Tag: piano

Free Download: Water Phoenix (demo)

I knew what I wanted from this song as I wrote it. I knew what I was writing about, and how the song would be structured, more or less. But I was still surprised by the melody that came from the lyrics. Sometimes I can sit and just hear the melody that is meant to be there when I read the lyrics, other times I have to work on it quite a bit to get something that works. But for this, there were melody ideas there as I was writing the lyrics, so when I sat at the piano, the whole song was waiting for me to find the piano part.

The demo is just an idea of what it’ll be like – I think this is going to be a very richly arranged song when it is finished, and I hope that the person it is about likes the song. It’s quickly become one of my own personal favourites to sing.

[audio:http://www.misterebby.com/previewtracks/phoenix.mp3]
Water Phoenix (demo) (right click and save to download)

Hipstamatic photo of the liffey

Free Download: Is This What They Call Romance? (demo)

This song grew from wanting to write a really upbeat little pop song. The chorus of it is something that would run around my head after I went swimming. No idea why, but the lyrics were basically sketched out while sitting in a sauna.

The verses were bits and pieces from various places. Little ideas or leftovers from other songs, so in a way the song itself is a bit of a composite of a few different things.

The piano riff sticks in my head, and was the first part of the song to be written, in terms of the music. Once I’d sat with that for a while the rest of the song just fell into place and I had this little boppy little piano pop song that is great fun for me to play.

[audio:http://www.misterebby.com/previewtracks/romance.mp3]
Is This What They Call Romance? (demo) (right-click and save to download)

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Free Download: Theme 4 (instrumental)

This was just an idea for a project I was working on briefly, but there were two of the piano instrumentals that I came up with that I really liked. Much like Bewerunge, this is what it sounds like if I sit at the piano and play sometimes. A lot of my piano music is improvised, and then shaped after I’ve improvised the themes or ideas I want to work with. Sitting and just allowing yourself to play is a challenge initially – I remember some of the awful music I used to come out with when I first started to just let myself play anything at the piano instead of just reading music from a page.

In terms of instrumental music, I guess I’m influenced most by the kind of piano music that I like to play these days. Composers such as Lucovicio Einuadi, Philip Glass and Max Richter are some of my absolute favourites to listen to and to play. So, there’s a strong influence from their styles of music these days when I go to play something.

[audio:http://www.misterebby.com/previewtracks/theme4.mp3]
mister ebby – theme 4

pres primary school piano (used for a show) - 3

Free Download: Take Me Away (demo)

I wrote the lyrics for this song while I was in Dublin, I think some were written on the train to Dublin and the rest in the IFI. I wasn’t fully sure what the lyrics were about at the time, and they were puzzling me a bit. But I had a music idea in my head, but when I went to the piano some time later, the music changed and the song developed a different sound to what I had previously thought in my head.

But even as I had started playing the song live a little, there was something missing in it, and I couldn’t hear what it was. Then an Allelujah I’d written for a amateur musical production inspired by the music of Sister Act (no joke), decided to slip into the song. It fitted, and definitely suited this song more than the choral arrangement of Kylie’s Can’t Get You Out Of My Head that I’d written it for initially. (again, I’m not joking. I still have that arrangement.)

But as soon as the Allelujah slipped into the song, I realised what the song was about, and it all became much clearer to me. The beautiful Meadhbh Sullivan added the vocals for the Allelujah parts for me, and the demo is a good idea of what the song will be.

[audio:http://www.misterebby.com/previewtracks/tmademo.mp3]
mister ebby – Take Me Away (demo) featuring Meadhbh Sullivan

meadhbh and ebby

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Free Download: Themes 1, 2, 3

These were sketches of melody ideas for a project that never really came about. But I quite like the ideas. This piece is just a few little sketches that I came up with while playing the piano in Java’s café in Galway one afternoon. It’s a beautiful piano, and it seems to prefer being used for instrumental music than anything else. There are times when it can be a bit annoying, as the piano is there for anyone to use, but generally people treat it with respect and you can stumble upon some beautiful piano music in there.

But this piece was really shaped by that piano, actually, the sound of the piano is quite distinct, and I really would love to use it for some recording. My digital piano sounds just a little too bright and cheery for the music, in my opinion, but I’m probably just being a bit of a stickler.

[audio:http://www.misterebby.com/previewtracks/themes123.mp3]
mister ebby – themes 1, 2, 3

the old baby grand

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