'Vacancy' is one several acoustic songs from the upcoming 'Secrets of Flight' CD. Song by song, we're getting closer to being finished!  

Vacancy by Ascent Music Online

Christina wrote the words to Vacancy a couple of years ago. She tells me it comes from the same place as "Hiding From Reality' comes for me. In other words, a dark, personal place.  With that in mind, I tried to ... << MORE >>

Descent will be the final track on the very-nearly-done Secrets of Flight CD. There are several other tracks you haven't heard yet, but we couldn't wait any longer to share this one with you.  The unfinished songs are mostly vocals and acoustic guitar... Descent is a great big epic proggy mostly-instrumental multipart piece....  with a rap in the middle of it. If that's not your bag, turn back now!


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Okay, so the Beatles made their first album in a day. So what?  Ya know, there were four of them PLUS George Martin PLUS a whole bunch of engineers in white lab coats...  Christina and I are making "Secrets of Flight" all on our own, and it's taking just a BIT longer. As part of our process, we've been remixing and remastering, and wouldn't you know it, RE-RECORDING songs....

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So, you can't record a CD without breaking a few eggs...   

Adaptation by Ascent Music Online

After continuing to fine-tune and improve the sound of the songs for Secrets of Flight (the new Ascent CD),  we realized that a couple parts from a few of the songs needed some attention. In the case of Adaptation, I was never fully happy with the recording or the arrangement, and took the opportunity to re-record some of the parts... and after I got ... << MORE >>

Here is the first video from the upcoming Ascent CD!   The song is called Ascension.  We made a deliberate choice to wait until the video was done before releasing the song to the world.  This has allowed sufficient time to ensure that the mix and mastering are as good as they can be. I really feel like this is another big step in my musical evolution.  I have spent so much time and effort on the recording, mixing, mastering, and the video, that I could write a book about the experience.

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 New and Improved!   "What the Crows Know" by Ascent!  The MP3 is available here  for a limited time. After that, you can hear it streaming at AscentMusicOnline.com. Please listen and please let us know how it sounds!

The recording of the Ascent CD has been a long journey, and now that we're getting closer to completion,  it was time to take a critical look back.  I've learned so much about that black art called "mastering" during the past year or so, and I've finally learned enough ... << MORE >>

We're starting the new year off with a new version an old song....  "Hiding From Reality" is the the sixth song from the upcoming Ascent CD (our new year's resolution is to have the CD completed by June).  It's a song I wrote way back in 1995, and it's a very personal song for me. We decided to include it on our CD because of the strong response this sad, sad song continues to get whenever we play it live - and we've been playing it live, off and on, for the past dozen years or so. ... << MORE >>

Sometimes I wonder what people who don't obsess about music every day do with all their time...  I've spent an inordinate amount of time on this track, primarily for my own amusement.  I do hope you enjoy it as well!   

Download Track Nineteen: Vertical Bird 

Just for the benefit of anybody that may be new to this page, you're about to listen (I hope)  to music that I wrote and recorded at home. On this track, I played guitar, bass, electronic drums, and keyboards.  Although some of ... << MORE >>

Just in case anyone doubted that I am a deeply silly person at heart.....  

Download Get Funky One Time

"Get Funky One Time" is not technically a remix of "Independence," but it features unused vocals that Christina recorded during the various takes of that song. As time goes by, she improvises more and more while recording. Most of these vocals are little asides that she did in between the lines or during the end section of the song.

The rest of this is a whole new recording. ... << MORE >>

The fifth song from the upcoming Ascent CD is "Independence."   You can hear it now by going to AscentMusicOnline.com

Strange but true: I co-wrote this song with a younger version of myself. Really, I did. 

I've been obsessed with recording for as long as I've been obsessed with making music, possibly longer!    Back in the days before you could do everything on the computer, I recorded absolutely everything on cassette tape...   This started with recording just about every practice session with every band I played with.  I ... << MORE >>

Hello Again!  Here I am, continuing to churn out free music for your amusement (and my own)...   The faint of heart may want to steer clear of Track Eighteen - it's bit "heavier" than usual.   It's not that I don't think you can handle it.  But don't say I didn't warn you. 

Download Track Eighteen: Disgruntled

This piece, like so many others, is essentially the product of getting some new equipment.  I recently upgraded my computer because my old one was cracking under all the demands ... << MORE >>

The fourth song from the upcoming Ascent CD is "Talking in Circles."   You can hear it now by going to AscentMusicOnline.com . The song will begin streaming as soon as you enter the site (for now). Later, you can choose "Listen" to hear it. Or you can buy the song on iTunes, eMusic, et cetera.

I will be the first to admit that this a very strange song!    There's a lot going on, much of it just under the surface.  I didn't shy away from letting my influences show, and mixing them all together.       ... << MORE >>

Here's the first new music from me in 2010...    Written and recorded last weekend!

Download Virtual CD Track Seventeen: Frozen In Time

The origins of this track were a general desire to connect my HandSonic to my computer and play around with synth sounds through MIDI. I have so many virtual synths on my computer, and I love gadgets.... The basic drum track is a modified loop that came out of that. The first version was a cheesy-sounding synth-pop thing that was going nowhere.
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The third completed track from the upcoming Ascent CD is called "Adaptation."  Please go to ascentmusiconline.com, enter the site, and the song should begin streaming right away. Like our other songs, it will be available soon at all your favorite download sites, including iTunes and eMusic.

Christina wrote the words to this song right around the same time as Indigo.   I think it was actually within a few days. I'm sure that she will comment elsewhere regarding what the words are about....
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It's time for another new track for my Virtual CD.  This is one that I started last November, and finally got around to finishing during the past week.

Download Virtual CD Track Sixteen: Insurrection in Oxnard

I created the basis for this track during a trip out of town with Christina.  We were on our way to Cambria, California, and we stopped overnight in Oxnard. I had loaded Sonar onto our laptop to provide myself ... << MORE >>

It's finally time to reveal the identity of my mystery collaborator. It's been far too long!

In December of 2006, I received a message on my cell phone that sounded like this:

"Hey Bruce, this is Jon Anderson. I really enjoyed your work.....  very,very good stuff. Very beautifully arranged and , well, organized, that's all I can say. And the idea is, I'll send you a couple of pieces and you can work on them, evolve them, develop them whichever way you want, and we'll see where it goes.."  (yes, ... << MORE >>

"Indigo," the second completed track from Ascent's forthcoming CD can now be heard at AscentMusicOnline.com!  If you click ENTER, it will start streaming right away. Just in case it's not immediately obvious, you can also click on "Listen" in the site to choose "What the Crows Know," "Indigo" and a slew of older tracks.

"Indigo" demonstrates a completely different side of Ascent than "What the Crows Know."   When we first starting doing "Crows," Christina's comment was, "This is what all our ... << MORE >>

Hello!  "What the Crows Know," the first song from Ascent's new CD in progress, can now be heard on ascentmusiconline.com  (if you click ENTER, it will start streaming right away).   If you like listening to the streaming audio, we hope that you'll consider downloading the mp3 when it becomes available in the next couple of weeks (from iTunes, eMusic, Napster, Amazon, Rhapsody, and others...) 

I started to write the words to this song a couple of years ago,  just a few months after ... << MORE >>

Hey loyal readers! 

Is there anybody out there?  Once again, you may have been left to think that nothing is going on with me musically.  I see that it's been more than 80 days since I've posted here.  Whoops. Well, the good news is that I've been busy, busy, busy, and new music is coming soon. I'm just lousy at communicating, as usual!

Much of my musical energy this year has been directed to Ascent.  Thanks to Christina's efforts, we are keeping busy and building ... << MORE >>

Hi there!  I had some fun this past weekend, remixing the Peter Gabriel song, "Games Without Frontiers."  I remixed it the way I remix my own songs - with no regard for the original tonality!   The instrumentation is nearly all mine, but a little bit of the original guitar and bass is hiding in there. It's dark and fuzzy, but I think it works....

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Here's the first new track for 2009, which is actually the last track recorded in 2008. For those that said they wanted more tracks like the last one... well, sorry!   This one is quite different.  Virtually no "real" instruments were harmed making this recording; it's nearly all synthesized, except for a little guitar.

Download Track Fifteen: Precarious

This recording takes advantage of many of the new toys and tools I've acquired during the past year. The basis and the inspiration for the track was the Handsonic drum.  The ...

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Okay, so here's my effort to balance out a few too many droney, spacy tracks in a row.  Track fourteen is nothing but ROCK - guitar, bass, and drums!  I'm not saying it will lighten the mood of the Virtual CD at all, but I think it's a welcome contrast to all the synthesis....  

Download Track Fourteen: Clamorous

This track was built on drums that I actually recorded back in August. I'd recently purchased a new double bass drum pedal, and was giving it a workout...  Once upon a time, back in the early 90's, I'd tried ... << MORE >>

This music has been in process for about a month, and has gone through some big transformations. It's basically cut from the same cloth as some of the other recent tracks, such as "Bleak" and "Speaking in Tongues."   I listened to all my recent music in the car a few days ago and wondered what exactly it said about my state of mind...   In fact, it was all sounding so much the same to me, that I made some big changes to this track after I thought it was already finished. 

I think it came out better as ... << MORE >>

I started this short quartet piece earlier this year.  For some reason, I was obsessed for a short time with quintuplets.  That is to say, five beats over four. I noticed that they show up pretty infrequently in music, but they're actually kind of fun and interesting to hear.  I realized one day that I could play quintuplets on drums, playing five beats on the snare drum against four beats on the bass drum.  After that, I started thinking about melodic ideas that might work with that rhythm. The melodies I came up with were actually quite nice.
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Hi there. It's been a while, I know. So today, I offer you three downloads for the price of one!   Actually, the price here is always free, so it's hard to improve on that. Speaking of which, have you noticed how all these people like Radiohead and Nine Inch Nails and so on have made the news in the past year or so for offering their music as free downloads?  Oh, so revolutionary of them?   Well, tell your friends who was way ahead of the curve!  That's right, brucebaldwin.net offered new music for free before any of them. ... << MORE >>

This past weekend, I decided to once again dig through the loops that have been accumulating on my looper pedal in my practice room. As I've said before, most of my guitar practice nowadays consists of creating loops and soloing over them, or just creating ambient textures. Because I save a lot of the loops I create when I'm improvising, there's a lot of stuff there. For the most part, I forget all about them immediately, so listening back periodically can be surprising! Mainly, they consist of drums and guitar, or just guitars, in layers and layers of loops on top of each other. Amongst the many ideas that I uncovered was the about the grimmest, saddest wash of sound that I've heard in a long time. A modal, unapologetically Fripp-ish Ebow thing. I don't have any recollection of creating it, but it must have been done sometime in the past couple of months. Anyway, I was really surprised by the emotional depth of this particular loop, so I decided to create a composition out of it.... << MORE >>

I had heard many things about Slimbo Jones, a near-mythical figure, cloaked in mystery...  I'd heard that he was a blues musician from the deep south; I'd heard that he was an idiot savant from the Far East; I'd heard that he was both very young and very old.   All of it turned out to be true!   Slimbo showed up one day with an old sampler under his arm, and recorded me playing a variety of sounds: drums, bass, guitar, xylophone, typewriter, and so on. His vintage equipment required that he couldn't record more than a few seconds at a time.  In ... << MORE >>

Here's some all-new music for you for 2008...  This is another one of those recordings that basically constructed itself. There was no forethought to the composition, but it all worked out it the end.   Generally, I create the structure after the basic recording is done, then continue to add layers until it feels right to me.

Download Virtual CD Track Eleven: Speaking in Tongues

I started this track a couple of months ago, to test out the pizzicato string sounds that you hear at the beginning.  They added ... << MORE >>

It's a typical situation, you've heard it all before... obsessive compulsive musician moves to California, enjoys life, works with the big names, output slows to a crawl... But no!  I refuse to allow this to be true!    I actually have several near-completion things that I am trying to get done by the end of the year. Key word: trying.  

Download Virtual CD Track Ten: What They Still Didn't Know 

The track I said was nearly done in my last post is still not done... But some of it is ... << MORE >>

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Hello Friends,

I have been so busy doing so many things, yet I have shared so little on this blog!  I have completed my third piece for "Gus," and I am hard at work on the fourth. He seems to be very happy with the results. Needless to say, writing orchestration takes up a whole lot of the creative brainpower and time, hence the overwhelming silence on this end. Sorry about that. I just updated the sound card on my system, and hope to have some of my own music to share with you ... << MORE >>

Dearest reader, I am still out here. So many things have happening for the past month that have prevented me from working on music!  I have now officially moved to Aliso Viejo, California, and I am digging my way out of all the boxes and debris. The majority of my instruments still need to be retrieved from a friend's closet. It's quite discouraging, but I should have my act together in the next couple of weeks. It's especially ...

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Hey, I'm still here!   Time flies. I have been hard at work on the music of "Gus" for the past few weeks, and I'm happy to say that I completed the first piece (for now).  The piece, as it was sent to me, was about minute long, with a nice oboe melody over some rhythmic and ever-changing string parts. I think the string parts may have been played on some kind of guitar synth, possibly using an arpeggiator. Maybe it's just keyboard. I'm not really sure, but there was a lot going on!   I went through the rather painstaking process ... << MORE >>

So, here's the music I've been working on for the past several weeks. I really have spent way too much time on it, but hopefully the results are enjoyable. Whether or not this track belongs on the "Virtual CD" is anybody's guess. It's just strictly an orchestral piece.   I think of it as the journey of a very simple melody across a variety of landscapes of key and rhythm.

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So, big things are afoot in my musical life! My submission of "Wishes Fulfilled" yielded unexpectedly positive results, and I am flabbergasted (in a good way)! The title turned out to be prophetic. I'm not yet going to share on the Internet the name of the "interested party," whom I am now working with, but some of you already know. Let's just call him "Gus." Gus is one of my big musical influences (for many, many years), and he contacted me directly to establish a creative relationship. I've spent the last week or so in a pleasant state of confusion. Needless to say, I won't be posting my work with Gus here, but I'm sure I'll have plenty of unrelated stuff to continue to post.<< MORE >>

Okay, so it's been pointed out to me that it's been a while since I posted anything. You might be thinking, what kind of 'obsessive' musician goes a month without producing anything new?  Well, that fact is that I've been doing a lot of music, but I haven't completed any new recordings. I have actually been practicing quite a lot with the looping technique that I referred to when I first started this blog. It gives my guitar playing a workout, and I think it lowers my blood pressure at the same time!   I have a bunch of new ideas from that ...

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Let me start out by saying that I had no intention of doing anything even vaguely political when I started this track, or even when I started this blog. In fact, the music here was mostly finished before I added the President's voice to it... I often have this desire to incorporate spoken voices into my music. I started working on this last week, around the time of the election, so I suppose that's how this idea got into my head, and took over the music I was working on. I was thinking how incredibly ... << MORE >>

So, I took a bit longer between tracks this time. In between, I actually started two different things that are in an unfinished place right now, that I will probably return to next. I was really just trying to make sure that I wasn't getting into a rut. Track Seven is a little bit different from the earlier tracks in that it's a bit heavier in the guitar department. If you're here looking for chamber music, you may want to scroll down the page a bit. It's written in the same mode as Canine Helicopter Anxiety, which was the string sextet in an earlier post. I still don't actually know the name of this mode; it's really not a proper mode at all. But I like it. Please click "more" for the link to the MP3.<< MORE >>

Fear not, loyal readers, more new music is on the way! After stepping away to recalibrate, I swung the dial all the way over from "Chamber Music" to "Metal," and then back halfway again! << MORE >>

So, one of the main problems with obsessing about writing and recording music every day is that I push myself to do something even when the inspiration is not there. A lot of times, that's actually a successful approach; simply messing around will give me the spark of an idea, and away I go. Other times, I just spin my wheels in the mud. The past couple of weeks have been like that. I've been going over and going over the same idea, and it hasn't been going anywhere. And it's another piece for strings, when I really want to be recording something a bit more "rock" sounding. The best thing for me to do in these cases is to take a few steps back, and not even think about music for a few days. So that's what I'm doing. Or trying to do. << MORE >>

I called this track "Persistence" because I kept coming back to it to try to make it better. I still don't know if I'm entirely happy with it, but I've decided that's it's time to throw it out into the world, and move on! As of yesterday, in fact, I had decided that I didn't want to use it at all. I listened again today, and decided that I should keep it, since I spent a lot of time on it, and I think there is some good stuff in there. I will probably like it a lot better after I have some time away from it. Please tell me your opinion. Please click "more" for the link to the MP3.<< MORE >>

What, you say, track six? There is no track five! Well, hold your horses, there is a track five, but it needs some modifications before I'm ready to upload it. Since "Road Rage" is all strings, and "Dance of the Directionless" ends with the strings, I'd like to keep the other track in between. I'm almost certainly going to change the order when all the tracks are done anyway. SO, much as I expected when I started out to record a "guitar-oriented rock" CD, I have already veered completely off course. I am pretty impulsive when it comes to music, and my interests are all over the place. This track has no guitar, and its association to rock music is tenuous at best. It's a string quartet with drums and bass. Of all the great music that's been using the format of string quartet plus drum and bass, there's... um, well, I can't think of anything. Maybe somebody can tell me. It actually seems like an ensemble that ought to be in the regular arsenal of the modern composer. I like it.<< MORE >>

So, the stated purpose of this blog is to write about the creative process. So far, I've just been giving you tracks after they were already done. It's time to write about the creative process while it's in process! If this is your first time here, and you want to hear some music, please scroll down and skip this entry! For me, creative inspiration often comes from unlikely sources. A lot of my best music has started from a stupid idea, like a stolen sample or a recorded noise from a household object. Or maybe a melody with words about penguins or dogs. I take that stupid seed of an idea, and build something on top of it, then end up removing the original thing I started with.<< MORE >>

The fourth track is a radical departure from the first three in that it's actually in a major key! I like minor keys so much that major keys are somewhat of a rarity for me. The major seventh chord, however, is something I've been drawn to ever since I picked up a guitar. This track also features Synful Orchestra a bit more prominently. Please click "MORE" for the link to the MP3.<< MORE >>

Okay, so I have a feeling this one will take me a while to explain. For starters, this track is actually slightly older than the first two tracks I posted. The track was completed mid-June, but I probably started it in April or May. Technically, the track might not have belonged on the Virtual CD at all, but I feel like it fits very well as track three. (Please click MORE for the download link)<< MORE >>

Hey, I'm actually starting to get some traffic here!  Thank you for taking a chance and visiting. This all probably makes more sense if you start from the bottom. So, start scrolling down!

I'll be posting some music later today, but here's a passing thought. While perusing my traffic reports, I have to comment that an older track of mine, Cat's Cradle, gets about ten hits a day!  I have to think that somebody has it linked up somewhere, but I can't figure out where. If anybody knows, please tell ... << MORE >>

Here's track two of my "Virtual CD." They are coming to you fast and furious right now because I need to upload what I've done during the last two months before I can start telling you about the present moment. This track is called "Just Stop Talking." The title is inspired by certain individuals in certain corporate environments who seem to like the sound of their own voice just a bit too much!<< MORE >>

So, why wait around? I've actually already got about 5 pieces of music that I recorded in the last two months or so that I want to share. (Let's be clear about the sharing part. You are welcome to download and play this music, and share it for free with whomever you want. What you aren't allowed to do is to sell it to someone else, or distribute it for profit. If you distribute it for free, you must represent that the music was written and recorded by Bruce Baldwin. You're not allowed to represent either the composition or the recording as being your own. Got it?)<< MORE >>

So, I've been working on some new instrumental music, and trying to figure out what exactly to do with it. I play every instrument that I can get my hands on: Guitar, Drums, Bass, Mandolin, Keyboard, etc. I can write for orchestra, and use a variety of programs like Synful to simulate strings, brass, woodwinds, etc. A lot of what I write and record might be considered "progressive rock" by some, or "soundtrack music" by others. I have created several instrumental CDs in the past... What usually happens ...

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