Spyglass
Life In Balance
AI Gen Process/Software: Human, ChatGPT, Producer.ai – DAW: Audacity 3.7.7, OS: Linux (Ubuntu 25.10)
Free Downloads
MP3 – Spyglass: Full Audio Album (1:49:06) 249.7 MB
MP4 – Spyglass: Full Music Video Album (1:49:06) 3.74 GB
Complete - ALL Album/Individual Tracks’ Video/Audio Files & Playlists (spyglass.zip) – 7.02 GB
This really started in the mid-1980s when I got recklessly, wildly addicted to Philip Glass. Mishima was my gateway drug, but when I was just flat-lined by Koyaanisqatsi, I knew I had a serious problem, and also found myself at a philosophical crossroads regarding the nature of balance. Glass is so much more than music.
He rewires the brain.
A couple years later one of my friends asked me to compose something for him. He is a fashion designer. Back then he’d slap together runway shows with the backdrop of his Chicagoland limestone home serving as eye candy for the eye candy, and staging area for the models. No, I was not allowed backstage at any shows, but I was tasked with running sound out front. This show was important, so he wanted a custom, dramatic piece. I delivered my poor man’s take on Glass, employing a borrowed keyboard with an arpeggiator. I went to town with the counterpoint, not understanding any of it, but that never stopped me.
Et voilà.
I titled it Suzy’s Hair in honor of a mutual friend’s impossible hair style, so that has nothing to do with Philip Glass, or my song, but that is how I roll. The track served its purpose and I went on to eventually own all of Glass’ catalog and catch every movie he scored. So with my shift to AI Gen as the newest tool in my creative process, I knew it was a matter of time until I attempted to pull off something big and bold like this.
This is Glass-adjacent. The minimalism is there. The modalism is there. The neo-classical composition is there. But, I decided to make it a counter to Koyaanisqatsi, which is thematically about life out of balance, and flip it to life in balance. That happens to be deeply aligned to my work with TATANKA, specifically Matriarchy and the tapping of Indigenous Wisdom, aka balance, in all regards.
I wanted to make it more a celebration rather than condemnation, so it’s brighter. I also used copyright-free Creative Commons stock video for my videos, a first, instead of stills or just the embedded MP3s, each (mostly) focused on the gorgeously imperfect perfection and balance of nature, not what mankind has done to it.
Balance is the thing.
The heaviest lifting for me was the development of the text-to-music prompt that resulted with exactly what I needed it to be. Glass’ work is deceptively simple but in fact is complex and multi-layered. Multidimensional AF. Following is the album-wide prompt:
A strong, full, X-focused instrumental minimalist modal neo-classical composition in a Dorian key. Constantly repetitive arpeggiated focus figures in steady 16th notes. The modes repeat and build with counterpoint, increasing and decreasing in dynamics and layers. Expansive, spiritual, urgent undertone with rhythmic propulsion and luminous harmonic color. Slow, elegant rhythm with static tonal center. Layered synthesizer pads and sustained textures gradually added. Hypnotic, meditative, emotionally restrained, building intensity through texture not chord changes. No traditional cadences. Clean modern production, cinematic minimalism.
Solving for X, the first eleven tracks are titled Spyglass 01-11 as they are relatively short quality control tests that eventually hit my evasive, quintessential high bar, so they did not end up on the cutting room floor with the dozens of spent failures to launch.
That is when I was comfortable enough to better emulate Glass with longer form pieces, seven total, titled and developed with a core symphonic section or instrument, indicated by those movements’ minimalist titles: Woodwinds, Piano, String Quartet, Brass, Percussion, and to close, a full Symphony.
That second part of the album increases in length to seven parts per track and then decreases to three at the end. If you’ve noticed with my previous projects, I like numbers with my muzak. No, I’m not into numerology. I am just a textbook nerd.
Why Spyglass? It’s figurative, yo. I blame a major in Creative Writing and over a decade teaching English, in short. So, if you dig Philip Glass, you might fancy this as well. And if you are new to him, I hope this free hit gets you mercilessly hooked and spending years in a hopeless, bottomless dependency on Glass.
Misery loves company, as all the cool kids say.
I hope you enjoy this, if only half as much as I did developing it.
I love the Spyglass video!