Notes
In the summer of '63, at the age of 11, Buck formed his first band, The Centuries . An April Fools 2012 epiphany urged Buck to pick up where he left off 38 years ago. That same year on August 16th, Buck purchased the Quantum Leap East-West Silver Orchestra On-A-Disc. In April 2013 he enrolled in school to continue his edification in composition, arranging and orchestration. The following collection was produced during the period of May 2012 to July 2013. The Breakfast in Bed Ballet (4:45) This piece is an adaptation of a ballad I had written called I Can Live with That. The lyrics open with awaking to the dawn with your loved one beside you. The bouncy melody in the chorus suggested a dance, ergo ballet. I was compelled to add additional cadences and an interlude before the final chorus. The chorus ends on a comically sour note denoting it's time get out of bed and face reality. Soundtrack for your Nightmares (1:34) Based on Thirteen Flutes a-Floating (read about it's conception below). In this version the X-axis denotes the musical pitch while the Y-axis represents time. I like listening to this before I go to bed. String Section One (4:13) This started out as an exercise in modulation and articulation for a string quartet, but it got of control. I did what I could to pull the reins in, but it needed that Contrabass. And it started out as a sweet melody with thoughtful chord changes but rock chord changes are a part of my psyche, so I couldn't resist using them in the "chorus." I consider them, "Neapolitans." Due to the forceful articulation, it is recommended that string players use their worst instrument. Temple Bells (3:04) An upbeat festive theme based on the Mongolian/Chinese pentatonic scale. It has a seasonal taste suitable for the Christmas holidays. The violas get the pluck pizzicato-ed out of them. A Hole-in-One (3:47) Based upon a song I had written using golf as a metaphor for hope and eventual triumph. Picture a fairway with a green flag in the distance; on it the number 1 flapping in the breeze. Experience the excitement, the exhilaration, that rush of adrenaline accompanying the heraldic victory of spotting your ball wedged between the side of the cup and the flag pole. I suck at golf, but I'm not bad at "putt-putt" (miniature golf). Even there, watching your ball bounce off the shallow brick wall bordering the green, ricocheting off a rock positioned in the middle of the path, and down across the lie from hell into the cup is pretty cool. Washboards are used to introduce the basic rhythm sequence at the beginning. Washboards were employed because they suggested a hand scrub cleaning and I understand that golfers scrub their balls before teeing off. Thirteen Flutes a-Floating (1:29) It's your freshman year in Music College and it's 1970 and you're eighteen and you got no gig and it's Saturday night and you're staring at a lava lamp on the dining table in a friend's apartment on the Northwest side of Chicago and there's a steno pad with a marking pen on the table and it's within reach and you decide to draw the globular activity in the lava lamp in phases and look at the lines on the paper and see a music staff and imagine a grid where the horizontal lines (X-axis)denote time moving from top to bottom and the vertical lines (Y-axis) and the space to the right of each line denote the pitch moving from right to left and wherever an image appears a musical note of predetermined pitch and duration is played by one or more of thirteen flutes you chose because you're Major is in Woodwind Performance and your friend has a flute. Please note: This composition was performed a year later at Triton College. There weren't enough flutists so clarinets were substituted. The title is derived from the Twelve Days of Christmas and the sound of water droplets echoing in a cave. I don't what prompted me to add the sound effect. But I like it. March of the Mouth Puppets (3:56) A 12-tone melody was derived from the roll of
