Willis Wall

Consider this a repository for my musical evolution. I have included samples from my college years in the Music introduction, so this collection will begin with my initial forays with initial computer software. However, to consolidate my library, the tail end will include all the music that is scattered over this website, be it individual pieces or music written specifically for video, plus archived music.

So, once upon a time in Altus Oklahoma, I bought my first Mac in 1988 to the tune of over $5,000 (Mac II: 40 MB HD, 1 MB RAM). Not a misprint, we indeed are talking Megabytes. My first music software program was revolutionary (Finale) and cost $1000. Shortly thereafter I upgraded the RAM by adding 4 MB…for $800. A laser printer was over $3,000. A quick search says a dollar in 1988 was worth $2.47 today. Translation, my computer cost $12,350 in today’s dollars. Despite inflation, we are the recipients of decades of falling costs when it comes to electronics and bang for the buck.

With that introduction for perspective, my initial forays into computers and music started with type setting for a college buddy of mine that had established a small business selling sheet music. He would send me the hand written scores and I would produce the master score and individual parts for reproduction, including cover design. At this time MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface, origins, 1981) was in full swing. I purchased “boxes”, hardware instruments that could be controlled via MIDI from the computer. Using a keyboard, I could play in parts to recording software and those parts could be exported to individual instruments on discrete MIDI channels. This helped my buddy tremendously as I could export the typeset scores to the fake instruments, record them on cassette tape, and he could listen to the parts to ensure there were no corrections before reproduction.

This first piece in the anthology is part of this process, but it was a vocal accompaniment and I didn’t have a good way to reproduce the vocals (soprano)…so I decided to sing the part, totally butchering it in my gawdawful falsetto. He told me he almost drove off the road when he slipped the cassette into his player in the car driving back from the post office, he was laughing so hard. So here it is, “Let The Bright Seraphim”! All these pieces from the late 80’s and early 90’s were salvaged from a cassette tape and recorded into my computer, which accounts for the somewhat sketchy quality.

The remainder of these pieces were written from the late 80’s to early 90’s, prior to the integration of writing and recording on a single platform. Unlike in college, where I would sit at a piano and flesh out parts, this was the first time I could essentially “hear” what I was writing via the software and hardware instrument boxes. Despite having a formal music background, I was never able to write a score based on theory alone. I have to hear what I’m putting down and adjust until it sounds right to me, basically composing by ear alone. Finally I was able to take elements of funk, classical and jazz and start to find my voice. Totally revolutionary!

"Piece of Crap Plane" was a project done before retirement from the Air Force Reserves in anticipation of the other retirement: the venerable C-141 Starlifter. Video was shot in 1999-2000 at McChord AFB, Christchurch NZ and McMurdo Antarctica. Meant to capture a slice of life at the 313th Airlift Squadron, it features many of the squadron's members at that point of time. This also happens to be my very first project, and proved quite difficult given the equipment and video/music editing capabilities at that time. All proceeds from sale of the video went to an Air Force charity. Distributed in VCR format, in 2004 I managed to salvage a file of the video and it has resided online since. The C-141 was replaced by the C-17, so these scenes from 22 years ago are vintage in themselves.

Technology slowly placed my external instrument boxes and hardware processing units in the dust bin, eventually shrinking and consolidating everything to a laptop and one digital interface. All my instrument libraries now reside on a hard drive, and they have come a long way in realism and playability since those clunky boxes. Some of the pieces I did in the early to late 2000’s utilized symphonic instrumentation. “Battle” was written for a Kendo DVD project. ”Summer on Rainier” and “Tahoma” were also written for video. Lastly, “Tyee Quintet” was written for my daughter’s middle school string ensemble (she played upright bass).

Seattle guitarist Dan McInerney and I worked together on some projects, including the track to the short film “UFO” which played at the Banff Mountain Film Festival and was incuded on Banff’s world tour. Dan is meticulous in his craftsmanship so not only did he provide tasty playing, he also helped mix and dove into the details until he was satisfied, making for a better product than if I had done all this solo.

May Palmer, the “Queen of Ivory Soul”, provided the vocals to “Gimme a Latte”, also including the fine guitar work and mixing by Dan.

I’ve always hated singing, and for good reason…I’m terrible, but at least I know it. Thankfully Darrell Dodge, a high school and college band mate, has taken the time to lay down vocal tracks for my various forays into song writing.

To drive the point home, and to publicly embarrass myself, behold the velvety tones of the untalented.

Sometimes background music is needed to stay…in the background. Although retired from the Gossamer Gear site, as a former trail ambassador I produced this “how to care for” video which resided on their website for years. I took the simple theme from GG’s site at the time and expanded it to fit the video behind the voice over (2011). I had fun producing this video as I had free rein. In fact, just a few years ago someone on the Wonderland heard my voice and asked me if I did the video…the “not too shoddy!” quote stuck with them I guess. Small world.

Continuing with Darrell Dodge and now joining with Dan McInerney…”Enumclaw Lover” pertains to certain incidents that took place in the town of Enumclaw back in 2005; look it up if you are curious. The other song, “Never be so Lucky”, was written with no particular use in mind, so just for the hey of it. Originally I had used a professional service for the vocals, but was dissatisfied with the result. Darrell took a crack at it and did a standup job (I did use some background vocals from the service in the end of the piece).

The following are various instrumentals, some on a lark and others for various video projects. “Tipsy Waltz” was used as an intro to a Boston Radio station DJ’s show.

I’ve had occasions to write shorts for Podcasts and one commercial…

Not mine, but my kids were involved in music to various degrees (son, piano - daughter, piano and bass) with my daughter playing in the Newport HS Jazz1 ensemble for 2 years (bass). This last recording is a sampling of that jazz band playing at the Starbucks “Hot Java, Cool Jazz” series at the Paramount in Seattle (2011). The show must go on!

The remainder of this collection consolidates most of the music that can be found elsewhere on this site, be it in the Audio Samples section, Grand Tour series or Film Festival page. But first, from a rare recording from my college years, I’m going to include the music from my comic opera “‘Cause he can Tooti”…written over months and performed on one night in my last semester. I spent an entire winter break sitting at a table and hand writing individual parts for a 14 piece pit orchestra and 7 singers. I wrote all the staging. The players volunteered from their busy schedules to participate. Someone “borrowed” stage lights from the main auditorium and did all the lighting. Rehearsals were few. Only a few of the singers could actually sing, with some characters chosen mostly because they could do a good imitation of certain faculty members. Not only did I make fun of faculty, but the script was in places very sexist and sometimes belittling. Three of the acts were sans music. A video made of the performance did not survive the years but the audio did. I was the conductor, and the music department was kind enough to give me an auditorium for the performance. I asked for a 50 cent donation with proceeds going to the Music Education National Conference scholarship committee. This was essentially a somewhat autobiographical farce about being a trumpet music major at the University of Ordino. Most of the libretto utilized arrangements of trumpet literature, borrowing heavily from “Carnival of Venice”.

And now a consolidation of music that can be found on this site, along with pieces caressed out of the archives not featured above.