"All In A Student's Dream"
Music by Bryan Celano & Edward Jerlin
© 1986 Bryan Celano/2007 BC & Everlasting Arms Records & Publishing - All Rights Reserved
You just never know what will show up in these monthly musical offerings.
This time, even I'm surprised by what ended up here. :-)
I've been working on a recording of the song I wrote for Kirsten at our wedding which was supposed to be August's offering, then September, then November... & it's still being worked on because it has turned out to be very difficult piece to get *just* right. After a particularly vexing recording session, I decided to briefly set it aside & just "jam" on the piano with the tape rolling to see what might transpire, trying to just have a little fun to ease the tension & pressure I'd put on myself. Truth be told, that didn't work too well either... until I hit upon/fell into an old number written by one of my best friends, Bryan Celano...
I've written about Bryan before, but briefly for the uninitiated, Bryan & I were in the band "G-FORCE" together back in college. He's a singer/songwriter/drummer/keyboardist. In G-FORCE, he was primarily the singer/drummer (a.k.a. Phil Collins), though occasionally we switched instruments.
As the jam progressed, I ended up piecing together two of Bryan's pieces of music -- two of my favs of his. The first one is a really cool 6/8 rhythmic intro to a song that we never played live or recorded. I think we only rehearsed it once & I can't remember the rest of the song other than that really cool intro, which always gets me going & has been entrenched in my memory ever since Bryan played it for me. This is what starts this recording, until about 1:17. It gets reprised & expounded upon from 2:48-3:34, then briefly reprised again at the very end to bring it home.
The other bit, which takes up a majority of this recording, was from a piano piece that Bryan called, "All In A Student's Dream", which we only played part of live a couple of times, usually with Bryan on piano & me on drums. We usually threw it in between a couple of other numbers as a linking section, or as an off-the-cuff intro to another song.
To make it mesh with the 6/8 intro-jam (shoe-horn it in is more like it), it is rendered as a 6/8 piece the first time it is introduced, with a number of variations, before I forcibly kick it into 4/4 at the 3:49 mark, at which point I continue through with lots of Ed-ism variations until I decided to make it more "dream-like" & add a little contrast by throwing in a Bryan-inspired free-form piano solo, which vaguely makes use of some of the chord progressions from the rest of the piece.
At 6:20, the song returns & from that point forward is rendered as closely as possible to the way Bryan used to play it, with the piano in the forefront. On the repeat, a lead synth, along with a subtle bass pedal & mellotron string/choir layer is added, which is what I think we we'd have done with it in the old days if we'd ever have recorded it.
A short reprise of the 6/8 intro jam was reprised at the end to round it out.
Bryan's response to this (in part):
"It's like you crawled inside my head and created exactly what I was imagining when I wrote it. I love the changes you've put in there. Dude, it is exactly how I heard it in my head, I just couldn't play piano well enough to express it. Holy Moly. It sounds like a lost track from the boys from Genesis (start with a Bank of Tony Rigatoni, shake it up with rhythm and Thyme for PHILavor, squeeze low pedel tones on the [Mike] Rutherford side, [Steve] Hackett up with sizzling melodic tones, and serve HOT!!!) Swwweeet."
Bryan has very graciously allowed me to present this recording as this month's offering. I can't thank him enough, not only for unknowingly helping me out of my little musical rut, but for his friendship & musical/spiritual influence/encouragement through the years. The years we spent playing music together were a huge key/influence in helping me become the musician & person I am today.
...and now with his wife Alexandra:
G-FORCE May 9, 1986:
It's such a cliche, but... well, the louder you play this one, the better it'll sound. :-)
Enjoy!
The feedback is very much appreciated!!
Thank you, & God bless,
& Bryan Celano
To download the music, RIGHT CLICK and choose "Save Target As":
"All In A Student's Dream" 9:17
