The Hopeful Wonder That Winter Means

It’s a new year. May it refresh our humanity. I remain hopeful.

Grumpy and Hopeful

I’m hanging out after the winter holidays including the arrival of a new calendar year. Perhaps I’ve had too much time to think. I’m not really happy with what’s happening in our country and in our world. Between AI/LLM, devastation of nature, fascism, and prices gone amuck, I have to keep reminding myself to be grateful for the good in my life.

At the same time, I’ve just released another suite of four instrumentals. (Always a hopeful sign.) I’ll share more about that in a moment.

My spouse, my dog, our home, our community, circles of friends, live music-making, and more keep bringing joy. I know this stuff is all so amazingly good. And at times, life still feels out of balance and out of my control.

Release

The new music release is “Winter Meant Wonderment“. I set a goal of composing and recording four pieces in four days. I didn’t trust myself to do it, but I did. And if I do say so myself, it came out pretty well.

I think you can hear my moodiness in these tracks. If my intentions come through, you can also hear my sense of gratitude and hopefulness.

As you know if you’ve been following along, I am often inspired by winter. This season is no exception. There has been precipitation (which I hesitate to call snow) and bitter cold. The canine member of our household and I have romped through it all as many times as possible. This is the source of my wonder and awe that led to these musical pieces.

Music Geek Stuff

In spite of the tight deadline I set for myself, I was determined that the 2 synthesizer songs would be entirely created by me. Yes, this included building the patches. And I did.

Five new patches in Pigments 7 by Arturia — though I only ended up using four of them. I was unfamiliar with this synth, so I checked out some pointers from Ether Diver. Listen to Snow Flow to hear these most prominently.

I also built six new patches in Omnisphere 3 by Spectrasonics. Again, I only used four of them in this new suite. In addition to “Snow Flow”, these are also the main sounds in “Icy Introit”.

Finally, there is the sub-bass sound in all four tracks. That was easily created by me in AAS Ultra Analog VA-3 (Virtual Analog). Thanks for dropping by and thank you for listening.