Geoff Duncan

This track had an odd genesis: the first version evolved after hearing a strange drum'n'bass track a birthday party back in 2002; at the time, I'd been approached about loops for a video game idea, and I pitched "a combination of, well, big beat, brass, and acid burbles. You know, they go naturally together!" So I did a 90 second demo, the video game project lost funding, and the project mostly sat idle until the director of an independent movie somehow got that 90-second demo from the video game people, and asked if I could expand that out "with some guitars and maybe some dialog clips, maybe for the end credits" on his movie about two retired cops. We'll see if that goes anywhere!

Copyright © 2004 Geoff Duncan, all rights reserved.

Just a bit of steel-string neo-flamenco trip-hop ambient secret-agent electronica jazz-like dance-track hillbilly hurdy-gurdy marching music. Garageband.com Instrumental Rock Track of the Day for 25-Apr-2005.

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Creative Commons Music Sharing License.

Copyright © 2003 Geoff Duncan.

Only After the Sky was going to be a bit of ambient electronica until an electric piano found its way inside. The brighter, more-bluesy guitar belonged to my brother; I think it was the first or second electric guitar I'd ever touched. Except for the head and the scritchy guitar off to one side, all the guitar parts were off-the-cuff, one-take things. Only After the Sky consistently placed on MP3.com's jazz fusion charts, peaking (a couple times) at #53 worldwide. It was selected as garageband.com's Jazz "Track of the Day" for 11-Jan-2004.

This music free to share under a
Creative Commons Music Sharing License.

Copyright © 2001 Geoff Duncan.

A rough demo mix of a piece which emerged from experiments with tone manipulation, transformation, and audio editing. Despite what your ears may tell you, this track uses no synthesizers or other instruments. It's all, uh, "me."

Copyright © 2006 Geoff Duncan, all rights reserved.

Simple little solo guitar bit, recorded in one take with no post-recording editing or touch-ups.

For the technically curious, this track is played "touch style," which means tapping strings behind appropriate frets using either hand, rather than fretting with one hand and strumming, plucking, or picking with the other. The technique was pioneered by Jimmy Webster, Dave Bunker, and Emmett Chapman; guitarist Stanley Jordan is probably its best-known exponent in jazz. Several instruments have been developed specifically for touch style playing; however, this track was performed on a more-or-less everyday electric guitar.

Copyright © 2004 Geoff Duncan, all rights reserved.

Stephen Foster's "Hard Times Come Again No More" has never been one of my favorite traditional tunes: people tend to perform it all mournful, plaintive, and slow. Which is fine. But it's been done a lot, and, dang... slow tunes are hard.

This version was arranged just for fun and recorded, warts and all, during parts of two afternoons as an off-the-cuff entry to the RMMGA Arranging Project: Hard Times. The basic idea is they decide on a public domain tune and invite folks to submit a recording; kind of a community-building thing. Many of the other entries are stellar and highly recommended: check 'em out!

Oh, and goes with out saying: Me? Not a singer. Don't even play one on TV.

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Creative Commons Music Sharing License.

Recording copyright © 2004 Geoff Duncan. "Hard Times Come Again No More" written by Stephen Foster, 1855, now in the public domain.

Parts of AirBarrel were originally composed for an undersea documentary video; when the rights reverted back to me, I expanded it out a bit. Undersea submersibles have come a long way in the past 200 years, oceanography has advanced, and we've seen film of black smokers, nearly alien creatures, and wrecks like the Titanic. But fundamentally, these folks are still lowering themselves into one of the most treacherous environments on earth inside what amounts to a barrel of air. Sometimes, I think it must be like trying to cross Antarctica armed with only a magnifying glass.... and yet I'd try it in a heartbeat. Contrary to my natural tendencies, all instrumentation on this track is synthetic. No guitars, electric or otherwise, were played during the production of this tune.

Copyright © 2002 Geoff Duncan, all rights reserved.

Instrumental rock track written and (mostly) recorded in an afternoon in response to a producer asking something like: "Send me your guitar hero track! You know, something fast with rip-snort riffs!" This was my somewhat tongue-in-cheek response with big riffs, power chord posturing, fast flurries of notes, and plenty of volume. Oh, and no two-handed tapping or synthesizers. If the title doesn't make sense, BabelFish might help. Pelo Grandé did pretty well on MP3.com, occasionally breaking into the top 100 instrumental rock tracks worldwide.

This music free to share under a
Creative Commons Music Sharing License.

A simple acoustic guitar number written in memory of Ted, who made it to his 25th birthday. Ted is a candidate for the best cat ever. Recorded live.

This track appeared in the 2003 RMMGA CD Volume III compilation.

Copyright © 2002 Geoff Duncan, all rights reserved.

Leggato was initially written as an exercise while I was laid up with pneumonia one winter, exploring bits of the banjo-roll fingerpicking technique so ably executed by the English guitarist Adrian Legg. Eventually the exercise developed into a complete piece, but a year later I realized the harmony of a portion of it quotes fairly directly from the Adrian Legg tune Cradle Songs. When a television production company expressed interest in licensing the piece for a syndicated genre series, Adrian was generous enough to consider the piece a "co-write" on which we share copyright. This particular recording was made live in a chapel (that's real reverb!) during a level check for an unrelated recording session.

Copyright © 2001 Geoff Duncan/Adrian Legg, all rights reserved.

I was hired to do six loopable bits for a video game prototype; when you're asked for six things, it's inevitable you'll make a seventh or eighth for which you'll never be paid. I didn't turn in this track because it had too much guitar for the tastes of the clients. They'd wanted house/rave synths and sorta a 70's retro feel, but they were thinking more MiniMoogs and phasers than Strats, fuzzboxes, wah pedals, and hammered dulcimers. (Fuga is Latin for "flight" or "escape.")

Copyright © 2001 Geoff Duncan, all rights reserved.

Slow, simple guitar number. I stumbled across a tone which supported the piece nicely during an audition for a film job. The guitar part is one take, although doing all the rubato with the delay was a pain, so it's not the first take. The secret to the sound is an old (noisy!) Eventide Harmonizer tracking the guitar part one fourth lower in pitch - it expands the voicings and harmonies.

Copyright © 2001 Geoff Duncan, all rights reserved.