Owing to my age, I have a sincere love for the simple MIDI music of the late 90s/early 00, particularly the combination of oboe, english horn, clarinet, and bassoon in MIDI renderings of polyphonic music that I spent far too much time listening to in files from classical MIDI sites like kunstderfuge.com. The charm is not really nostalgic, but perhaps more in understanding its imperfections and the clear inability to emulate real instruments. We can accept it for what it is instead of trying to look for it to replace something else, and thus we can enjoy it more for its unique qualities as an expression of sound. Unlike a VST, which attempts to replicate something real in an unreal manner, MIDI represents something unreal as if it were real: pure music in the sense that it expresses only the essentials... reverb, chorus, delay, etc. There is very little conceit in its pure form, it is nothing but the raw musical parameters interpreted at the most basic level. What you get from MIDI is what you have; for, as in an open score in interpretation, your tools in playback are what you possess, be it soundcards or external sound modules, and the result of the music is how your choose to interpret it according to your means. Unlike recorded music, the act of MIDI playback is a creative decision: one must make a choice how to best express what one has been offered.

I felt that with the rise in popularity of MIDI in the last decade—much of it perhaps thanks to the rise in interest of "dungeonsynth," among other things—I would dredge up some of my old and miscellaneous work, as it might find a curious ear or two. So, here we have a mix of roland-ish reeds, organ, and e-piano with very little mixing or modification other than a slight hint of reverb. Only the essentials, pure music as sound, without me trying to make it something other than what it is at its core, and the imperfections naturally reflect the amateurish freedom born from MIDI in the ability to express oneself freely.

This collection is a mix of old "game music," demos, tests, studies, etc., all either prior to my current musical interests, or coinciding with some of my other theoretical pursuits. I simply like these pieces, without any aesthetic or philosophical consideration, and I think it would be a shame to sit on them forever if someone else might enjoy them as well. That being said, I would never consider them part of, or even relevant to, my musical practice as it is now. This music is MIDI music, and the intent lies within the choice of medium. If I compose a piece of music for performance, I never create a MIDI or virtual rendering, because that is not the purpose of the score; likewise, here I never expect this music to exist in any other form, acoustic or otherwise, because it is tied to this essence, this MIDIness, via the initial compositional decisions.

Complete liner notes available at:
vocesnaturalis.com/SPIT/marginalia