Ryan

After all the years and all the regrets you had, the same thing just happens again.

Sort of a special piece to me. I wrote it during the quiet after the storm which was a very sudden onset of severe mental health issues and hospitalization last year. I was nowhere near ‘better’, in fact many times I went back to square one and was rehospitalized. I was doing nothing at the time and the thought of surviving another day felt as impossible as an ant scaling Mount Everest, but I did.

I wrote this piece a while ago, and somehow managed to finish it during a very bad mental episode.

Largely inspired by Jeremy Soule (The Elder Scrolls titles), I called it equivocal because the strings have a very ambigious sound, in regards to what they are literally playing. I love Soule’s work for this reason, it creates a very atmospheric feeling and enhances any landscape type of scene.

String quartet I composed. Heavily influenced by Ravel and Debussy. I love the expressability of impressionist music, along with the unorthodox techniques and harmonies.

The piece is largely, as written, in C lydian. But there are lots of modal changes in general.

Short piece I wrote after rewatching a student film of the same name. Sisyphus was a King of (modern day) Corinth in Greek mythology. For deceitfulness and trickery, he was condemned by Zeus to carry a boulder up a mountain only for it to fall back down to the bottom and then having to repeat the process over and over for all eternity.

There was some sort of sickening irony in his punishment that was reserved particularly for him; that being someone so intelligent was made to repeat a seemingly mundane and simple task forever, with no resolution.

Musically, I tried to make the piece cyclic and repetitive, to interpret the story somewhat literally. A seemingly melodic progression that starts off low and horrible sounding, hopeful and rising (like Sisyphus and the boulder), seeming to resolve but only to repeat the first chord again with no real resolution, because for Sisyphus there was no resolution.

There’s also some diminished chordal work whilst the melody keeps repeating, totally out of key in respect to one and other to symbolize the seemingly insane task set before him. The coda is then just like the main section of the piece with harmony in thirds, giving an almost pleasant sound along with an attitude of acceptance. It’s not like he has a choice anyway.

Something I wrote that a lot of people liked, not sure why.

So, I had an old tumblr and deleted it years ago but I kinda missed the aesthetic of it, along with the ability to do pretty much whatever with it.

Anyway.. name’s Ryan and i’ve lived in Sydney, Australia like.. my entire life. Studied music after drearily inching my way through high school and now.. I’m playing guitar and doing some gigs here and there around town and writing a lot of orchestral and electronic based music that I upload to SoundCloud. I’ll share some stuff here.. maybe someone will see it and maybe like it lol.

As for personal stuff.. Well, I pretty much had the worst year of my life last year in terms of mental health, ending up with a bipolar and panic disorder diagnosis and lots and lots of medication. Been slowly getting better but it’s like climbing a mountain some days, so many ups and downs, one step forward and two backwards, etc.. but getting through it all with a 100% success rate so far.

On a more positive note, I’ve been a history buff and passionate about it my whole life, along with the arts in general. Been thinking of studying history at uni this year.. See how the old brain is doing then. Heavily into modern history and politics in general, although i’m not really a wanker or outspoken.. only occassionally haha. But nah, I like to discuss things back and forth and hear other people’s opinions, can always learn from everyone.