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NOW ONLINE: new song from the "Songs of Love and Loss" project : "True Love"

For some time I have been working on a song cycle called "Songs of Love and
Loss". Since march this year I began recording the vocals with Ann Van Canegem, a vocalist with lots of experience in jazz and blues. This unexpected combination of my more classical background and her bluesy voice brings a special flavour to our music.


We are steadily recording and remixing all the songs and hope we will be able to release the album in 2008.

The cycle begins and ends with an instrumental piece: Opening "Love" and Closing "Loss".

I write music, because I simply have to. It gives me great pleasure just to play, compose, hearing what I have in mind come to life and in the end share it with other people... I hope my music can be a source of joy, comfort and perhaps even some cause for reflection for the listener.

Besides my songs I am also working on a series of instrumental pieces of a series
called "Relics".
You can listen to a few demo pieces here.

True Love...is about these little moments, when you look into the eyes of your lover and realise that this is the person that makes you truly happy, and that you are blessed with the love of your life...


Ann sings from the heart again.

I have known a few people in my life who have committed suicide or tried to. Some of them were mere acquaintances, but sometimes they were close.
You are left with a mix of feelings: shock, regret, grief, anger,... and with the eternal question if you could have done something to prevent it.

This is what this song is about.


Originally I wrote this song for a soprano with a high and angelic voice.

I have now transposed the song down for Ann and I have rewritten it almost completely. I introduced a new main theme for the violin, and made the arrangement for the verses sound more restless and uneasy.

The song ends with a lament for the deceased, based on vocal improvisations by Ann.



Many thanks to Gareth Balch for helping us out with the lyrics, and providing us with numerous tips to make them stronger and clearer. Lyrics are important in our music, and if your mother language is not english, it is often very difficult to know the connotations of some words. Gareth was so kind to help us to put more meaning into fewer words.

This rather short song is about the final ending of a relationship. A song about sorrow, regret and shame.

And who could sing this song as frail as Ann did...? She is such and amazing artist...

This song gave me the opportunity to experiment with my brand new Vienna Symphonic Library. Since the release of the Special Edition this state of the art instrument is now finally available for us who are not so rich... Thank you guys from Vienna!

"In The Light Of The Sun" is a song that is very dear to me. The song is about the passing of time, and how insignificant a human life is compared to cosmic scales.

I wrote the basic melody a long time ago (in human terms at least...) on my very first piano when I was about seventeen. Over the years I kept playing this piano tune and a few years ago I turned it into this song.

Like all my songs it has a certain sadness in it, although I don't consider it as a sad song.
It is more a song about acceptance, letting go and humility.



It begins with a person who tries to hold on to a lost loved one, smelling the fading scent in his clothes and dwelling into her memories.

But, eventually - like everything - the scent will fade away. The memories of our memories will dissolve into time, "and all that we are is a speck of dust dancing in the light of the sun". While I wrote this song I often had the image of particles of dust dancing in the sunlight shining through an attic window.



I wrote the backbone of this song with the guitars, harp and vibraphone ticking away time like a clockwork. Over this I wrote a waltz, like the dancing particles of dust in the light of the sun.



Again, Ann did a great job on the vocals and her voice makes the song shine like a sun...

This song is about dealing with the loss of a child, perhaps the greatest loss one can ever suffer.
The song was inspired by an article in the newspaper. Roman Drowart told how he was dealing with the tragic death of his 2-year old daughter Luna. She was killed on the streets of Antwerp, together with her Malian nanny Oulemata Niangadou, in a racist shooting.
You can read more about it on Wikipedia.

I dedicated this song to Luna and all victims of racism and meaningless violence.


Vocals by Ann Van Canegem

I created this piece with "Voices of Passion", a great software instrument by East West Quantum Leap.

Very inspiring...

Jef De Corte

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all-time plays - 346

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Band Members - see all 2

• Ann Van Canegem - Vocals

• Jef De Corte - Composition, arrangements & lyrics

Discography - see all 4

• 

  Songs of Love and Loss

• 

  Relics

• 

  Speechless ...when words have no meaning...

• 

  Voices