The conception for "We Wait For Nightingales" (I'll just call it "Nightingales" from now on) is actually one of the more interesting or strange ones I've had.
After teaching one Tuesday evening nearly a decade ago, I started to hum a melody on my way home. It had a slightly Celtic/folk feel to it and I felt that I had heard it somewhere before. When I got home, I sang it to my wife, Kate. She said she didn't recognise it so I sat at the piano and the opening theme was created quite quickly. I then set about putting chords to the melody and elaborated into other sections.
The melody was good for turning into compound time so it morphs into triplets halfway through. I feel this give the tune that Celtic swing feel. The only problem was knowing how to finish it as it kept building and building. I decided to taper off into a bird trill which gradually fades for a reprise of the opening melody.
I feel that "Nightingales" has one of the more distinct melodies on "Third Perspective" and is easy to hum back. It seems to stick in most people's heads, like a folk tune I guess.
When deciding what pieces I wanted to keep as solo piano and which to add strings or electronica too, this was an easy choice. I could hear soaring string parts in my head and after listening to quite a bit of Einaudi's "In A Time Lapse" album I knew to base this off of a tune called "Burning". I really like how the lower strings ended up in this as I brought them to the front of the mix a bit more and the cello stands out for me. I also played around with faster triplet sections for the violas towards the end which I still can't make my mind up about. They do bring a sense of movement to the music which is what I was after I guess.
I later took away the strings again to re-release it as a solo piano piece on "And Then It Went Dark". My music is always written in mind of being a piano piece first and then embellished with other instruments as I see fit. I think this pieces works well in both cases and I enjoy listening to both versions for that distinct melody.
I have never again come up with a piece by just humming a melody, or at least, not one I'm happy with. This one was a bit of an anomaly so I think that's why it sticks out to me.
I've attached the version with strings to the blog post as I'm following the theme of completing the "Third Perspective" programme notes. Have a listen and let me know what you think