John Neumann's Music

MP3 Music samples of John Neumann

Here are some MP3's of music I've written or recorded over the years. I plan to add more from time to time so please check back.

All compositions and recordings (c) (P) 1999-2007 John Neumann

2007-12-30:

Sorry about the annoying ads I've put in the audio files. I found that there are services on the net that are streaming music files from my server (without my permission), and thought I would take advantage of the exposure to advertise.
Click here to here a stream of everything on the page:

2007-02-25:

Yesterday I recorded some real violins and viola for "The Sun of Iceland", a piece I wrote a few years ago. This sounds noticeably better than the old recording with synthesized strings. I just need a real oboe and cello now.

The Sun of Iceland
For oboe and string quartet. This was inspired by a story from my friend Lars about meeting an Icelandic woman at a club in Germany.
    Download score:
        full score
        oboe
        violin 1
        violin 2
        viola
        cello

2007-02-18:

Some soothing minimilism for a cozy winter's day:
Piece in 8 Notes for Bells
Piece in 8 Notes for individually processed open guitar strings


2007-02-13:

I've re-organized this page to group together all the "Topographic Oceans" stuff. Last week I finished arranging/adapting YES's "Tales From Topographic Oceans" for string quartet, and I'm posting the current audio files and written music here. At this point I've recorded all the violins with real violin, and "sort of real" viola (violin processed to sound in the viola's range). The cello is still synthesized, but I have a friend who may help me out by recording real cello.

Audio files:
The Revealing
The Remembering
The Ancient
Ritual

Scores and parts:
The Revealing
The Remembering
The Ancient: score, parts
Ritual: score, parts

So why did I do this? I'm a big YES fan, and when I first heard "Tales", I really didn't like it. But I took it out a few years later, on a long car trip, and the passing landscape (I think it was the hills of Kentucky at dusk, as "The Ancient" started) focused my attention on it in a new way. It really grew on me over the last 9 or 10 years, and since I'm playing in a string quartet at the moment, I thought it would be fun to play some of the more interesting themes on strings. It was also a way for me to get more comfortable with my audio software, and the entire process of arranging and recording, without using the mental energy to invent something completely new. However, in order to condense all the themes, and make it suitable for string quartet, I did in the end do things that bordered on "composing". I started sometime last Fall. It was rewarding, but I'm glad it's finished (at least the writing part).

And how simultaneously cool and geeky is this... I actually own a mug made by Roger Dean, with his artwork for the "Tales of Topographic Oceans" album cover:

Dean cup 1

Added 2006-12-3

Here is something I started over the summer but didn't finish. It is based on a dream I had about being in the Japanese countryside, looking at factories in the distance and speaking to a wise old man. It also is partly inspired by the paintings of Laura Owens, especially the ones with monkeys in them. I recorded it with Apple's Garageband program. My voice is processed through the "Helium" effect.
Japan, July 2006.


Added 2006-11-11

A Belated Farewell to John Cage
This is one of those "sound collages" I whip off when I'm feeling blocked, but feel like making something. This one has me talking about my encounter with John Cage (the composer who uses silence in his music, not the lawyer on "Ally McBeal" who uses silence as part of his courtroom strategy) in 1987 when I was a college freshman. The background is from a prepared piano piece my friends and I improvised during study hall, abusing the piano in the chorus room when no one was around. There are also noises from playing with a radio while it received interference from a nearby Commodore 64. And a bell.

Added 2-19-06:

Letter From Cambridge (working title)
A song I started over Christmas break. I'm using Garageband software to make this one. I'm still working on the arrangement, but this is probably 80% the same as what the final version would sound like.


December Quartet, Movement 1 (moderate) This is the first movement of a string quartet I wrote starting in December 2000, finished in February 2001. The second movement (slow) is based on an exercise I did for Mr. Bailey's music theory class in high school. It started out as a tone-row exercise, but I can't resist the call of tonality.

December Quartet, Mvt. 2 (slow)

December Quartet Mvt. 3 (fast)

Across the Distance
This is one of my favorite tracks from my CD, "Trees Tracks and Powerlines", which used to be available for purchase from Gajoob/Homemade Music. It looks like they are not currently in operation or have morphed into something else. So I plan to find another way to distribute in the near future.

Green
This is a song written in a 19-tone equal temperament scale. I did the "singing" by using a vocoder, and actually in the middle register it actually sounds quite a bit like my real voice, except in tune.

Chimes
Electronically processed wind chimes, with a little bit of synthesizer. The chimes used to be a xylophone I had as a kid. My dad took the multi-colored metal tubes from it, and made them into a wind chime Christmas present for me.

Joyce Carol Oates
This is one of my stranger pieces. It's an improvisation on synthesizer, with some distorted voice. The voice is not so intelligible, but I'm saying things like "Let's take Joyce Carol Oates and stick her in a cage with Mike Tyson" and other things I can't remember. I wanted to make fun of literary types who dwell in theory, overintellectualizing and romanticizing things they have no personal experience with (boxing, in Oates' case). Maybe I should do a song about George Will and baseball.

Morning Bells Are Ringing
A rhapsodic piano piece I wrote in high school. The beginning trill represents an alarm clock, and the following stuff was supposed to be like the rapidly changing music at the beginning of Warner Bros. cartoons. The title used to be (inappropriately) "Nocturne", until my friend Matthew Sheridan suggested "Morning Bells Are Ringing", for obvious reasons.

Orange
A polyrhythmic piece for drums, bass, and 3 guitars. Inspired by "Discipline"-era King Crimson.

The Frippery
Sequencer-driven electronic piece, with constantly shifting meter.

Quiet Revolution
Hard to describe mellow pop song.

Powder Blue Confection
Tinkly relaxing electronic piece.

Southern Tier Suite
Many instruments, 3 sections: "86 East", "Plateau", and "The Senecas". I'm a big fan of YES, and a lot of their longer pieces remind me of driving through landscapes. Here I try to recreate the drive between Erie, PA and Salamanca, NY.

The Sizzler
This has nothing to do with steak. It is an electronic ambient piece with synthesized nature sounds, as well as an experiment with 10-tone equal temperament tuning. When I was working on this, I tried to attract doves to my window with the sounds from my Nord modular. Instead I turned around and got quite a scare when I found a racoon staring at me!

Camp Cupcake Recorded October 2004, just before I started working at Intel. The title refers to Martha Stewart's prison. When Martha was released from prison some months later, I was planning my escape as well. Now I work elsewhere.
Devil Driver The first LP record I ever owned was a collection of songs by "The Vettes" called "Rev Up". My dad bought it for me when I was 6 (he was a car mechanic at one time). My favorite song on it was "Devil Driver". Misheard lyric: when I was a kid, I thought the lyric "Voodoo Green" was "Blue and Green". I should have known, since there was another song (an instrumental) on the record called "Voodoo Green". This is a cover I did of it. There are still some lyrics in there I never could make out, so I mumble-sang them.