FOR MY DAD IN C MAJOR
The completion of my first orchestral piece coincided with my Dad moving on into the 4th dimension of life. The text messages in the artwork are the last things we talked about. This orchestral piece was made possible with Spitfire Audio’s BBC Symphony Orchestra Discover Library. I did not have the best equipment when I was first practising music and writing songs. My laptop was a simple Intel I3 Celeron with 4Gb of memory which I take with me on holiday. Whilst I was writing Star Bursts, it dawned on me that I was writing in a manner typical of orchestral work even though I had not done any of that before. It was an internal feeling so I went on the search for a free orchestral library that I could play around with.
The BBCSO Discover Library by Spitfire Audio is only 200Mb in size and they make it available for free now. When I got it, you could purchase it for about £50 or apply for it and receive it freely. The Core and Pro versions would never have run on my basic laptop and I am really glad this Discover version existed because there was enough in there to sound fantastic and provide a wonderfully gentle introduction to orchestra. You have to remember, I am not classically trained in music in any way. I didn’t even know how to play an instrument when I wrote my first few songs and at the time of writing this background story – I am still a beginner at the piano. Musically, I am just following my heart – I knew I could do it and I am doing it.
This song is for my dad and I also dedicate to all dads everywhere as well. We played this song at my dad’s funeral along with one of his favourite songs to celebrate his life. At no point has my father’s death made me feel sad because I know where the spirit goes when it leaves the body – if you are wondering what that places is – I can tell you it is a place of absolute bliss and infinite wonder. Bear in mind, the vastness of the physical universe we experience is only a negligible fraction of the creative power that brought it into existence. The creative principle is pure joy – we come out of joy and we return to joy when we give up this physical body – what we do on Earth in between depends on your own consciousness. You are prospered or disturbed by the movement of your own mind. What you experience externally is because of what you think and feel internally – that is law. I was already determined to succeed in music anyway and Dad’s passing has just galvanised my determination.
Music has that ability to bless, heal, elevate, dignify and inspire the mind’s and heart’s of men and women everywhere. We all know that – we feel it – we resonate with it. I am really grateful that the last major thing I shared with my Dad was a thing of beauty, more specifically something beautiful that came from within me and is completely unique to me. It is not a song by someone else that I shared with him – I wrote this. How cool is that! I didn’t know Dad was going to die, a week after finishing it; but when I first started the song I wanted it to be joyful piece and used the key of C Major to keep things as simple as possible because it is all the white keys on the piano even though I do not have an actual piano only the piano roll in my DAW.
At present the song is not mastered for release but you can listen to it in full using the music player below – it is also on my home page. I do plan to revisit the song and give it full symphonic orchestral magic. It deserves it. One day a huge orchestra is going to play it live too. Stay tuned for that.
Enjoy and Blessings!
