My friend, singer and songwriter Angela Molineux and I recorded another song last night, “Casta Diva”. It’s an emotional song that blends the genres of pop and classical in the form of “classical crossover”.

For more info you can check out Angela’s myspace page here.

Casta Diva
composed by Angela M. and Geoff P.
words by Angela
recorded May 25th 2009
Time: 3:00

If you’d like to get an Mp3 of the song you can download it here.

Hope you enjoy and please leave us comments/feedback about this song; we’d really be interested in hearing what you think!

We wrote this song around three years ago, and it has been good to let time pass and see how we grew musically since then. I would describe this song as jazz/pop – listen closely for the “Pretty Bunny” line!

Feel free to use the player above to listen, or click here to listen to the song on Imeem.com.

If you’d like to download an MP3 version of the song you can get it from here. Hope you enjoy it!

For interested computer music buffs, we recorded this using a Shure SM-58 microphone, a Yamaha P90 keyboard and a MOTU 8-Pre Firewire audio interface hooked to a Macbook.

Check out Angela’s Myspace page for more music from her.

I made a recording of it which you can view in the Youtube video player below or view on Youtube directly by clicking here. At the end of the video I pick up the microphone and give a short musical discussion about the melody and chords.

If you’d like a free MP3 of the recording feel free to download it from here.

Please click here to view on Youtube or feel free to use the player below.

> Surprise Peas – MP3 time 1:43. Original song by Geoff Peters 2008.

So here is what I remember, and I’ll call the tune “Misha’s Song”. I made a little recording and you can listen to it by clicking below. Comments are always appreciated!!

> Misha’s Song MP3 (playing time 2:35) – Composition and solo piano by Geoff Peters.

For those computer music buffs out there, a midi transcription of my performance is available by clicking here.

Of course, being a jam session, these recordings are not studio quality and are not our “best”, but they will give you an idea of the kind of energy and musical ideas that we had going during our session. The consensus among the band members was that it was really fun!!

> Click here to listen to our jam session (free MP3′s)

Regarding the tracks we played, I think Voyage is the most “polished” sounding, as I know the tune quite well. The other tunes I sort-of knew but I managed to fake it most of the time. We need to work on our endings!! Blue Monk was really fun, I tried playing in a “rough” style maybe influenced a bit by Thelonious Monk. There is also a recording of a new original tune of mine, Warm Day, which I wrote while taking a composition class with New York Jazz pianist Misha Piatigorsky.

This recording was made using a consumer-model Sony Hi-MD Minidisc player/recorder and a Sony stereo condenser microphone. The total cost of the recording equipment is less than $500. Considering the low cost of the equipment, the sound quality is not bad! I have written an article that describes how I made this recording using Minidisc (please click here).

Wikipedia says, “A lament is a song or poem expressing grief, regret or mourning.” I sat down and thought I would try to write something jazzy, maybe inspired by some of the great jazz I saw in the Vancouver Jazz Festival, but for some reason I was attracted to the sounds of minor and diminished chords. Some classical piano pieces which have had an influence on my music are the Beethoven piano Sonatas (especially the Appassionata) and the Chopin Ballades.

Please click below to listen to my piece, Lament, and let me know what you think! It’s recorded in stereo for your listening pleasure.

> Lament (MP3 recording, time 3:05) - Geoff Peters Original Composition