Lawrence Ball music profile picture

Lawrence Ball music

music transcending physical sound

About Me

ABOUT MY MUSIC: ............................................................ ............................................. .. I am a composer with a difference ....... ....... ....... My projects vary from contributions to tracks on the new Who album with Pete Townshend (the first track "Fragments" is actually built out of a piece of mine) to meditative and healing piano improvisations, in which I also love to work with Indian raga scales, as well as western harmonies. ....... ....... ....... ......... I have written for orchestra, choir, film and dance and have run 7 Planet Tree Music Festivals in London since 1996. ....... ....... ....... .......see http://www.planettree.org and http://www.lawrenceball.org ....... ....... ....... .......I have a double album which was released April 23rd on iTunes which is part of Pete Townshend's Method Music project. It is "Method Music - Imaginary Sitters, Imaginary Galaxies". This is a foretaste of the Method music...... its mathematical, whacky, and, by turns, sometimes very vigorous or industrious, sometimes very deep-space invoking, cosmic. ....... ....... ....... .......I designed the software for the Method Music project, which is a collaboration with software engineer Dave Snowdon. It produces a tailor made musical portrait for any individual over the web, based on images and sounds significant to the "sitter". It went live on May 1st and it is free to do 3 portraits for now, we are currently negotiating an exciting partnership, details to come.......... ....... ....... ....... see http://www.lifehouse-method.com ******* *******I have performed in concert in many countries, and collaborated with musicians, poets, dancers, healers, and visual artists in multi-media formats. I have composed so far 144 scores, see Lawrence Ball scorelist , including 2 string quartets, and recorded over 2000 piano improvisations. ....... ....... ....... ....... See also my entry in wikipedia. ............................................................ ............................................................ ........... URGENT NEED FOR ECOLOGICAL ACTION: I am committed to spiritual and ecological aims as well as high artistic ones. ....... ....... ....... ....... I would like to see legislation to make all advertising carry 20% promotion of reducing the planet's carbon emissions, as I feel the world must move swiftly towards achieving that. Do we really feel if we can't halt climate change that worries over the advertising industry have any foundation given the chaos that might ensue? If we are to avoid complete disaster then we should harness advertising, our most effective way to promote behaviour deliberately, in the service of a massive increase in awareness of what needs to be done by all of us. But its also humanity's lack of connection with mother earth and mother nature. The carbon issue is only a solitary if major symptom. Do comment if you feel to on this! ............................................................ ............................................................ ...........

My Interests

Music:

Member Since: 3/1/2007
Band Website: lawrenceball.org
Band Members: STOP PRESS: FREE ALBUM "43 SHORT PIANO PIECES" is available at Lawrence Ball recordings . To download you can save the files if you ctrl-click (on macintosh, right click on windows) on the word "download" and select the option to save the link target to file. My download SHOP is live at Lawrence Ball e-shop - also samples of a lot of the tracks - GO TO THE NOTES FOR EACH TRACK AND LOOK FOR THE PLAYBACK TRIANGLE. There are 6 further single albums and 1 double album up so far. I hope to also include collaborative albums - I have a lot of work recorded over the last 36 years, none of which has been released other than by my own mail order system, and much not at all. Tracks available separately rather than as album purchases. YOU CAN DEFINITELY USE CREDIT CARDS ALTHOUGH IT IS HANDLED VIA PAYPAL
Influences: COMPOSERS WHO INSPIRED MY WORK ++++++++++++++++++++++++ ++++++++++++++++++++++++++ ++++++++++++++++++++++++++Erik Satie (1861-1925) the eccentric (so they say) French composer inspired me with the humanity, simplicity and humour of his music. If I am the reincarnation of a composer, it is most likely of him!! He became much more appreciated 40 years after his death. Hopefully this website might improve on that in my case, but - who knows?++++++++++++ +++++++++++++ +++++++++++++++++ ++++++++Other composers who have influenced my work are my friend Terry Riley (the Californian composer who is a great pioneer in bringing the spirit and expression of the East and Middle East together with jazz and classical contemporary music), and....... Alan Hovhaness (1911-2000) who brought the Eastern and ancient worlds of music into orchestral and chamber music. For me, these 3 composers are the great spirits and innovators of 20th century music. It is due to their influence that I began to compose music in earnest back in the 70s.%%%%%%%%%%%%% %%%%%%%%%%%%%% %%%%%%%%%%%%% %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%Arvo Part inspired me with purity of sound, and his adherence to small and simple rules (as he calls them) that give a uniquely coherent unity of form to his music. His music has a restraint and an invitation towards detachment in listening that can be a wonderfully freeing, meditative feeling.LaMonte Young's sound world is spiritual in a different way. His often very long pieces reflect stasis, expressions with almost no contrast, bringing the listener to a centre, to a heaven-perspective. LaMonte is known as a founder of minimalism in music and uses music as a kind of lens or mirror of perception. To me it unfolds worlds of feeling that can emerge when one is not distracted by change and complexity, as is usually the case with music today.
Sounds Like: My music wants to be generous hearted, fascinating in its forms, vibrant in its feeling, and is very effective at realigning with one's self well below the surface. It varies from deeply reflective to energetic and dynamic to cerebrally bristling. Like Satie I feel to be honest and straightforward, a quality I often find lacking in mere entertainment. But I'm not a seriously serious composer. I am usually wild and humorous. My music gets lumped together with so-called minimalism, meditational music and the new tonal music, but honestly, I was around before those terms were coined. There is a freshness and a directness that has existed since the 60s particularly that is connected strongly to my musical roots. Calling it minimalism, meditational music and new tonal music in some ways misses the bigger picture of the huge change in the energy field of our culture generally. Consciousness is exploding and expanding and the older vessels are insufficient.
Record Label: unsigned
Type of Label: None

My Blog

a far greater reduction in carbon emissions

This is an idea I have to massively help everyone to change their habits and awareness to effect a far greater reduction in carbon emissions than we are seeing now. Lets be honest - we really need to ...
Posted by Lawrence Ball music on Sun, 05 Aug 2007 03:10:00 PST

The Universe As Infinite Piano

dedicated to Ron Wildego and Cecil Collins"Why the Big Bang (ie how did it happen or originate)" is to me the same question as "What is music" and both have an answer that comes from communion with an...
Posted by Lawrence Ball music on Sun, 05 Aug 2007 03:04:00 PST