Hi David.

Without any hint of exaggeration, I want to say that this is extraordinary listening.

You really have a flair for creating thoughtful and enjoyable arrangements that mesmerize me.

I loved the harmony and the counterpoint. I'm a huge fan of counterpoint. It occupied quite a bit of my time back in the 1990s as I worked my way through Palestrina and Fux in an effort to better understand Bach. Later, when I moved on to 4-part harmony in the classical style, I found the understanding that I gained from learning counterpoint was invaluable. All the rules and patterns in 4-part harmony are mostly a consequence of contrapuntal techniques.

Anyway, that's all beside the point. When I listened to your song, you made think all about this stuff that I haven't thought about for a couple of decades. That's a great thing smile Thank you for that!

At the moment, I'm sitting here trying to work out why the 2-part harmony on "thing" (in "anything" at 1:42) doesn't quite sit comfortably for me. It's at times like this that I wished I had perfect pitch. Alas, I do not. I can't quite work out how your two voices travel to what sounds like an E-B vocal harmony at the cadence. Questions that are appearing in my mind right now are... Do the voices cross over and what was the upper voice becomes the lower voice? Is the E-B interval approached in similar motion? If it's any use to you, I find that in 2-part movement, perfect 5ths usually sound best when approached in contrary motion.

What stood out to me most in this production was your prosody. Your ability to align musical stress with syllabic stress is fantastic. I suspect that one of the reasons that Kevin sounds so brilliant in this presentation is because of your skills in the prosody arena.

Also, I really loved reading your "Blah Blah Blah" section! It really was excellent background information and gave me huge insights into your creative process. You know, I've never once written a song that started with a chorus. I often don't have a title, either. For some reason, I always begin with a verse. Often, the first verse I write turns out to be verse 2. For me, verse 2 is usually a little bit more philosophical and usually has less imagery than verse 1. This is probably why I favor the AABA format when song writing.

Anyway, thank you for a terrific musical journey. And thank you for mentioning me a couple of times. Believe it or not, you've inspired me to get back into creating songs more often. I seem to have drifted out of songwriting over the last couple of years.

All the best,
Noel

MY SONGS...
Audiophile BIAB 2025