on the coast near St Davids, West Wales, in 2007
Welcome to the website for Rick Birley
On this site is posted a selection of compositions, pictures [paintings & drawings] and poems by Rick Birley
- click on whichever page you want to go to. Many of these pages have sub-menus.
- press the F11 key for a full-screen view, and "control +" or "control -" for zoom control. As this site is a wide site you need to zoom down to 75% to get the full page.
- use the "Page Up/ Page Down" keys to navigate quickly up & down a page
- pressing the "home" key will return you instantly to the top of the page (and therefore to the menu)
- if you are playing a piece of music, this will cut out when you leave the page. If you wish to listen to an audio-file on one page whilst visiting another page, just open the other page in a new tab [right clicking gives you this option]
- for most of the pictures, a single click (on the image itself) will present either a full-screen image (this certainly works well for some of the 'landscape' orientated pictures) or at the very least a better view - the background becomes dark.
How to use the 'play' button:
1 click on the right of the icon - the word 'buffering' indicates that the file is being loaded
2 adjust the volume [those little bars on the left] - more effectively, adjust the volume of your computer sound system
3 once the sound file has buffered [see the green line at the bottom] you can click/drag anywhere within the rectangular box to navigate to any part of the music.
1 click on the right of the icon - the word 'buffering' indicates that the file is being loaded
2 adjust the volume [those little bars on the left] - more effectively, adjust the volume of your computer sound system
3 once the sound file has buffered [see the green line at the bottom] you can click/drag anywhere within the rectangular box to navigate to any part of the music.
On this site I post some of my music, a few pictures and the occasional poem. The music is for the most part played using 'artificial' sounds, that is 'played' using a sample library - in the case of most of the compositions posted here the sample library I use is East West Symphonic Gold, which I hope will give a more realistic effect than anything I have so far encountered. There are more realistic sounds available, but at a cost I cannot afford.
Of immense help setting up my new, dedicated-to-Sibelius [off-line] computer with the new East West libraries has been Jonathan Loving. He is the person who Sibelius recommend and his expertise has been tremendously useful and completely reassuring. He has taken great care and shown a masterful mastery of the finest detail. I must have greatly tested his patience, as the numerous e-mail dealings I have had with him have exposed my comparative ignorance with the ways of computers, but he has never failed to help me out. He deserves everyone's support who grapple with the EW/Sibelius software - I am indebted to him.
Where a good live recording is made, I will of course use that, but the vast majority of my work is unperfomed. It has been very frustrating approaching professional orchestras and choirs, few of which appear to have a process for seriously considering new music. Unknown composers don't really stand a chance, as far as I have experienced, and would present the inevitable problem (if performed) of emptying the auditorium seats. New music is a commercial disaster. As the only way to become at all "known" is to have one's music performed, the "unknown" composer doesn't have a look in. I love writing for orchestra, however, so despite not ever hearing it played I will continue to compose symphonic music. My regret is that I do not get a chance to hear how effective is my orchestrating, and do not therefore adapt and change my writing in the light of hearing performances. I am also aware that I have to conjure up quite a lot of enthusiasm each time I embark on a new work; there is no external incentive to write at all for orchestra, given that I won't actually hear the end result. If I knew that a professional orchestra was waiting to perform my new scores then I would be so much more prolific!
This collection is only a selection of all that I have composed/painted/written, but I hope it will be of some interest. Please feel free to contact me using the form below.
There are a few live recordings here too - I am indebted to many people who have taken the trouble to perform my music over the years. To these people I offer my thanks.
In the absence for the most part of any live performances, I have created this website to be my own 'virtual' concert hall, my gallery and my publication pages: welcome as audience!
