The Blue Hour.

The Blue Hour   Please click on the highlighted the blue hour to your left to hear the original demo of the composition.....

The original tune started with the main melody then with a bit of handiness on the faders I was able to add synths and drums and a relatively simple motif that runs throughout the track. It’s this motif that’s used for the intro for the live version at Base studios Stourbridge and its origins belong to me working out a counterpart to a simple strum and hum song that I used to perform in a band in the mid 90’s.

This counterpart was created in a kitchen in Greece! Due to me moving around the place a lot around the time and for a few years ahead, I had a tendency to dismantle my strat and stow it a bergan (large army style rucksack) and the put it back together at any said destination. This occasion it was the Isle of Ajeana just of the Greek mainland. On hot afternoons I would take to playing in the kitchen as it was the coolest place to be . The motif is just an A major arpeggio but split into two and proved very effective when the band I was in performed the song this was attributed too.

The main melody alas comes from sadder times. A good part of the last decade was spent as a self employed bricklayer, as by now there was a family to support there was a need to take what building work was around and along as it paid relatively well,you couldn’t be too choosy what you did and who you worked with. On this occasion, of the creation of the main melody for the blue hour, I found myself in the unfortunate position of being in a gang of murderers(two had done life sentences for murder, but being the UK that equates to about twelve years) and  druggies. with these type of people and a lifetime of coming across them, I have found them to have no remorse, stoic in their ignorance, unfair and unforgiving. The tranquility of a good home and beautiful family in these circumstances cannot be understated. My other release was in music and playing guitar, though playing had become a second nature long before this time, When I’m sad theres a release in playing happier music and when theres happiness, happier music thrives. Thats why there is an upbeat feel to the main melody, and though I can play it to a good standard people will rarely hear me play the blues.

The composition original title was changed from twilight(l’heure bleue  to just the blue hour. L’heure bleue is French for the blue hour and is a term that was used by the impressionist painters to describe the twilight times of dawn and dusk.