Angel gave Buffy “Sonnets from the Portuguese” by Elizabeth Barret Browning, inscribed with the single word “Always”, signifying his love and devotion.
Others have used the same word, of course, for the same reason. Rick and Kate often say it to each other in the latter part of the Castle series, rather than the more common cliches. This is more pertinent to the music I’m presenting here than Angel and Buffy’s relationship.
There’s a chord sequence in the DVD set of Castle that inspired me to create this music. It was just lovely, but that’s all it was - a short ambient sequence. No melody, no real progression or anything approaching a song.
And I’m a pantser.
“Pantser” is a term usually associated with novelists – the ones who write without much more than an idea. There can be a basic outline, but it doesn’t go into too much detail, perhaps just the overall plot and character ideas. The writer lets the characters and situations decide what happens and what happens next. Oh, those wacky and often uncooperative characters.
It’s the same for me and a lot of my music.
Two weeks ago, I created and recorded the piano chord sequence, then added the cello and viola to give it some bottom. But that’s all it was…and it sat until 7 o’clock yesterday morning.
During the following 8 hours I was at the keyboard (the 88-key one, not this 102-key one) and just played over the piano-cello-viola backing until I got what I wanted.
There was no planning, no overall idea of what I wanted it to sound like, no direction at all. Pantser, remember?
I rarely do any real planning. I like to be surprised. In this case, the only criterion was that it shouldn’t be too long. It’s not unusual for me to get so wrapped up in the music that it could easily go on f o r e v e r, reaching six, seven, nine, 13 minutes, or more. (I’ve got two pieces that are about an hour long each. Even I think that’s excessive.)
A little under four minutes is just about right for this, I think.
And, to keep it from becoming too incredibly boring, I added some altos at the beginning and some sopranos at the end.
For now, “Always” is only available here on Substack.
Oops: that was yesterday. I woke up this morning and decided the music wasn’t quite right. A few more hours of editing, re-mixing, and re-mastering and now it’s just about 3½ minutes long. I guess we should consider it a work-in-progress. How will I know when I’m done, though?