A Late Beginner's Music
Music by Rod Anderson
(in order by instrumental type)

Location (parent | this page): RodMer Arts Home Page | Rod's Music by Type

Hi. I'm Rod Anderson, a late beginner at musical composition. Apart from a few ragtime pieces, composed as sort of comic relief from a high-pressure professional job back in the 1970s, my main compositional work began in 1994, after I purchased a synthesizer and discovered that MIDI made it possible to hear one's mistakes right away -- and hopefully learn from them and make corrections. Professional musicians often look down on MIDI because, of course, it isn't as good as a live performance -- but it will give you an idea -- and, for me, it's been a great learning tool!

If you've already read the info immediately below on site organization and music formats, you can click --> to be taken immediately to the listing of compositions.

Organization of this site

What you will find below is a list of most of my compositions (a few are still missing) showing their year(s) of composition and their length. Clicking on any composition name will take you to a page with MP3 and MIDI files (explained below) to which you can listen -- together with explanatory program notes and, in most cases, downloadable scores.

Further explanations can be found in the navigation line links at the very top and very bottom of this page as follows:

And finally, there are other parts of this 'RodMer' website as well -- dealing with writing by my wife Merike and by me and with painting and sculpture by Merike.

Music Formats

While many (though not all) of these compositions have been performed at one time or another, only nine live performances to date have been recorded (seven actual live performances and two live-playings into my synth -- the last two at least capturing the timing (if not completely the sound) of a live performance). For the others, what you hear on this website are 'computer performances' of MIDI files (the computer playing the score). These come in two flavours:

• embedded MIDI files (fast, but not very good) which your web browser can normally 'play' automatically
• MP3 files (better, but slower to download) which I have prepared.

Yes, it's true that both of these are based ultimately on MIDI files (that is, the notes on the score rather than the interpretation of a live performer). Why is one better than another? Because with the MP3 files I have prepared them from carefully selected and carefully balanced music patches from three synthesizer modules. The MP3 file will sound the same as if you listened here in SwallowHill to my computer drawing on these three synthesizers to produce the sound. The embedded MIDI files, in contrast, are performed by necessarily simplified software on your computer. Here I am at the mercy of what particular software you use. Sometimes people have told me: 'Your flute sounded a little tinny'. Well I'm sorry, but it wasn't my flute; it was their flute -- their software's rendition of a flute sound. So be prepared for the embedded 'MIDI files' to sound not nearly as good as the slower-to-download 'MP3 files'.

Because the complete MIDI files take longer to download, I have provided as well several short MP3 excerpts for each piece -- so you can tell from listening to these short excerpts, perhaps, whether you want to bother downloading the complete MP3 file or not.

While I have protested perhaps too much about the limitations of the embedded MIDI files, they will at least give you a quick idea of a given composition. They are better for solo pieces (such as the piano solos) than for large ensemble pieces (where the balancing of parts that worked on my software may not work as well on yours).

More info on all these formatting issues can be found on the About page.

Compositions not yet documented in the above list