Waltz in F Lydian - Richard Baltrusch Ritchie Diamond 2026-09-28 | Waltz in F Lydian - Richard Baltrusch
Bullet Sudoku OST (Richard Baltrusch) Ritchie Diamond 2021-12-14 | 0:00 Menu theme0:38 Main theme3:18 Options themeIt has always annoyed me a little bit that I am interested in a lot of things and don't further just a few interests - resulting in me becoming a bit of a "jack of all trades" in many ways.In 2019, I realised that game development could be one way to combine many things that I have an interest in - games, music, art, software, and engineering. Why not give it a try?So I did - September 2019, I started writing my first game. At the time, I was playing a lot of Hollow Knight (an indie metroidvania / platformer), which inspired me to try the same. I was also writing lots of code in Python, so I combined the two and tried my hand at a game in Python (using pygame).Needless to say, the decision to write my first game without a game engine, and with little object-oriented training, was a "difficult" process, to say the least. I also realised that I was mostly interested in building systems - rather than games... And so by July 2020 I had basically nothing except a rather ugly, rather playable "prototype" with just about nothing in it (except a flexible game engine that I built).So i decided that should stop - and from August to October 2020, I built most of the game Bullet Sudoku, a 2D puzzle platformer, where you traverse an auto-generated map of 81 rooms, with difficulties between 1 and 9. I finally released a demo of the game only in summer 2021.At the time, I wrote down a simple melody in C-minor, with a short counter-subject consisting of a few arpeggiated chords. I fleshed it out as a short piece of counterpoint between 4 voices and it suddenly sounded very puzzly (as does much "mechanical baroque music" - I suppose) - so I added it to the game. The first version of this piece, however, was a bit too short (around 90 seconds) and lacking somewhat in the bass register, so I shifted it to the options menu (3:17) and wrote a longer theme for the main gameloop.The longer version became a piece of counterpoint between 8 voices - with some really nice contrasts, lots of imitative figures and fugal-like sections. With added support in the bass register and a longer playtime (around 2:30), the new and improved theme was ready to act as the main gameplay theme to be looped ad-infinitum :DFinally, I wrote a short fanfare variation of the same theme, with an added thundering triplet figure (or rather stolen from the development of the previous pieces) and more varied dynamics. This became the main menu intro music.A free demo of the game is available here: richardbaltrusch.itch.io/bullet-sudokuDiscord: discord.gg/Hv3qY6cSInstagram: instagram.com/pyplatformerFacebook: facebook.com/gaming/bulletsudoku Composed by Richard Baltrusch. All rights reserved. © 2021
Digital Opus 1 - Richard Baltrusch Ritchie Diamond 2021-11-28 | This is the first installment of auto-generated music using the object-oriented music generator I started writing in May 2020. After an 18 month break from the project, I came back to it and significantly improved it, adding harmonic and rhythmic variety, as well as multiple melodic layers.The music is completely auto-generated, including the bass, melody, harmony and rhythm. After generation, I mastered the audio a bit in Audacity so that the not-so-perfect sound synthesizer I wrote for this project doesn't make my ears fall off :DI generated this set of small pieces on October 16, with a simple melody placed over a generated bass. The harmonic / rhythmic filling in between was still static at that time, as can be heard through all pieces in the set. However, substantial shifts in mood could already be achieved by changing tempo and key through this set.Piece 1: 0:05 (A maj)Piece 2: 0:51 (A min)Piece 3: 1:38 (Dissonant A min with embellishments)Piece 4: 2:40 (Ambiguous tonality + rhythm)Piece 5: 3:32 (Slow A phrygian)For this video, I wrote a small visualisation tool in Python, which I directed in real-time to accompany the music, because an auto-generated piece of music needs an auto-generated visualisation with it, right? :DThe music generation code is currently closed-source, as I may further flesh this project out and turn it into a music generation tool for non-musical content creators or game developers in the future.All rights reserved. © 2021
Orca One - Richard Baltrusch Ritchie Diamond 2021-11-14 | A short initial test of the esoteric programming language Orca, paired with the synthesizer software Sunvox.Github repo and Itch page for HundredRabbits:github.com/hundredrabbits/Orcahundredrabbits.itch.ioI watched a video this morning about some esoteric programming languages - and Orca is the one that stuck out the most, so I had to try it. It is a programming language meant for live-coding music performances and can be used with just about any synthesizer or even hooked up to SuperCollider.Here is my first test, which uses some simple note trigger patterns, as well as some semi-random cyclical note triggers. While leaving Orca playing in the background, I was able to modify the synthesizers playing in Sunvox.I am not very good at either Orca, synthesizers or live-music, but I thought it came out at least sounding interesting :)
Mozartiana no. 2 - Richard Baltrusch Ritchie Diamond 2020-07-05 | A short piece, the vast majority of which was written in summer 2018 and recently finished up. During that summer I was practicing Mozart sonata #16, which ended up inspiring me to write this piece. Nothing special - but a worthy addition to the lonely mozartian piece I uploaded in 2014 :-)© 2020
Waltz in Bbm - Richard Baltrusch Ritchie Diamond 2020-06-28 | A piece from the archive - lying around missing only the very last two three bars for five years - I decided it is time for this piece to see the light of day and finished it off. The harmonic language here is very interesting and draws parallels to the rough sound sometimes presented in 2015 - similar to pieces like the Mazurka in Em and the Romance in Cm and reminiscent a bit of the style of Prokofiev.© 2020
赤い六月 - Richard Baltrusch Ritchie Diamond 2020-06-21 | Made using sunvox software and my new MIDI keyboard Akai MKII - this time featuring a synth combination that I came up with and notably featuring drums for once :-) Made in a sitting of around an hour
Computer generated fragments ver. 2 - Richard Baltrusch Ritchie Diamond 2020-06-14 | A second attempt at computer generated music, starting out now with the improvements and lessons lerned from the flawed first attempt. The musical material presented in this video was generated in a single session over around 2 hours, playing around with the various capabilities of the notedly very short python program (200 lines of infra code - 100 lines of class code, 100 lines of helper functions, and only 50 lines of actual musical algorithms).The program is far from ready and still relies a lot on the human providing a harmonic / rhythmic pattern as a starting point (that accounts for most of the variation between the different musical ideas presented here), as currently only the root notes of the harmonies to be played are determined by the program.An interesting thing to note here is that with some playing around with volume and natural standing out of the top voice, I was able to create a sense of melodic material existing in this, although, per se, the music generated is strictly harmonic in nature.© 2020
Blue sky jam session - Richard Baltrusch Ritchie Diamond 2020-06-07 | Another jam session made using the virtual synthesizer software sunvox.The first upload can be found here:youtube.com/watch?v=WoQ2YcGnhnMThis one is more calm than the previous upload, being a piece in C major, it is quite cheery, but simultaneously gives the sort of nostalgic farewell vibes that can often only be found on an album's final song, reminiscent in this case of songs such as Pink Floyd's Alan's Psychedelic Breakfast and Automat's Mecadence.In this one, I am particularly fond of the virtual theremin ascent after the halfway point of the piece, acting as a nice climax before the piece calms down and fades away.The comically bad rhythm in this piece? *shrug* That's never been one of my fortes.
Prelude no. 2 in C major - Richard Baltrusch Ritchie Diamond 2020-05-31 | This ends up being my second baroque prelude in C major - quite cheerful at times and always full of drive and energy (I'm sure some of you will tell me to slow down :-) Originally written for piano, the sound imo fits the organ quite well (hence the lack of dynamics).The piece has been sitting around 7 incomplete bars of length since 2018 until a few days ago, when I decided to complete the nice ideas presented in it to a satisfying close. While the piece has a improvised feel to it, it is actually thematically surprisingly consistent, both rhythmically and melodically stating the main theme / idea again and again in just under a minute. The chromaticism here is to be noted too (parallels may be drawn to similarly fiery and chromatic works of JS Bach), albeit it didn't amount to as many modulations as would be fitting of a Bach work, switching from C to Am to Dm to Am to C to Am, finally ending on an arpeggiated Picardy third A major chord.Overall, the piece feels like a worthy addition and augmentation of the material presented in my pre-existing set of six baroque preludes, all written in the second half of 2014 and 2015:Prelude in Em: Nov. 2015. youtube.com/watch?v=UlEkHMyaI14Prelude in Am: Sep. 2015. youtube.com/watch?v=AZjHjCJoLSgPrelude in C: Sep 2015. youtube.com/watch?v=vr4DX28nPOQPrelude in Fm: Apr. 2015. youtube.com/watch?v=7rFjLM3qepwPrelude in Gm: Dec 2014. youtube.com/watch?v=m74l4Vx6LwkPrelude in Am: Jun. 2014. youtube.com/watch?v=1THZko01q-E© 2020
Computer Generated Fragments (2018) - Richard Baltrusch Ritchie Diamond 2020-05-24 | The musical fragments presented here are all generated using a program of a few hundred lines of Python that I primarily wrote end of 2018 during job searching down-time. The early fragments can be a bit hard on the ears, so feel free to skip ahead:0:00 Iteration 10:49 Iteration 21:49 Iteration 32:54 Iteration 3.14:07 Iteration 44:50 Iteration 5(Don't mind the random typing, thats me starting the program :-D)Personally - I like Iteration 4 the most - and iteration 5 sounds very interesting.The program does several things: it generates one voice at a time for one bar of a given length (typically set to 8 here) for a number of voices. Voices analyse the notes of a chord used in the other layers (although this is seemingly not working particularly well) and decide on the fittest note to play next based on the "momentum" of the line (it commits to a direction), the nearest interval in its allowed range and depending on the notes in the other layers. As in a real composing environment, this is not the end - there is a note correction algorithm that runs a number of times to correct any notes across all layers that may be changed to create a smoother overall musical fragment.However, the program also does several things not so well: there are magic numbers everywhere, little to no comments, unclear to cryptic algorithms to determine various things, importantly no use of classes (this is bad because it makes maintainability and scalability of the code much more difficult and unwieldy), and an overall (needless) reliance on the infrastructure of an external library (which itself is just acting as a thin wrapper to the library pygame).I never wanted to share this work at this point, because I felt that it was not ready to showcase yet, but I have recently decided to scrap the program and start from scratch with a clearer structure and classes for all the important musical constructs needed to generate good music. With that in mind, it made sense to share at least what I have done so far.© 2020
Chase I - Richard Baltrusch Ritchie Diamond 2020-05-17 | A short piece, less in the classical realm and more maybe in a cinematic / game music type environment. I have, until recently, debated internally for a while whether this piece was significant enough to merit an upload to this channel.© 2020
Landscape - Richard Baltrusch Ritchie Diamond 2020-05-10 | Inspired by the post of a very nice, dreamy sounding choir piece with very atmospheric textures in summer 2018, I ended up writing this (and deemed it not finished until now).The beginning features fifth chords alternated with more colourful chords. Later on, we get segments where only a part of the choir sings, which more and more falls apart into a chaotic, "avant-garde" soundscape (Pink Floyd's Atom Heart Mother comes to my mind) up to the little eight-note calling gesture in alto 2, bar 23, finally coming to an end on a glorious F major chord.© 2020
Prelude for solo flute - Richard Baltrusch Ritchie Diamond 2020-05-03 | A very recent bit of rhethorical exploration for solo instrument. This is to date the only solo piece I have finished composing (except chord instruments).Although the piece has one or two moments that always feel a little bit "off" on the first listen, on the listen immediately after, they seem to disappear and be perfectly fine... Apart from broken chords (and multi-layered melody), the piece features a fake ending cadenza in bar 26 near the end of the page, followed immediately after by a "fake" restatement of the main theme, culminating in the highest note found in the piece and ending in another "notey" cadenza.© 2020
Picture no. 1 - Richard Baltrusch Ritchie Diamond 2020-04-26 | This started some time in September 2019 as a rare improvisation kept on page - the problem with this one was that it sounded very fragmented through much of its development cycle - so much that I was contemplating simply polishing it off under the name Fragments instead of Picture - but with a little work on bridging melodic material (sadly this had to alter the character of some of the fragments quite a bit), it ended up as a rather cohesive miniature piece.
Jam session - Richard Baltrusch Ritchie Diamond 2020-04-20 | This is the first installment in a series of compositions and other musical artifacts to be uploaded on Sunday each week in order to reinstate this channel :-)This short jam session was recorded in around one hour and twenty minutes using sunvox virtual synthesizer software (it's free!), which I had just discovered prior. The style reminds me a lot of prog-rock jam sessions when they have a day left to fill the rest of the disk (which has a charm of its own). This particular jam session reminds me a bit of the style of Banco Del Mutuo Soccorso on their stellar album Darwin. This is my first try-out of the software. Maybe needless to say, I find this software to be quite powerful, immediately intuitive and useable from the getgo. All of this was recorded with a mouse (!), as I currently don't have access to a MIDI instrument. This, imho, makes what this software can do even more impressive. Of course you can hear the mouse here and there ("unclean" playing), but overall it's amazing what you can do without even having the right tools.© 2020
Soundtrack - Richard Baltrusch Ritchie Diamond 2020-02-09 | Who can guess what hides in this enigmatic piece of synth musicalia?© 2020
Atmospheric Study I - Richard Baltrusch Ritchie Diamond 2019-07-27 | A short study on atmospheric soundtracks with outer voices being characterised by long, melancholic notes (often sitting on a ninth for a long time), while an ostinato based on fifths is played in the middle voice, as can be seen in many tracks of the game Hollow Knight.
Canon in C - Richard Baltrusch Ritchie Diamond 2019-04-28 | My first completed canon - written in an hour on the train from Berlin to Munich after reading Gardiner's book about Bach. Not perfect, but a good enough experiment dare I say - it has it's charming places and reveals quite distinctly to the writer, where the difficulties in canon writing lie.
Fugue in Dm - Richard Baltrusch Ritchie Diamond 2019-03-01 | What a strange piece... Might hardly qualify as a fugue, given that it neither has a proper exposition (instead hitting you with an unprepared modulation from D minor to F minor - without ever actually mentioning the third to firmly place that Fm, mind you....), nor a proper end (ending in G minor)... Overall, there are 5 voices in this piece, but you could at most count it as a fugue à 3, with typically the two middle voices just providing some harmonic filler. Even with 3 voices, we only have one subject and a countersubject (one that is not PARTICULARLY prominent) - no second countersubject to speak of (just free counterpoint). AND YET - I like this one in particular. It starts off very dissonant with unprepared modulations - first from Dm to Fm, back to Dm, back to Fm - now to Abm (minor third above Fm - it's the relative major - except it's minor), which counts no less than 6 flats. From here we jump back to Am (no flats) entirely unprepared, with the rest of the piece being comparatively more harmonically sound and proper (instead the relatively somber, but serene air of the piece goes haywire starting somewhere at around bar 17). The theme of the fugue is again somewhat awkward for a keyboard instrument, with two diminished sevenths jumps in it... However, the feel that this particular theme lends to the piece is of a distinctly, deeply sad nature - coming from the fact that it encourages lots of dom9 chords (sometimes with the 9 in the bass), lots of deceptive resolutions from V to VI (having two 6s in the theme kind of makes it obvious why this happens), lots of dissonance all round that - if treated nicely - can give us a very hanging feel of impending doom provided by our suspensions :)
Fugue in Eb - Richard Baltrusch Ritchie Diamond 2019-02-19 | My first completed fugue! With a channel so focused on baroque music and especially Bach, it is surprising it has taken me more than eight years since the inception of this channel to write a fugue - but here we are. Ok, it's kind of rough around the edges, but i think overall it's a fairly enjoyable listen. The execution, of course, is a little sloppy, as some themes or theme parts simply disappear halfway through; there are loose ends here and there - that being due to the fact that the theme I chose was *tremendously* clunky as a fugue theme (begging for resolution in more than one place), which makes it so that this piece constantly either requires something particularly clever (I'm not capable of that - not yet at least) or just sort of gets bandaid-fixed with extra notes chucked out left and right that don't belong to any voice in particular. The fugue is clunky for the performer too - very much so! I haven't tried to play it yet, but, as it was modelled on the Eb fugue in the WTC1 (which is fairly easy-going to play, but it has its awkward places (uncommon for Bach)), but I can guarantee with complete certainty that it is not a fun playthrough... The piece either needs to be simplified, or better, arranged for organ (as it seems in its final stage to be much more suited for that instrument).Anyway, overall, I guess this piece has just about everything that it needs to be a fugue (although a very loose one): a solid exposition, something of a development section with bits of theme thrown just about everywhere, and a good ol' Bachian coda (though I might want to change 1 bar of it somewhat). As such, this quite deserves the aftereditted title of fughetta (little fugue) rather than fugue, in the proper sense. Still, we're getting there :)
Jazz Rag - Richard Baltrusch Ritchie Diamond 2019-02-09 | The last rag that I published was December 2014 - quite a while ago. I thought that I had graduated from rags, but the other week the desire to write a new one took hold of me and this is the result. I'm not entirely sure it is 100% done - the ending could be different and as is relies on the performer to some degree. Nonetheless, I'm pretty happy how it turned out, the outer sections have a slight macabre sound due to the flat seconds in there, while the inner section, imho, sounds quite charming. The piece is driven by the accompaniment, merging two main approaches: one using standard ragtime stride making use of rootless 9th chords, while the middle section makes use of a Beethoven accompaniment technique that can be used to bring tempo in compared to Alberti bass, but at the same time is somewhat lighter than the block chord accompaniment that came just before it, giving a nice contrast between the two sections.
Die Unschuldigen seien gepriesen - Richard Baltrusch Ritchie Diamond 2018-12-02 | Merry Christmas 2018
Sinfonia in C minor - Richard Baltrusch Ritchie Diamond 2018-11-23 | A short exercise in a baroque chorale opening style sinfonia. I am a particular admirer of the opening of Bach's Chorale "Christ lag in Todesbanden", albeit my short piece at hand is not musically based on it in particular.
Minimalism in Am - Richard Baltrusch Ritchie Diamond 2018-02-05 | It's been over a year that this channel has been lying waste - a bit of a rough period for me personally. Funnily enough, this is also only the 20th piece that I've uploaded since I started my university course! This isn't my first dabbling in minimalism, albeit the first finished minimalist piece that I publish here. I believe minimalism is a quite suited extension of my personal style. This specific piece has been greatly influenced by Simeon Ten Holt, especially by his Canto OstinatoComposed by Richard (Ritchie 'Crimson Diamond') Baltrusch.All rights reserved.© 2018
Contemplation no. 2 - Richard Baltrusch Ritchie Diamond 2016-11-25 | Re-evaluation of current musical standing and revisitation of previous work, particularly Contemplation no. 1 and the Slow Rags. Composed by Richard (Ritchie 'Crimson Diamond') Baltrusch.All rights reserved.© 2016
落ち葉 - Richard Baltrusch Ritchie Diamond 2016-11-18 | Full title: 落ち葉 (Fallen Leaves)pf: FinaleTempo: Allegro (120 bpm)Short essay in Japanese Anime soundtrack style - written sometimes from last year to the current one, in one or two sittings. I hope to be able to produce more works in the genre to practice my writing skills. Note: Sorry for the lack of uploads throughout 2016 - I'm currently working on a variety of languages and an engineering project, but do hope to finalise some more work soon. Composed by Richard (Ritchie 'Crimson Diamond') Baltrusch.All rights reserved.© 2016
Prelude in C#m - Richard Baltrusch Ritchie Diamond 2016-08-14 | *description (maybe) coming later*Composed by Richard (Ritchie 'Crimson Diamond') Baltrusch.All rights reserved.© 2016
Canopy - Richard Baltrusch Ritchie Diamond 2016-01-02 | Composed by Richard (Ritchie 'Crimson Diamond') Baltrusch.All rights reserved.© 2016
Jazz Alteration no. 2 - Richard Baltrusch Ritchie Diamond 2015-12-26 | pf: FinaleTempo: Quite fast (120 bpm)Season's Greetings! Here is a little piece I made in the past couple of days - but I won't tell you what this piece is an alteration of, because it (apparently) is fairly unobvious. :)Composed by Richard Baltrusch.All rights reserved.© 2015
Prelude in Em - Richard Baltrusch Ritchie Diamond 2015-11-22 | pf: FinaleTempo: Moderato (100 bpm)Short description: again, one of my pseudo-baroque endeavours... This one started out planned as something more chromatic - sadly it wasn't to happen. I guess I'm still not able to write as Bachian chromatic as Bach himself - such enjoyable and refreshing chromaticism in a conservative genre is amazing (and amazingly difficult I guess :P)... In any case, I think I still come across as fairly Baroque - and since the pedal chord in the final part of the piece was so idiomatic to organ music, I uploaded this one with an organ sound font (albeit keeping the piano arrangement). Composed by Richard (Ritchie 'Crimson Diamond') Baltrusch.All rights reserved.© 2015
String sextet: II - Richard Baltrusch Ritchie Diamond 2015-11-15 | pf: FinaleTempo: Adagio (55 bpm)So, this piece happened - a long time ago! I just didn't feel like making the very final, but very required changes in the piece - very much tedious editting consisting of adding in the dynamics and raising three notes by an octave to make them playable. This particular movement has also been moved to be the second movement of the string sextet instead of being the (more standard) third movement - which would follow a slow - fast - slow - finale structure that is more standard in the way that it is a reversal of slow - fast movements compared to the old classical fast - slow - fast. Then I realised that it made a wonderful second movement - as it does indeed follow the mood set up by the first movement quite nicely - the third movement will instead be fast. At previous points, I intended this piece to have a total of 4 movements, but at the moment I am considering 3 movements to be more likely my end result. The aim with this piece, as was its previous movement, is to create an aura, an atmosphere, using chromatic, recurring motives and chromatic, very dissonant and hardly tonal harmony. The need to create such a piece arose from the feeling that I became too 'standard' in certain ways - too much textbook harmony and too much balance in my music (arguably). And while for most of my composition career I focused on becoming more balanced, I reversed this process entirely for the very first time with this particular piece. I think I was quite successful in living up to my endeavour, as this piece does finally evoke some of my favorite 20th century string works: Shostakovich #8 and Schoenberg's 'Verklärte Nacht'. A note on my approach to dynamics, as some people might point out later - of course dynamics are an integral part of a musical composition. But I usually leave them out until the very end, because I am very decisive and have the specific, most appropriate dynamics in mind before even putting them on paper - leaving me more time to be creative when I feel like being creative and leaving tedious editting for less inspired times :) dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/65349797/String%20sextet%20(Adagio%20III).pdfComposed by Richard (Ritchie 'Crimson Diamond') Baltrusch.All rights reserved.© 2015
Prelude in Am no. 2 (Baroque) - Richard Baltrusch Ritchie Diamond 2015-09-30 | Tempo: Allegro con fuoco (120 bpm)Very nice little motive that I found (I'm pretty sure that it was during the time where I discovered Bach's Prelude in Am in the WTC II - the motive is fairly similar in style and feel to Bach's opening to the prelude). The prelude keeps the motive very prominently throughout tries to achieve unity through this chromatic motive. In fact, I've always admired Bach's eloquent use of chromatic harmony and how he manages to make it sound perfectly natural in a Baroque setting. This is partly what I wanted to achieve here - another thing was that I really tried to make a piece just out of the opening 2-bar motive, which often turns out to be fairly hard to do convincingly, the more chromatic the motive, the harder (at least in an appropriate setting) - see BWV 543 (one of my favorite motives ever - but I feel like even Bach had difficulties piecing something together fitting the motive's chromatic grandeur). Still an excellent piece :D So this Prelude is also part of the Baroque prelude cycle. Sadly, I already have a prelude in Am written (June last year?) and so I will have to find a new key for one of them (probably the elder one, since this new prelude in Am fits so well to they key). Composed by Richard (Ritchie 'Crimson Diamond') Baltrusch.All rights reserved.© 2015
Prelude in C (Baroque) - Richard Baltrusch Ritchie Diamond 2015-09-24 | pf: FinaleTempo: Moderato (100 bpm)So this is not related to my previously uploaded Prelude in C, as is immediately apparent. Instead, this continues the journey to 24 pseudo-Baroque preludes. This one is a bit unique in my catalogue, in that the main melody is prominently revolving around arpeggios. The piece follows a rather simple structure - arrive at the main melody, depart from it by rambling a bit - arrive at the main melody again and so on. While this is obviously not the most structured piece I've ever written (and this also makes it slightly questionable in the context of its 'Baroque-ness'), that heavily repeated main melody is what gives this piece a sense of unity, holding the individual, rambling strands together to form a whole. I remember I started this piece shortly after finishing my first pseudo-Baroque prelude (in Am), as a paired piece due to the keys' relationship, however, the exact date went missing (due to my computer formatting lol). Composed by Richard (Ritchie 'Crimson Diamond') Baltrusch.All rights reserved.© 2015
Oboe Song - Richard Baltrusch Ritchie Diamond 2015-09-24 | Alternative title: Corruption, Beautiful Corruptionpf: FinaleTempo: Sad, slow (74 bpm)Sorry for being away for so long (once again) - I'm gonna try to make up by uploading a couple of pieces at once, but I sadly can't say I will be able to keep up a regular stream of uploads, since my university term is about to start (sad face). This piece has been started almost one and a half years ago - upon hearing two art songs by S. Himpe here on YouTube, with simple instrumentation consisting of vocals and accompanying piano parts. However, due to sampling issues, the vocals were replaced by an oboe part. Back then, I suggested to keep the pieces like that - rearrange them as a duet for oboe and piano, keeping the song-like nature of the piece as some sort of 'oboe song'. This back then made me start out an 'oboe song' myself (loving the instrument so much) and this is the final result. It started out carefully sticking to a particular scale with a slight arabic flavour it (I think S. Himpe used that same scale for at least one of his art songs). However, I would more and more start to use notes outside the scale, resulting in the sense of 'corruption' that I slightly associate with this piece. Composed by Richard (Ritchie 'Crimson Diamond') Baltrusch.All rights reserved.© 2015
Prelude in C - Richard Baltrusch Ritchie Diamond 2015-08-03 | Tempo: Adagio sognante (48 bpm)Honestly, I have no idea where my music is heading at the moment - weird harmony I don't necessarily understand, weird melodic figures, possibly even weird rhythmic structures... Currently I'm not able to assess whether this prelude in C is worthy of being uploaded, as it was just composed, during a couple of hours in the middle of an allnighter. It is technically based on Chopin's Prelude in Em, which I adore a lot - very melancholic piece, and so expressive! Oh well :P One more thing about this piece - The left hand chord changes strongly indicate 4/4 time, but the melody keeps playing 3/4 over it, sort of like a polyrhythm, which I found pretty cool, definitely adding some interest to the piece. Technically I also have two other pieces finished and ready, but I'm just too lazy to upload them at the moment lol Composed by Richard (Ritchie 'Crimson Diamond') Baltrusch.All rights reserved.© 2015
Romance in C minor - Richard Baltrusch Ritchie Diamond 2015-07-13 | pf: FinaleTempo: Quasi Allegro (116 bpm)Short piece here - with warm dedication to A. Thomas. There are several pieces that this piece can draw parallels to, my Contemplation and Mazurka in Em come to mind with the similarites in harmonic patterns (partial 'semi-random' harmony) and an erratic melodic line that often merges with the harmonic accompaniment that the left hand part provides. Some uses of quartal harmony and pentatonic scales give this piece a fleeting exotic sound, faintly reminding me of Japanese music. Lastly, the end features a very unexpected and not fully completed modulation to Bbm, a whole step below the home key, while the piece ends on Bbm's dominant chord, F, adding a nice Baroque sound to it. Composed by Richard (Ritchie 'Crimson Diamond') Baltrusch.All rights reserved.© 2015
Keep off the Grass IV - Richard Baltrusch Ritchie Diamond 2015-07-01 | pf: FinaleTempo: Fast (120 bpm)Date of Composition: 01/04/2015 - 01/07/2015, MaltaSooo - it's been a long time since I uploaded (again). Exams and moving countries in between, plus a period of rest. Now back to work and back on track for multiple tracks. This track was started a while ago, deep at night and I got stuck before the solo, weirded out by what was going on in the track. I didnt really know how to continue - until now. I'm inspired to finish tracks - and it worked! :P Overall, this track very much has the feeling of the very first Keep off the Grass, with a bit of the ending of the second... The shortest of the KotG tracks yet, 3 more to go ;) Composed by Richard Baltrusch.All rights reserved.© 2015
Prelude in Fm - Richard Baltrusch Ritchie Diamond 2015-04-09 | pf: Finaletempo: Quasi Allegro (110 bpm)This piece constitutes the third published installment of my planned set of 24 baroque preludes. Unlike the other two, this one is not based on any piece in particular, but does have a strong penchant towards Bach's Well Tempered Clavier in general. Bars 17-20 are sort of based on the Prelude in Cm, WTC 1, but that's about it. I kind of like this piece - it has a nice flow, resulting from the interchange of 16-note runs between both hands. However, a couple of places, especially transitions, feel a bit lacking, but this might be a direct result of my subconscious comparison between Bach's perfect transitions and modulations and my imperfect work. Bach always finds a formula that sounds absolutely fundamental, natural and imposing, and yet many of his pieces are present in more than one form, especially the WTC preludes. So, if anyone disagrees with parts in this prelude - please tell me and I'll consider it. If I myself happen to have a couple of good ideas on how to fix this prelude's problems, I'll do so in the future - maybe :PComposed by Richard (Ritchie 'Crimson Diamond') Baltrusch.All rights reserved.© 2015
Introduction for String Sextet (I) - Richard Baltrusch Ritchie Diamond 2015-03-29 | pf: FinaleTempo: Adagio agitato (55 bpm)End of term was a lot of work - and a lot of work and stress means that I'll suddenly start writing a lot more than usually. Arguably a lot more creative stuff, too. Being a long time fan of the Shostakovich String quartet #8 and only relatively recently having discovered the gem that is Schoenberg's Verklärte Nacht, I got inspired (particularly by the latter) and created this short introduction to my own string sextet, which I would intend to have 5 movements. The second movement is already started, but I don't know if I like the material yet or not... :PThis movement was written in an extraordinarily short amount of time, probably around two and a half hours, plus half an hour of dynamics placement today. That's very fast compared to my usual speed - but I don't think the quality of the piece suffered at all. In fact, I like it very much... It has a sad, troubled nature, with very fun harmonies and a very constant beat that I like. However, more than usual, the MIDI rendering absolutely sucks - I'll have to see what I can do to make this piece sound prettier. :PFor those that might complain that this doesnt sound tonal - it is, in fact, tonal. The most it has are ninth chords and a couple of ambiguous tonal centers, floating around a bit before coming back to a firm D minor... Note that the piece also sounds like it starts in Bb, immediately apparently shifting to Bbm. Very cool stuff imho - I liked that line :PAlso first time writing in Adagio agitato - sounds a bit like a paradox, yet I think it's exactly the tempo this piece requires :P Composed by Richard (Ritchie 'Crimson Diamond') Baltrusch.All rights reserved.© 2015
Contemplation - Richard Baltrusch Ritchie Diamond 2015-03-21 | pf: FinaleTempo: Contemplative (55 bpm - up to the performer)And just when you thought this channel was abandoned once and for all, exams time comes around (lol). Definitely a lot of things to fix and consider at the moment - I don't feel particularly well, or productive either... This is the finished product of this small period, although it's not the only thing I've been working on.Hopefully more things will come soon down the line :)Composed by Richard (Ritchie 'Crimson Diamond') Baltrusch.All rights reserved.© 2015
Prelude in Gm - Richard Baltrusch Ritchie Diamond 2014-12-24 | pf: FinaleTempo: Allegro (120 bpm)So, this is my quick say on things - I'm not stopping yet with the Well tempered Clavier. These last weeks I especially enjoyed playing the Prelude in Cm in WTC II ( youtube.com/watch?v=O4RGL0cl-NI ) and this prelude lives on in this particular piece that I quickly wrote down over the course of more or less a day. I know a few things could be changed here and there and some transitions are slightly sloppy - and I will hopefully someday get around doing a revised version, but this is it for now: Another addition to my now fully in motion set of 24 preludes. While only the Prelude in Am has been released so far, preludes in C, Dm and F are going well so far. Let me now what you think :)Merry Christmas! Composed by Richard (Ritchie 'Crimson Diamond') Baltrusch.All rights reserved.© 2014
Springtime Rag - Richard Baltrusch Ritchie Diamond 2014-12-03 | pf: FinaleTempo: Fast (120 bpm)So, it's been forever since I uploaded anything - and then it's only one minute long. Oh well :P Rest assured I am working on new music - but I'm now also very much working on electrical circuits and similar things due to university... My shortest rag to date - and not even a 'pure' rag... The darker parts have been written while at uni :P Composed by Richard (Ritchie 'Crimson Diamond') Baltrusch.All rights reserved.© 2014
Double Harmonic Treatise for piano - Richard Baltrusch Ritchie Diamond 2014-09-28 | pf: FinaleTempo: Allegro con poco staccato / Allegro legato (120 bpm)Well well - it's been forever since I uploaded something (again!), partially due to the fact that I moved to England... But this time I think I'm on to 'something' - Rickard Dahl may not like it (:P), but as far as I remember, he actually sparked this composition somewhat over a year ago. So this actuall flew around on my computer - and for over a year, I did not have the inspiration and the motivation needed to write this piece together...Which is a shame - because it definitely is an interesting piece imho. A wonderful scale used (double harmonic one - very Eastern sounding... I think it was used in the song 'Misirlou' - a famous piece in the modern guitar repertoire), nice harmonies (that do not quit the key, except in one particular section...). The aim of this piece was, similar to the modal waltzes, to explore a new scale and to compose a piece entirely (or almost entirely) in that particular scale - hence the title. I like the triplet rhythm going on - but I'm not sure about the middle section with the widely arpeggiated left hand. :/Anyway - less talk, more music! One may find the MIDI file for the piece here:drive.google.com/drive/folders/1VQ3KY61qTWGzPXvaPn45N7hwKhnwrmae?usp=sharingComposed by Richard (Ritchie 'Crimson Diamond') Baltrusch.All rights reserved.© 2014
Jazz Alteration no. 1 - Richard Baltrusch Ritchie Diamond 2014-09-03 | Full title: Jazz Alteration no. 1 in Bm, after J. Krieger's Bourrée in Am. pf: FinaleTempo: Allegro leggiero - with slight swing (120 bpm)29/08/2014 - 03/09/2014, MaltaThis is a very quick little thing I composed - which started out as an idea on the keyboard. I like playing this underappreciated piece on the piano - and decided to change up a few things when I felt jazzy... The rest just followed on the computer, while I tried to jazz it up. Don't take this seriously - it is only an exercise in jazz alteration, a process I'm very much interested in, ever since becoming familiar with Loussier's interpretations of many Bach pieces. Ok - this piece may overall not sound coherent. I know - and I didn't try to go for that. Instead, I just wrote down what I felt I wanted to. This is definitely not perfect and would probably still require some small future adjustments - but it is ready enough to want to hear what my tiny audience thinks about it... :P One of the next alterations I might go for is one that I planned since last May - a blues alteration on an all-time classic :D ps: I know the Original piece is in Am - but I like to play it Bm :PComposed by Richard (Ritchie 'Crimson Diamond') Baltrusch.All rights reserved.© 2014
Mazurka in Em - Richard Baltrusch Ritchie Diamond 2014-08-15 | pf: FinaleTempo: Allegro giocoso (120 bpm)Again, I'm just writing for the sake of it - this was started right after the Bagatelle in Gm was uploaded two weeks ago, but it took a bit of time and motivation until I thought I'd continue writing this out. I think it's a fairly interesting piece with some weird, but fitting (?) harmonies that came together in a half-random process. The last few compositions were all too influenced by my (poor) knowledge of harmony and so were all a bit limited in that aspect. In *this* composition, I go a bit back to my roots and my initial methods, those of assimilation of bits and pieces and just half-guessing other notes - leaving them be if I find them to be good-looking / worth listening to. I don't know if this is very well expressed, but anyways :P This is rather jazzy, with a bit of Romanticism in it, I feel - this probably all originates in the chromatic lines that I felt I wanted to see in the harmony (these often were the causes of the weird, untriadic harmony). A bit, it reminds me of my unwaltzy Waltz in Bm, published last summer - I don't know :P I think it's the similar method of writing involved... Someone asked for a less classical composition a few days ago - and while this is still a classical/romantic form, it very much has a different character to it, at least in my humble opinion. Composed by Richard (Ritchie 'Crimson Diamond') Baltrusch.All rights reserved.© 2014
Bagatelle no. 1 - Richard Baltrusch Ritchie Diamond 2014-07-30 | Tempo: Allegro semplice pf: FinaleGeneral description: Lol so my attempt at one weekly composition has failed tremendously - I just don't feel like writing at the moment. Terrible - but what can I do? :PThis is another, imo, rather pointless composition - but I like pointless compositions, as there are no expectations and no regrets connected to them. Just writing anything is fine to me at the moment... Composed by Richard (Ritchie 'Crimson Diamond') Baltrusch.All rights reserved.© 2014
Prelude in Am - Richard Baltrusch Ritchie Diamond 2014-06-25 | pf: FinaleTempo: Allegro (120 bpm)Playing Bach's Italian Concerto really made me feel like writing something Baroque - so here you go. Pretty short, but the first per se Baroque piece I ever wrote. Bits of sequences, loose counterpoint and relatively little ornamentation - but who cares :P Also, for those few that might wait for new videos - I am incredibly lazy at the moment - and also following the World Cup, so I might become even more irregular.... :(Composed by Richard (Ritchie 'Crimson Diamond') Baltrusch.All rights reserved.© 2014
Chromatic Étude - Richard Baltrusch Ritchie Diamond 2014-05-30 | pf: FinaleTempo: Vivace (bpm 140) So here is a short update on what I did a couple of days ago, during approximately two hours. Don't be shocked, yeah, it sounds like the chromatic Chopin étude - I may very well subconsciously have been *very* influenced by that. But! Nevermind. It was fun, it's easier and it's meant specifically for private use, since I am so very bad at chromatic scale playing at the time being. The joys of being a composer! :Dyoutube.com/watch?v=sO1vyRQjmw8Here is the Chopin étude - those of you that want to compare, go ahead. Rather similar - but mine sounds less masterfully done :PComposed by Richard (Ritchie 'Crimson Diamond') Baltrusch and F. Chopin. All rights reserved.© 2014
Sarabande in Gm - Richard Baltrusch (pf: Rolando Gonzalez) Ritchie Diamond 2014-05-24 | pf: Rolando GonzalezTempo: Andante Grazioso (approx 60 bpm) A beautiful interpretation by my friend Rolando Gonzalez, with his original video - this is just a reupload of this video, first uploaded on his own channel (youtube.com/user/gonrolgonrol) a few months past, for those that have missed the uploading of the original video. Feel free to check out Rolando's excellent channel, where he also uploads many very personal and intriguing classical compositions. Many thanks, Rolando! :D Composed by Richard (Ritchie 'Crimson Diamond') Baltrusch. Interpreted by Rolando Gonzalez. Video by Rolando Gonzalez. All rights reserved.© 2013
Flute Quartet: III Finale, op. 9 #3 - Richard Baltrusch Ritchie Diamond 2014-05-16 | pf: FinaleTempo: Allegro (120 bpm)And finally, finally I upload something! :D Had a lot to do these 6 weeks and so I apologise for this channel's longest pause since the very first hiatus. At least I am able to present something more sizeable - the final movement of opus 9, the quartet for four soprano flutes. Kind of crazy this one - modern, with a tinge of jazz harmony to it (I tend to play a lot of jazz piano lately - the minor major seventh dominant chord really sticks to me now :P) Composed by Richard (Ritchie 'Crimson Diamond') Baltrusch.All rights reserved.© 2014
