Reward Music

Just a spare-of-the-moment live jam. I put a basic Em/D progression into the Boss RC-5 Loop Station and just went for it. The guitar is a Fender American Professional II Strat. The amp is a Soldano SLO30. I also used the...

Blizzard From Within is a 21 minute free improvisation in a new style I am exploring which I call Ambient Expressionism.  I seek to bring together both calm large scale moods with dynamic twists of emotions. The piece...

Solo album featuring the electric bass in an unaccompanied format. credits released June 1, 2016 Recorded 3/17/16 at Overneath Creative Collective, Kalamazoo MI
Recorded/Mixed by Gordon Van Gent
Mastered by Garrett...

These early (1990) pieces were composed on my EPS Ensoniq sampling keyboard, using only the sounds of Sprite pop cans jangling together, a small drum and a small tubular bell.  I used a small 4-track cassette tape recorder to...

All the sounds you hear are from various pieces of frozen things around the farm, enduring a 30 below winter....  For notes about this set of pieces, click here.               ...

The Night Ocean is the Finale to my premiere album, 43.  It's a calm summary of my accomplishment of over 100 minutes of improvised music.   The name comes from a poem by Rumi in which he describes the feeling of floating in...

This is the version of Living With My Donkeys with me playing the horn part on a synthesized horn (ie, playing a fake French horn on a keyboard--yeuch!) since I no longer have my horn.  BUT, it will give you an idea of how...

This recently received the International Alliance of Women in Music Honorable Mention for the Pauline Oliveros New Genre Prize.  This is the Stand-Alone Version.  Click here for the Donkey Bray part for the Horn Version. You...

Nook the Magnificent Sheep was a 4-hour old bum lamb when he went to live with Savanah Salisbury, a young 4-H student.  For the first 6 months of his life, he lived in town, and became the darling of the neighborhood, going...

First I'll tell you about Janelle Pepper Chew (long), then I'll explain how I wrote these little pieces (short). I worked with Pepper in 1990-91 at Central Wyoming College.  She was Director of the TRIO Student Support...

All the sounds you hear are from recordings I made from my farm.  To see how I did that, plus see some fantastic pictures of my dear animals, click here....

My sister, pictured here with rhubarb from her garden, tapped out a couple sounds on those rhubarb flower stalks for me.  All the sounds you hear in "The Rhubarb Run" are from that initial tapping (which you can hear in the...

All of the sounds you here are from a bird call I recorded one evening from my window.  I never heard it after that one time.  For program notes and then technical details, please click here....

All the sounds you hear are from a tiny cymbal I have.  For a description of how I wrote these pieces, please click here....

I was reading an article about Arnold Lobel and his Toad and Frog books from The New Yorker by Colin Stokes when, strangely at the same time, my friend Mark sent me some sounds of frogs he had heard on a walk in his Iowa...

This is a collection of "stubborn songs" and "old friends." Those ideas that you work on but never quite get into that groove, or it evolves into something you don’t like. So you put it down, and work on it another day. And...

All the sounds you hear are from recordings I made of varioius toy cymbals and bells, with just the attacks in most cases.  Thinking my pieces were beginning to sound all the same, I decided to do a piece of just rhythms.  I...

My friend Mark sent me some great sounds of trees rubbing against each other.  All the sounds you hear are created from what he sent me.  For more on how I wrote these, click here....

My nephew Stryde loves drifter cars.  For a treat, I created a series of songs based on noises of drifter cars.  For more on how I created the pieces, please click here.  ...

All of the sounds  you hear are from my banging away on various irrigation pipes--mostly out of irrigation frustration!  Click here for more on how I did that, in addition to seeing some pictures of my little goat farm.  ...

These three little pieces were written back in 1990 on my Ensoniq sampling keyboard with it's tiny 3 x 6 cm screen for the onboard recording sequencer.  (In other words--this was before my computer, Cubase, sound effect...

All the sounds you hear are from a meadowlark I recorded.  For more information on how I did that, click here....

All the sounds you hear are from a meadowlark call I recorded.  For more information on how I did that, click here....

Small Bites is a collection of little experimental bits which I'm hoarding for use in longer pieces.   For my notes on how and why I wrote this strange little Pretzel Focaccia, click here....

My greatest fear when I’m packing in wilderness areas is encountering a mountain lion.  I know how to avoid lightning, and am good at hanging my food to avoid bear encounters.  I don’t travel in highly populated grizzly...