Lee Barry Composition (And Photo) Diary

 A possible idea for an outro/fade out

 Less glum, more fun for dark times.   Video        

  The first piece of the New Year and The New Decade.

  Another piece in E Locrian, with more of an ancient Greek vibe. Its "i" chord is diminished. I am also using its iv chord (Am) as well as its V (Bb), VI (C) and vii (Dm).

Something ironically saccharine and cloying, but easy to play. ***

An Irish-feel (reel) for the holiday. (Not really for 3 guitars--as written, but it's playable as a lead sheet). A 70s-ish rock version.

If the early Beatles did a PSA ditty for coronavirus. Easy chords on uke or guitar.  

30 years on... Horrid AI generations. AI does not do a 12/8 well 1 2 3 4 A "Sting-sh" song inspired by an article in the Chicago Tribune in 1994 about a young couple in Sarajevo who were shot dead as they attempted to flee the city. (Apparently, Frontline subsequently made a documentary about it, which I was unaware of). War Wind (1995 version)   With Strings Lyrics: In the unsettling mist of this hillside town Two hearts had met as one  Enemies in the eyes of all In this war that's never won In a letter to her mother She cited her displeasure They had made up their minds To seek to find their treasure together Together they ran through the empty streets Through the rain of fire  Flee from hell to the gates of the temple of their desire  Now they lay side by side  In this lonely land of doom  Six days dead they lie in wait For the rights to dig their tomb  Again they lay side by side In the only land of calm While mourners ...

  A late-90s song based on a real estate ad. The McCartney influence is obvious. It was composed initially on guitar, and here's the plinky MIDI version. (It can be played on piano but I'm not about to score it as such). Who wouldn't want the above? Church For Sale by meta4s  *** A Video 45 based on the same chords. I retitled it Christmas 1983 because this was the sound of pop music back then, and is somewhat of a personal musical memory.  

A new song about the submerged Welsh town of Llanwddyn . The town was also referenced in Sebald's Austerlitz : "A kind of Old Testament mythology of retribution gradually built up inside my head, and I always saw its supreme expression in the submersion of the village of Llanwddyn beneath the waters of the Vyrnwy reservoir. As far as I can remember it was on the way back from one of his journeys to preach away from home, at either Abertridwr or Pont Llogel, that Elias stopped the pony-trap on the banks of this lake and walked out with me to the middle of the dam, where he told me about his family home lying down there at a depth of about a hundred feet under the dark water, and not just his own family home but at least forty other houses and farms, together with the church of St. John of Jerusalem, three chapels, and three pubs, all of them drowned when the dam was finished in the autumn of 1888...."   

We're all looking for Mary And sometimes when we find her We always lose her again Maybe then you'll see with your own eyes Maybe then you'll hear with your own ears

A chord cycle with descending bass lines, under minor chords a major third apart. Score MIDI Audio

A harmonic etude that is essentially a variant on the ii-V-i progression, but is rather ii-VII-V, with the V chord switching to the minor mode at the beginning of each progression. (It can also be thought of as v-IV-I in the Mixolydian mode). A piece I composed on the Etude, Day and Age Cycle for the verses: D-/C/G G-/F/C C-/Bb/F Turnaround (E7) A-/G/D The complete cycle around the circle of fourths: D-/C/G G-/F/C C-/Bb/F F-/Eb/Bb Bb-/Ab/Eb Eb-/Db/Ab G#-/F#/C# C#-/B/F# F#-/E/B B-/A/E E-/D/A A-/G/D Audio File The lead sheet: