Today I’m introducing you to the latest track by Rob McAllister, also known as Music Within, the Canadian musician, producer and multi instrumentalist from Toronto, Canada. You can read a lot more about Rob and his project Music Within here!

This track, Saudade, was released as a single on April 24th.

Tell us something about your track Saudade!
‘Saudade’ is a Portuguese word meaning ‘missing something or someone. It refers to a deep, emotional state of nostalgia where one experiences distant memories and feelings both happy and sad. With the current global situation happening around us, I imagine that many people across the world can relate to this feeling now more than ever.

Thanks for sending me this Rob!

For more information, please go to the following place to find more!
Facebook / Instagram / Website / Spotify

Today I’m introducing you to Rob McAllisters new song Equanimity with his project Music Within. I have, of course, written about Rob and his music before, which you can find here! And there will also be a Behind the piano post about Music Within if you’re reading this close to when it was posted.

Long story short; Rob is a Canadian composer who currently lives in Toronto. He started playing the piano when he was about four years old, and started making music about eight years ago.

The song Equanimity is taken from the latest album by Music Within, which was released only two days ago (Friday the 8th of November). The album holds the same title as this tune.

Tell us something about your song Equanimity!
The string part that you hear in this track is a combination of violin played by my friend Drew Jurecka, and my electric guitar played with a violin bow! I had already been experimenting with the sound for another track (a collaboration with SØLYS called Aerial Dreams) and was enjoying the result it produced. I fed the guitar through my amp with a reverb pedal on it and bowed the part. Fun times!

Thank you very much for this Rob!

For more information, please click on the following links:
Facebook / Instagram / Website / Spotify

Today I’m introducing you (again) to Rob McAllister, the Canadian composer based out of Toronto. I have before written about two different songs from Rob (which you can find here) where he made three different versions of the same songs. Pretty interesting!

Rob introduces his project Music within as a cinematic/ambient/modern classical project where he makes music for films that hasn’t been made yet.

The song Boundless is released as a single, but will also be part of the upcoming album Equanimity which will be released in November of 2019.

Tell us something about Boundless!
I collaborated with Toronto based filmmaker Patrick Tomasso to create some short films for my new music. In the video for ‘Boundless’ we headed out to an open field that he had scouted out and shot some lovely sequences. My girlfriend Julia was a great sport and acted as the main character. The final result he created for me is stunning and I think so fitting for the music.

Thank you for sharing with us Rob! Wonderful, as always!

For more information, please click on the following links:
Facebook / Instagram / Website / Spotify

A couple of weeks ago I introduced you to Rob McAllisters project Music Within and his song Julicha’s Theme. Basically, Ron has done it again. On Julichkas Theme there were three versions of the same song: Solo piano, Sting quartet and music box, and this time he has used the very same instruments to perform his song A moment of symmetry!

Tell us something about the recording of the piano version of the song A moment of symmetry!
For this recording, I really wanted to use a ‘felted’ piano because of its soft, warm and beautiful sound. (For anyone who doesn’t know: a foot pedal on the piano literally moves a piece of felt over the strings so that the hammers hit the strings with much less force, muting and significantly softening the sound). So, I was over at a friend’s studio on a quiet Sunday afternoon to record. I’d been there before and had played around on his upright piano so I knew that it would be very nice to play. We were all set up and ready to get going when I realized that the foot pedal which normally moves the felt in place wasn’t working. After checking it out it was clear that this particular piano simply didn’t have the felt piece! 🙁 … 
I wasn’t ready to give up on the sound I was envisioning just yet though, so I hurried out to a fabric store and bought a big sheet of green felt. After cutting it into several smaller pieces we were able to rig up a system where the felt hung down from the top of the piano and stayed between the hammers and the strings. We held the pieces in place using a bunch of guitar pedals as weights! So I hope you enjoy the sound of the piano, I worked hard for it. Haha!

For more information, please click on the following links:
Facebook / Instagram / Website / Spotify

Today I’m introducing you to Rob McAllister, also known as Music Within. Rob is an Canadian composer and multi instrumentalist based out of Toronto. He makes music in the ambient/(neo)classical genre, and also makes music for picture and other media.

This release is kind of special. It consists of three tracks, but only one song. The song is called Julichka’s Theme and has been recorded in three different versions; string quartet, solo piano and with a music box. This is a very common thing when making music for films.

With the music box, the melody is a young, playful child. The theme grows up on the solo piano, with more emotion and expressiveness. The string quartet has the strength and grace of experience; a warm beauty fills the room. 

It was released mid February and is one out of many releases by Music Within.

Tell us something about Julichka’s Theme!
I wrote this romantic melody for my girlfriend Julia, which is where the name comes from. ‘Julichka’, which is a nickname from her grandma, means ‘little Julia’ in Czech. To help inspire the theme, I imagined watching a cinematic film about her life and tried to capture her essence: love, compassion, curiosity, wonder. On the piano (which is where I originally wrote it) I find it also has a bit of a whimsical/magical feel to it. 

Thank your for sharing this interesting song! I like all three versions!

For more information, please click on the following links:
Facebook / Instagram / Website / Spotify

Today I’m introducing you to the track Vindelälven by the Swedish composer and piano player Ruben Fjellner, located in Umeå. Ruben started playing the piano about five years age to deal with stress.

Just improvising on the piano has brought me so much peace and joy, especially as someone who otherwise spends (a bit too many) hours tweaking synth patches within Ableton.

The track Vindelälven was released as a single on the 16th of august, 2021.

Tell us something about your track Vindelälven!
This track is inspired by a river in the north of Sweden called Vindelälven. I have such dear memories of this place – and my great-great (something) grandfather actually had this “thinking pine” overlooking the river, where he often sat and composed both poems and preachings. For me, the river holds this kind of magic that I wanted to capture musically – how it moves through the landscape in a completely peaceful yet dramatic way. The polar opposites of calm and rapid water served as a huge inspiration for this piece.

Thank you for sending in Ruben!

Today I’m presenting you with the track Awaken the Deep by the American composer and piano player Claire Bigley. Claire started playing the piano in second grade and is classical trained. The past five years she started to make her own music through improvisation!

The track Awaken the Deep was released as a single on the 6th of august, 2021.

Tell us something about your track Awaken the Deep!
As I was creating this track I wanted to invoke a conversation with Soul. As I played, it felt more like a conversation awakening the deep within or Soul. Bird Song seemed like the perfect companion for this as the birds have such a beautiful way of heralding in the new day.    

Thank you for this Claire!

Today I’m introducing you to the American pianist and composer Tewksbury from Hamilton, Canada. Tewksbury has been a musician for his entire life even though this project is fairly new.

The track Sitaantaago Elegy is taken from the album Paths, which was released in June 2021.

Tell us something about your track Sitaantaago Elegy!
The song ‘Sitaantaago Elegy’. It comes from the Sitaantaago Glacier (more commonly called the Mendenhall Glacier) in Juneau Alaska.  I was lucky to spend a few weeks in Juneau in Alaska, this place that feels unreal how big and empty and raw it is, housesitting for a friend, and my daughters and I went hiking almost every single day while we were there.  

Seeing a glacier in real life is stunning, and you’re never really prepared for it, since it makes you reflect on time, and your place in this time on the earth. The Sitaantaago Glacier is in accelerated retreat due to climate change, and as you hike in to it, you pass rock cairns that mark where the glacier was at different times in history – 1700, 1800, 1924, 1956, 1988.  It’s retreated 2.5 miles so far, so you keep experiencing how large it once was as you, yourself, move through space. It’s stunning, and dire, and within a few decades the glacier will be gone.  It’s sobering to experience a thing that is almost certainly already dead.  In this song, I wanted to write a farewell, and to say goodbye with a beautiful moment. It’s a dark place to go, but I see beauty in it, and I hope that people who hear this song do, too.

Thank you very much for this!