Ironwolf

My new composition to welcome the New Year: Change Bells. This approximately 8 minute-long piece is based on a harmonic series rhythm of all voices including 9 percussion voices and 7 chimes. The song ends with the entire series coming into sync and beginning anew.
[Audio clip: view full post to listen]
Download MP3

I’ve posted this before, but it bears repeating.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, everyone.
Vienna Teng: The Atheist Christmas Carol
It’s the season of grace coming out of the void
Where a man is saved by a voice in the distance
It’s the season of possible miracle cures
Where hope is currency and death is not the last unknown
Where time [...]

Philip Jeays’ songs are by turns bitter, funny, sad, and touching. His web site has more songs and downloadable MP3s.
Death Bed
[Audio clip: view full post to listen]
Click for lyrics I’m sorry for all the girls I’ve made cry
I’m sorry there weren’t just one or two more
I’m sorry that now I’m going to die
Without ever knowing [...]

All my life I’ve loved and collected songs that have quick, intelligent, and tongue-twisty lyrics. Back in 2005 I even started a thread on Ask Metafilter requesting recommendations for such songs. But I only recently learned that this style of lyricism has a name: the patter song. Here is a selection of patter songs old [...]

If you’re a Mac person who’s upgraded Mac OS X 10.5 (”Leopard”), you’ve encountered this snazzy opening video after you rebooted:
Turns out the equally snazzy grooves are by the bay area band, Honeycut, who Apple tapped for a cut down version of their song, Exodus Honey. Here it is in full:
How does the brain
Connect with [...]

Severance:
The birds of leaving call to us,
Yet here we stand
Endowed with the fear of flight.
Overland
The winds of change consume the land,
While we remain
In the shadow of summers now past.
When all the leaves
Have fallen and turned to dust,
Will we remain
Entrenched within our ways.
Indifference:
The plague that moves throughout this land
Omen signs
In the shapes of things to come.
(Tomorrow’s [...]

Fortune presents gifts not according to the book
Fortune presents gifts not according to the book
When you expect whistles, it’s flutes
When you expect flutes, it’s whistles
What various paths are followed in distributing honors and possessions
She gives awards to some and penitents’ cloaks to others
When you expect whistles, it’s flutes
When you expect flutes, it’s whistles
Sometimes she robs [...]

O Fortuna
velut luna
statu variabilis,
semper crescis
aut decrescis;
vita detestabilis
nunc obdurat
et tunc curat
ludo mentis aciem,
egestatem,
potestatem
dissolvit ut glaciem.
Sors immanis
et inanis,
rota tu volubilis,
status malus,
vana salus
semper dissolubilis,
obumbrata
et velata
michi quoque niteris;
nunc per ludum
dorsum nudum
fero tui sceleris.
Sors salutis
et virtutis
michi nunc contraria,
est affectus
et defectus
semper in angaria.
Hac in hora
sine mora
corde pulsum tangite;
quod per sortem
sternit fortem,
mecum omnes plangite!

O Fortune,
like the moon
you are changeable,
ever waxing
and waning;
hateful life
first [...]

Well, you can stake that claim—
Good work is the key to good fortune
Winners take that praise
Losers seldom take that blame
If they don’t take that game
And sometimes the winner takes nothing
We draw our own designs
But fortune has to make that frame
We go out in the world and take our chances
Fate is just the weight of circumstances
That’s [...]

Simon Jeffes (19 February 1949 - 11 December 1997) was the creative force behind the Penguin Cafe Orchestra, which created music that straddled the otherworldly and the hauntingly familiar. The first album of theirs I heard was actually their fourth: Broadcasting from Home. It remains of of my favorite albums.
Prelude and Yodel
Air á Danser
Music for [...]