Music by Michael Davis
This page contains music by Michael Davis, sometimes in collaboration
with other people.
I studied music composition at York University in Toronto during the early 1980's. My teachers included James Tenney, David Mott, Phillip Werren and Casey Sokol. Although I haven't made a career out of music, I still compose as a hobby.
The music on this page is free for non-commercial use. Please contact me if you want to use it commercially. Please see the license information at the bottom.
All works are copyright Michael Davis 1980-2011, except for Beach Party which is copyright Egils Bebris and Michael Davis 1984. All rights reserved.
Contact: music@damaru.com
Please choose the Ogg Vorbis format if your player supports it (WinAmp and RealPlayer do, for example.) It sounds much better than MP3 in most cases.
Nancarro's Dream
2010
Computer Generated
This was composed for the 2011
60x60 Project, where they played 60 one-minute-long pieces by 60 composers, back to back, in one hour. I wrote a software program specifically for this project, to be able to generate large numbers of very short notes. Unfortunately they did not use this piece.
Fête
2008
Musique Concrète
How many sounds can you get from a baloon?
Dralaqua
2006
Musique Concrète
This is a piece about the waterness of water. The stream sounds were recorded in Nova Scotia, other sounds were recorded in Toronto.
The Pleasure of Lord Chumly
2005
Dog, Peanut Butter
Lord Chumly was my friends Henry and Bozica's bulldog. We gave him some peanut butter.
Solstice Song 1
2004
String Quartet
The Winter Solstice can bring introspection and exuberance. The movements are named from Ken Wilbur's terms for spiritual progression.
First Movement: Pleromatic
Solstice Song 2
2004
String Quartet
Second Movement: Uboric
Solstice Song 3
2004
String Quartet
Third Movement: Typhonic
Solstice Song 4
2004
String Quartet
Fourth Movement: Centauric
Dathun
2002
Musique Concrète
Dathun is Tibetan for " Month long retreat." I did it, and this is what I felt.
Beach Party
1984
Electoacoustic
This is a piece I did in collaboration with my friend Egils Bebris. On a windy Spring Toronto Saturday morning, we spent the day in the basement of the York University Stacie Science Library where the music department's Electronic Music Studio used to be. Months later, we won the SOCAN Young Composer's prize for this piece.
Somewhere I think I might have been
1983
Electoacoustic
I believe I've had past lifetimes, most more primitive than this. I'm sure I must have spent aat least one in a jungle like this one.
Ritual Equinox Breakfast
1982
Electoacoustic
A sort of Pagen Equinox Celebration. Vocals by Karuna Sato (If anyone knows where she is, please
email me. I owe her a favour.)
Eight Nervous Tracks
1982
Electoacoustic
Eight different people contributed eight different tracks. We put them on the 8-Track tape recorder and each did our own mix. This was mine.
Hydra
1982
Electoacoustic
A Hydra is a snake with eight heads.
Dream Sequence II
1982
Electoacoustic
In dreams, one moves from one situation to another.
Steel Breeze
1981
Woodwind Sextet
For two flutes, two clarinets and two bassoons. The score is
here. This performance was done artifically using Cubase and Kontact VST instruments.
For Ulrike
1981
Piano
Ulrike Shmall was a young German woman who visited York University in 1981 and hung out with me for a while. This was a gift for her.
Funny Voices
1981
Musique Concrète
We had an assignment in class: we had to learn how to talk backwards, then record oursleves talking backwards, just to learn a deeper level of listening. And then we exchanged tapes and had to construct a musical piece using a tape of some other person talking backwards. It was a challenging assignment.
Welcome to Modern Life
1981
Piano
A very early piece - I was 20 and was reading The Wasteland, Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man and Memories, Dreams and Reflections.
Empty Happy Mannequin
1979
Originally piano, recorded in 2010 with a MIDI band
One of my first piano pieces, written before I went to university.
MP3
Last updated: 2017-06-04
These works are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.