My music

Below you can find a collection of old demos, as well as personal notes and descriptions for each track. Some of the tracks were specifically written as demos, some are snippets from various albums of mine. Enjoy!

- Donovan Colton

This track was composed, recorded, and mixed, in one day. It started out as a practice exercise using bass guitars as a melodic instrument (something I love to do), but quickly ended up turning into a huge arrangement.

I recently pulled this song out of my piano sketches and decided to turn it into a full orchestral arrangement. It was a music theory exercise in using the Lydian mode, really trying to not resolve to the tonic, only playing it briefly early on in the track.

Part one of the Cobb Suite demos. The Cobb Suite is a suite I wrote at the beginning of the quarantine lockdown. I wanted to create a very emotional theme, unique to other themes I've written. I also wanted to play as many instruments as I could, and record everything I could live. For the orchestra, I wanted to program as realistically as I knew how, simulating the breathing and movement of players to get a raw and emotional sound.

The suite is heavily based around my felted 1969 Yamaha M3, and I did a ton of experimentation with mics to get my desired sound. I wanted it to be extremely raw, accenting the sounds of the hammers, felt, and the characteristic creaks and cracks of the piano. I also recorded a bunch of guitars both electric and acoustic, electric bass, ukuleles, a bunch of random drums and percussion so I could use as many live instruments as I could by myself.

Part 3 of the Cobb Suite. This is a variation of the main theme, played in a very delicate manor and is the end of the original 12 minute suite. This suite is "unfinished" and I may revisit the themes later on as I progress in my career.

This is a fun one off of an older album, Archives. The goal was to program a quirky violin solo, and create a full theme around it.

This theme was actually written for solo piano years ago, way before I thought it was possible for me to be a professional composer. I've been revisiting it regularly as I've learned more and more how to write for an orchestra. I imagine I will continue to do so for years, if not decades to come. This theme is very near and dear to my heart.