Melanie Anne Phillips

I like discord. That is to say, I enjoy composing music in which truly discordant harmonies are included in such a way the, in context, they are completely acceptable. This composition is one of my first experiments in discord, and I think it works pretty well. It's called "Jangle" not only because it is a jangly kind of music but because it is also intended to jangle the nerves.

I like writing themes. I remember recording this one some forty years ago. I was laying down this great melodrama villain theme I'd composed and then I got tired of playing it. In fact, I wanted to change the mood. So, rather than doing another separate recording, I just extemporized a completely contrasting melody to work agains the first part. Never revisted it, but decades later I began to wonder that if the first part was the villain, who did the second part represent? Having recently seen the animated cartoon "Despicable Me" with its not-so-evil villain who ends up being a foster dad, I originally thought it might be the villain's kid. But then I remembered the Simpson's episode in which Homer goes off chasing "dog with a fluffy tail", completely ignoring the fact he's just seen his own double for the first time! Those two animations made it pretty obvious this composition was about "The Villain and His Dog."

An upbeat little ditty, this piece is designed to go on forever by simply connecting the end to the beginning again. I've written quite a few circular songs over the years, but this was the first (and simplest) of the series. There's something comforting about a positive spin that will go on forever, just like movies that finish up the story and then show the characters starting a new identical quest all over again, giving us the sense that the adventure is "Endless".

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This composition struck me as the start of a quest, when the entire journey lies ahead and one begins with eager anticipation of adventures to come. Again, one of my innocent optimistic tunes from the 1970s when I was in my late teens. You know, I always hear full orchestration when I write these things, then just jot down the basic sketch and leave it at that. But try to hear the timpani and the French horn and the string section. If you can, I'll never have to bother multi-tracking it!

I was pretty proud of this song back in the 1970s. It was one of the more adult pieces I wrote during that time. But years later, I listened to it again and realized it was exactly the same chording as "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" by George Harrison. Now, I never intentionally ripped him off, and there's no melody line so it isn't plagerism exactly, and I don't know if my subconscious was mimicing his song or creating a whole new one of my own. But, ol' George himself did the same thing with "Isn't it a Pity" on his "All Things Must Past" album, since it has the exact same chord progression as in the long fading chorus of "Hey Jude." All in all, what the hell....

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Everybody tells you to be yourself. Society proclaims that if you just be yourself, everything will work out. We get fed this crap from the moment we're born, as in the Disney animated movie Aladin in which Robin Williams (as the Gene, disguised as a bee) actually tells the unconfident hero, "Bee yourself!" Why this repetitive brainwashing? Because it is what we want to hear. We want to believe that who or what we are will be celebrated by people everywhere, if we're just honest about ourselves. Now while we all may want to believe that, none of us really do. Perhaps we might at first, but it doesn't take long to rid ourselves of that delusion. By the time we reach kindergarten (if we're lucky enough to retain our innocence of that long) we discover something called "teasing". And another wonderful social tradition called "bullying" follows closely in its wake. Teasing and bullying are hurtful, but they aren't unnatural. ...

I was born in California at the ripe old age of zero. Years later, here I am. The end. Well, it might have been the end, as I have been stuck here in Oregon for the last 3 1/2 years. Oh, I like Oregon all right - it has the gentlest people on earth. Considerate. Non-judgmental. Boring as hell. Here in Salem, the capitol of this great state, I think they add thorazine to the water supply. I always dreamed of living in Oregon. As a child I first became enraptured by the California Gold Rush. So, just before coming to Oregon, I ended up living in Gold Country, about fifteen miles from where gold was first discovered at Sutter's Mill in present day Coloma. That was boring too. Not when I first got there, mind you. In fact, I cried like a little child when Teresa first brought me to the Sutter Mill site. It was like Mecca - ground zero for that explosive Westward expansion that led to the rise of San Francisco and spawned so many tales of wealth, adventure, and villai...

Back in the 1970s, a lot of the music I wrote was extremely naive and optimistic. These days, while I've kept the optimism, I've lost the naiveté, so my compositions are far more complex, though not necessarily better. Innocence is pretty hard to maintain in a hard world, and even more difficult (though not impossible) to recover once it is lost. But this song, Mexican Morning, is just one of those simple little tunes with no pretensions of being art that joyfully ambles along, oblivious to any darker issues since there isn't a cloud in the sky.

Three of the major problems facing a long-duration Mars mission are high-radiation cosmic rays, solar flare particles, and degradation of astronauts' physiology due to low gravity. Here's a solution that solves all three of these with a single approach. First, if the space ship is tethered to a counter-balance and rotated in a large arc, it created centrifugal force with a minimum of material and weight. Second, if a circle of lightweight conductive material is extended just beyond the arc of the rotating ship/counter-balance assembly, it will act as a standard generator as the ship and counter-balance act as positive and negative poles sweeping past the light weight conductive circle. This power can be used to create a magnetic field that would deflect cosmic rays. Third, in chill of space, use of the proper materials in the large circle construction could create a super conductor effect which could multiply the power generated so that it would become strong enough to...

I once saw a cartoon in M.A.D. magazine where a fellow is standing on a dock watching a dollar bill with wings fly away from him as a symbol of his lost wealth. He ties a ball and chain on his leg and jumps into the sea. On the bottom, he lands next to a treasure chest bursting with gold and jewels. The title of the cartoon was "Look Before You Leap". That's the inspiration for this song of mine (see video below). I've never truly been suicidal, but like most everyone, I've known severe depression at times. But, it always passes and life gets worth living again. Still, I began to wonder, what happens if you succomb to the darkness and then change your mind after it is too late? Consider this song a cautionary tale. (I wrote this song back in the early 1970s when I was in my late teens): Here's the same song as I re-recorded it last year: Finally, here's the music track only (no voices) from the re-recording. It's a bit monotonous, b...