.

The piece you will hear below is the Actual piece. I have never played it again. I don't think I could unless I printed it out on sheet music and actually learned it. It is completely improvisational, stream of consciousness and completely unique.

I thought, "this is how I will write from now on."

I have found my style.

Thursday Afternoon 3.32 (c) 2002 William Cushman (3:32 / 3.4Mb)
To directly download to your computer click this icon:
--------
Want to use this piece in your project or website - royalty & commercial free at no cost?
Just ask.

Send me a quick email: Email

-Bill

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wow! How beautiful! I heard about you through the Photodex-ProShow group and it is certainly a privilege to listen to your music. You are fantastic.

Anonymous said...

I have just stumbled upon your site after performing a Google search for somebody with the same name as you that I'd met on a specific site. As it happens, I am a musician and so this was a beautiful accidental discovery for me. This piece is so wonderful. I have respect for all musicians, but especially pianists as their instrument requires an all round knowledge in order to perform correctly (melody, harmony, bass lines, rhythm, chord structure etc). I only wish I had the talent to be able to play such a complete instrument.
Listening to this, especially knowing how it was created, made me think back to a couple of CD's that I haven't listened to in a long time, the Chick Corea Improvisations, volumes 1 & 2 from the early 70's. I heard the same free flowing yet tastefully controlled creation from you as I did from those albums, and both make me want to both improve myself as a musician and also make me realise why music is so important to me. When it's done well it covers feelings and experiences that you struggle to put into words - if you could put those feelings into words then you wouldn't need music to capture them!
A wonderful improvisation, captured in it's purest way and shining with beauty because of it. Thankyou so much.
Ian

Anonymous said...

This is amazing! Especially since you just played it out of no where!

Welcome to William Cushman's Ghostnotes