My Spare Keys

Influences

Susumu Yokota, “The Now Forgotten Gods of Rocky Mountain Residing in the Back of the North Wood”

Spacetime Continuum, “Floatilla” (for the bendy bass)

Steve Hackett, “Hands of the Priestess (Part 1)” (not exactly, but when the flute comes in, it’s hard not to make the parallel)

Story

I hadn’t written an instrumental in a surprisingly long time, and I started from an academic spot: what keys have I used the least in this project? There were three I’d only used twice and three I’d only used once. I then made two chord progressions out of them. So it’s a double meaning in the title – it’s a spare-sounding piece played on the keys, and it’s also comprised of the song keys I had to spare.

That’s nearly the entire story here. The piano line was changed around a bit to avoid sounding like the medicine room music from StarTropics, but doing that might have pushed me into Secret of Mana territory. Hard to say. But I like the end product – it’s a nice way to lighten things in concluding the first half.

Some press about it

““My Spare Keys” takes a more neoclassical approach, beginning with a lovely piano melody combined with experimental soundscapes that provide meditative dimension to the composition.” – Skylight.gr

“My Spare Keys is the soundtrack to the hunt around your apartment for that elusive set of spare keys, a steady piano beat, searching strings and wistful flutes, help stop you getting out of control, you search on, music signals you may be in luck.” – Whisperin and Hollerin

Start side 2 with Quality Mirrors