the voice of experience


dedicated to the memory of george duke

and to my friend and musical co-conspirator, ken mistove


track: 05

recorded: 20140323 - 20140504

duration: 8.33

type: active / alternative


I began creating "the voice of experience" not long after I released the first two movements of my second concerto, and I decided early on to take my time with the track, and to try to make it as...interesting as humanly possible.

I had certain musical ideas that I wanted to realise; I wanted some funky and strange electric piano chords in there, as a quiet farewell to george, who left us not long ago, as well as challenge myself to create an alternative piece of music unlike any that I have ever dreamed of, with my thoughts firmly set on the music that george duke made, when he worked with the late, great frank zappa.

In the goal of wanting to create an alternative piece unlike any I've ever dreamed of...I have succeeded far, far beyond my wildest dreams, for a long time, the track only ran for four or five minutes, but eventually, the rest of the piece fell into place, certain themes haunting me for days or weeks, but it did all begin to finally, make a strange kind of sense to me...

the long intro owes it's form (but not it's snare drum sound) probably to "intruder" by peter gabriel, but then, with the entrance of the george duke electric piano glissandos and chords, any real sinister mood quickly fades, leaving us to move into the song proper - and what an unusual piece it is.

a strings and electric bass rolls us down to a furious and exceedingly tricky section of fairly high speed electric piano, which after a while, gives way to a brief, "gentle giant" style counterpoint or "round" section (which is repeated later on, with different instrumentation) - and then, on through a most unusual and difficult to describe series of changes - a lot of fun electric piano, but also, hard work on the piano, harpsichord and celeste parts - and then some more of those odd "gentle giant"-inspired moments, where drums and bass play unexpected two note patterns, or the acoustic piano plays a staggering chord sequence behind steady acoustic guitars...

then, one day, about two months into the recording process - it arrived - the king crimson "moonchild" inspired near-ambient electric piano solo section - I spent a few days, gently tweaking these jazzy, high-pitched electric piano chords, until they flowed in the quiet, calm way I needed them to - a calm before the massed acoustic guitars, strings, electric and acoustic pianos of the final sections - the steely dan-inspired two acoustic piano riff, which then grows various harmonies (at which point, it's vague resemblance to the opening riff of "FM" disappears promptly) and then, once that riff grows and grows and reaches its crescendo - all hell breaks loose, basically.

nearing the end of the track; some long, bombastic glissando/stereo acoustic piano runs, just long chromatic runs in the key of C major...which turn out to be a false ending, an additional section of acoustic guitar plays the song out, ending at last on a more major and positive sounding chord - almost a Beatlesque chord, strangely enough.

it's my sincere hope that I will discover more pieces of this nature, and creating this piece has been an absolute high point, a really, really positive experience, which has also caused me to really throw myself into the work on the next few songs scored in Notion - I am spending a lot of time with this remarkable compositional tool. I give you, at long last - "the voice of experience". I hope george is listening.