The Bells | guitar solos by Frank A. Wallace

d’Orleans The round Orleans, Beaujancy is woven into a spacious fabric of dissonant chords, melody pealing high above in harmonics. I re-discovered this piece after it lay dormant for over a year, having totally forgotten this little “experiment” in dissonant chord structures. I was pleased to find how much sonority was possible. The major 7th interval is used repeatedly and creates it’s own beating vibrato.

d’Angelus I was honored to be asked by guitarist, lutenist, composer, publisher and recording engineer Norbert Dams to write a piece for his 60th year in which he planned to do 60 concerts around the world. I had composed d’Orleans on a whim two years before and had the thought that I wanted to write more “impressionistic” pieces in this vein. Norbert’s piece uses a series of notes generated by his name and the name of his publishing house, Daminus: FGBBEBC DAEC DAEAFEC and a chromatic variation A#BDA#C#DE CAAD# CAAFA#FD#. Norbert never made the tour and sadly passed to his “Heavy Sleep” on May 9, 2014.

In the well The third piece, written for Marek Pasieczny, is the most complicated: major 7th intervals, note sets determined by Marek’s name, and an unusual version of the round “Ding dong bell, pussy is in the well” that I learned years ago from a wonderful family of singers, George and Lucy Semler.