Morning Tide was written in the Autumn of 2018. I know some composers come up with tunes whilst going through an experience but I tend to find that I will sit down and write something after an event which inspires me. This was written after going for a walk with my wife, Kate, my daughters ,Grace and Amber, and my In-laws, Bev and Rob along Brightlingsea promenade.
Brightlingsea is the town where I went to high school and it's where Kate's family live. It's a seaside town which looks out to the North sea off the East Anglian coast of England. It has a mainly pebbly beach which although is more uncomfortable to walk on, I think has more character!
It was a cold, misty and overcast day and the tide was coming in so I don't really know why I felt so inclined to sit at the piano when we got home, but I remember feeling very thankful for what I had that day so from this came Morning Tide. A year or so earlier I had written a piece called Evening Tide, and I had got it in my head that I wanted an opening to the day. I think it was born from a need to write it but wanting to have felt something towards it's existence!
I tend to find that during the colder months I write more melancholy music. However, I generally write sad music which tends to be more open and natural rather then withdrawn. Over the years I have taken a lot of inspiration from the minimalist composer Ludovico Einaudi and this piece feels very Einaudiesque (not a word!). Although the music features a simple melody, it is much more pattern based. I find that when I'm writing about nature I use patterns more then rhythm and intricate melody as I find it soothing. I like to see where I can build from and where the music goes.
Chord progression wise this is much more classical pop. It's not breaking any boundaries or pushing too hard. I wanted the music to build, fall away, swell and disappear like the tides at the seaside. I think I achieved the balance between sad and uplifting which can be hard to nail.
I think the biggest compliment I can pay this piece is that after 4 years I still enjoy playing and listening back to it without getting bored of it! Trust me, that's a bit of a rarity as I tend to have my latest 10 or so pieces floating round my head at any one time. And of all the pieces on the upcoming album I must have listened to this one at least double the amount of any of the others as it was always going to be the first single. This was my guinea pig to try out many different things so I needed to have something I could be happy to go over a lot!
I try to write all my music with the idea of them all being piano solos first and then I can experiment with other instruments later. This piece works fine as a piano solo due to the range of the bass, but although it wasn't my first attempt at writing for strings, it was the one which just clicked. After listening back to the whole thing with strings I really felt a lot of pride at how it came out. I came to realise quickly that I fluked how this came out quite spectacularly as every other piece I added strings too had so many more issues, and I even now I can admit, some still are not quite how they sound in my head. This is. I will be releasing this as a piano solo at some point as well and I'd love to know which people prefer.
Friends and family often tell me which of my tunes they like the best. It's never Morning Tide. I can understand why. But this one means so much to me as it is the one that kick started it all again and I am forever thankful to it for that reason. This had the longest recording time as I needed to learn so much about how to write, record, edit, master and promote. I recorded it back in May 2021 and it took a year to release.
And I'm still playing it now!
Thanks for reading and sharing in my nostalgia. Speak soon and have a great day