I am an enthusiastic but amateur composer.
I have created this simple web site to help me to share (inflict) my musical offerings with my long suffering family, friends and other enthusiasts. Using the menus you will be able to find lists of compositions by me and also those from some of my friends.
Composition groupings
- Piano – piano & organ.
- Chamber – covering a variety of instrument groups – some fairly weird and many including the ‘cello which I play.
- Guitar.
- Orchestra.
- Arrangements.
- Carols – original arrangements of 22 carols for various duets.
- Friends – compositions by my mostly cellistic friends.
Composition Format
- Sheet music.
- Single compositions in pdf form for viewing/ printing using Acrobat Reader (this is a free download from Adobe).
- Compilations of several compositions as single pdf files that are suitable for printing into a book (if you can find a way to bind them!).
- Sound files (mp3).
Most of the mp3 files were made using recordings generated by my computer (these can be a little wooden!). However there is also at least one live recording. More recently I have been getting much better computer generated recordings using Overture 5 which is a great piece of software but sadly buggy and updates seem to have dried up so I can no longer recommend.
Hint: if you wish to hear the mp3 rendition while you view the sheet music, click on the mp3 link first and then click the pdf link.
NOTE: all the music is copyright but you are free to print it for your own personal (non-professional) use.
Budding Luthier
More recently I have started building my own classical and steel string guitars, violins, cellos and violas. There is a link to my new guitars.davidabaster.com site under “Amateur Luthier” which illustrate the build process and my finished instruments.
Hobbies
I have also used this site as an opportunity to share the results of two of my other passions:
- Wood-turning – since I acquired a lathe 25 years ago.
- Jewellery making – following a course on enamelling after which I bought my own kiln and started experimenting with precious metal clay.