"Ticket to Mars", the title track on my album of the same name, has just been released. The songs on the album are about space travel, astronauts, rockets, encounters with aliens, exploring space to find new planets, and - conversely - the conundrum of being stuck on Earth. https://soundcloud.com/codaes-music/ticket-to-mars?utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing Ticket to Mars (Radio Edit) Lead … Continue reading Just released: “Ticket to Mars”
https://wp.me/p2dW69-7T1 This is a blog post I wrote on my literature site, Seven Circumstances, about why artists produce art.
I uploaded a song, Die On That Hill, to SoundCloud, and it's gone bonkers - 3,250 streams in 4 days (up to today, Feb. 5, 2024). This is unexpected and has never happened before. I mean that, as a complete unknown, just doing my own thing, I have had mostly zero streams per song. When … Continue reading Don’t ask me how this happened…
Here's the story about why and how we have physical reactions to music. I found out long ago, that because of the way your brain processes visual information, for instance what you read, you can literally feel – like a mirror – what the writer describes. (If they describe it well enough, of course.) It’s the way … Continue reading So THAT’S why it tickles your toes!
I've released the latest song on my album, "Howl", and it's called "Dreams May Come". I wrote it because I have had these incredibly real-feeling dreams of people who died many years ago - my brother, and my father. In my dreams, of course, they are not sick, or old, but in their prime. My … Continue reading Dreams so real, you think the people who you’re dreaming of aren’t dead
How do you know a song is finished? How do you know it’s good?LELE, DRESDEN, GERMANYI don't know.Nick Cave, The Red Hand Files, No. 266, Dec, 25, 2023 Nick Cave writes the most wonderful responses to questions that he gets on The Red Hand Files. People ask him anything from the ridiculous to the sublime, … Continue reading Excuse me, is there a flute in your throat or are you just a very good singer?
The lyrics of this song, on my album "Howl", are pretty self-explanatory. It's on my album, "Howl", and it's about being introverted, keeping to yourself, and opting out and saying "no" when you don't want to get involved. It's about staying sane in a very crazy, noisy world. It expresses how I often feel. I think … Continue reading Thinking like an introvert: “Present Company Excluded”
This beat-box and rap-style track on my album "Howl", was inspired by the aria “Ah! je ris de me voir” (meaning, “I laugh to see myself”), Marguerite's aria from Charles Gounod’s opera, “Faust “ (1859). This aria is also known as “The Jewel Song”. The opera is loosely based on Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s tragic … Continue reading No amount of bling is going to get you love – “Margarita’s Jewel Song”
"Howl", the title track on my new album, also called "Howl", was released on SoundCloud today. Ben Alexander is the vocalist and Luke Garfield is the mix engineer. The songs on "Howl" are about anger, frustration, confusion, and sadness, and feature instruments that have a harsh, howling sound, for instance, bagpipes. The songs express how … Continue reading “Howl” – new song is out today
I would like to say something about the problem with singing. I had always thought that singing was a fun thing to do, something you did when you were happy, like, you know, in a Disney musical, or when Maria runs over the hills in The Sound of Music. I thought it was something everyone … Continue reading The problem with singing
On my latest album "Divan" is a track about the Ancient Greek goddess of the moon, Selene. Like the moon waxes and wanes, the same melody is repeated in the movements of the sonata, a little different every time. The modern-style sonata is 15 minutes long, and I did not write it to be sung … Continue reading For your listening pleasure: “Selene” – A (modern) Sonata
This year, in stead of sending Christmas cards and all that, I wrote a Christmas song that expresses all my thoughts and wishes this season. I wrote it specifically with our friends and family in mind, but I reckon there are many couples like us who live in one country but have roots in another … Continue reading A Christmas song instead of Christmas cards
There are many clips of dancers on the internet that you can buy or get for free. Often the issue is not the price - it's the dancers, and their performance. If you spend hours and hours, as I do, in iMovie, Final Cut Pro, or Da Vinci, for instance, editing those clips down to … Continue reading A fun trio or a perfect couple – Who do you pick for your dance clips?
On Perfect Wings is the English lyrics version of the songs that I wrote about Psalm 139 for my album Divan. The version with Latin lyrics is Invenies Me Mane Caelo, which is a like a Gregorian chant, at least in terms of the scale used, and the instruments. The English lyric version, produced during … Continue reading English lyrics from Psalm 139 – “On Perfect Wings”
https://vimeo.com/870132148 HD Lyric Video "Invenies Me Mane Caelo" is the latest track from my album "Divan" to be released on SoundCloud. It is unusual in that the lyrics are in Latin. "Invenies Me Mane Caelo", one of the songs all based on ancient texts on my album "Divan", is Latin for "the wings of morning". … Continue reading “Invenies Me Mane Caelo (On the Wings of Morning)” – A hymn in Latin
The lyrics of all the songs on my album "Divan" were inspired by ancient historical documents. This one, "The King's Ballad", is my modern take on the Tudor Era ballad, “Pastime with Good Company” (a.k.a. “The Kynges Balade”), which was written by King Henry VIII of England in about 1513. His lyrics express his royal … Continue reading Updating King Henry VIII’s directive on having a good time – “The King’s Ballad”
In the Artgrid clips that I got, Michael Vestergaard Jensen, a.k.a. "Michael Jacket", dances in a suit, wearing a hat pulled low and rakishly, so all you can see of his face is a snaggle-toothed grin. His handle on Instagram is "Michael Jacket" because his speciality is dancing in the styles made famous by Michael … Continue reading Feet so fast you think the clip’s been speeded up
Released today: "Lady Murasaki (Biwa to Kyoto)" Cōdae · Lady Murasaki (Biwa to Kyoto) Who were the world's first novelists? In Japan, the first person to write a work of fiction in the form of a novel was Lady Murasaki Shikibu, who lived in the 11th century AD/CE and wrote the famous work of Japanese … Continue reading Loneliness and sadness in Ancient Japan – “Lady Murasaki”
The lyrics of all the songs on my album "Divan" were inspired by ancient historical documents. The lyrics for "Havn" date back to 1100 AD/CE. The first line, in Medieval Dutch, is: "Hebban olla vogala nestas?", which means "Do all birds have nests?". The name of the song, "Havn", means "haven" or "harbour" - like … Continue reading A little Medieval love song – “Havn”
"King Unas Lives" is the second track on my album, "Divan", which has songs created from ancient historical documents - in this case, hieroglyphics. King Unas is also known as Ounas, Wenis, and Wenas. He was the ninth and last ruler of the Fifth Dynasty of Egypt during the Old Kingdom, and reigned for 15 … Continue reading King Unas lives – Only in inscriptions
This weekend, I released the first track from my new album, "Divan". The word "divan" means "a collection of poems". I called it this because the ten tracks on the album were inspired by very old - ancient - texts, many of them in the forms of verses or poems, that date from about the … Continue reading A song from the “Poetic Edda” – “The Last Poem of Guthrun”
Donnie Jr. Duncan is one of those dancers whose performance you can analyze by microseconds and still not find one thing wrong. He is smooth, incredibly so. He has muscles in places where most people don't even have places. He leaps and twirls and slides as if gravity does not affect him. And then there … Continue reading He’s not a machine, he’s merely perfect
This post is long overdue, but it took some Sherlock-Holmes-level Internet searching to ascertain the facts about what I want to say. So now, belatedly, I can tell you, factually, what I've found about about the dancers in the video clips that I have bought from Artgrid or got for free from Pexels. If, like … Continue reading Dancing lightly on the edge of time
Timbuktu was added to the album Thermós, after the album was complete. After I thought it was done, I asked myself, what would be the result if I combined something like simple Gregorian chanting in Dorian or Lydian scale, with modern beats? I had pictured in my mind, the driest, hottest, dustiest, sandiest, most monochrome … Continue reading A bit of an experiment – “Timbuktu”
Having just finished the major job of publishing my album "Time Shift", I realized that I had spent a lot of time on trying to get the songs right - what ever "right" means. After a while, the thought occurred to me that it's one problem to get the production and post-production right. It's quite … Continue reading What is worth saying in music?
As a child, my Dad tried his best to teach me to play the piano, and since I was stubborn and lazy, I cheated and taught myself to play by ear. I never did get the hang of reading notation and using proper technique when playing. I can barely pick out a tune on a … Continue reading “Yellow bird, up high in the banana tree…”
Enter the Lion (track 6 on my album Time Shift) started as a snatch of notes I played on the piano. When it was done, I wondered what to call it. Only when the name popped into my head, I realized that what I had been thinking about all along, was a pride of lions … Continue reading When you add the meaning afterwards – “Enter the Lion”
https://vimeo.com/809535987 Skiing, the dutch, beer, bars, and hits Hypnotic, the 7th track on my album, Time Shift, is a song about skiing. When I lived in South Africa, we went skiing in Austria once a year, since that’s what the Dutch do during their Winter holidays. There’s very little snowfall in South Africa - there … Continue reading Was that me being a dork in a bar? Yes. But I was freezing…
I've been reading Seth Godin's Marketing micro-posts for years. Every so often he writes something in very few words that is absolutely true. I've reposted a particularly good one below. I need not say any more. This man knows what he's talking about. When I read it, I thought to myself, well, that's the way … Continue reading Seth Godin explains “The Reality of Chasing Pop”
The word "shag" in the name of this song refers to the dance called the Carolina Shag, which is a relaxed partner dance, often done to "beach music" - whatever that is... I named this song for it, because that's the feeling of the song - it's got a steady beat for dancing to, and … Continue reading A little light music -“Soft Shoe Shag”
