Piltdown Music Home Page

Title	Composer(s)	Notes
Raven's Ballad	All compositions available on this webpage are by Mike Shafto unless otherwise noted.	Track 1 of Bedroom Birdwalk.
Minor Skunk		Track 2 of Bedroom Birdwalk.
Crows Know		Track 3 of Bedroom Birdwalk.
Ardilla (Zot 5)		Track 4 of Bedroom Birdwalk.
A Starling Havered In Central Park	Mike and Sylvia Shafto	Track 5 of Bedroom Birdwalk.
Where's My Taskbar?	All compositions available on this webpage are by Mike Shafto unless otherwise noted.	Track 1 of Potboilers. This piece is a wistful reminiscence about the years before May, 2025, those golden years when my Dell Inspiron 3880 ran Windows 11 like a champ. Since that fateful (up)date, I wonder what happened to my WiFi, my WIndows Start menu, and my display settings. For example, "Where's My Taskbar?" The wistfulness of those happy memories is underscored here by a musical allusion to Patti Page. (I'm well aware that I'm not the only Microsoft/Dell customer with these problems, so this one's for all of us.)
Juvenile Junco		Track 2 of Potboilers
Las Chicas
Read the Room
Looking For Lunch (In All the Wrong Places)
Cool Dry June		Our alternative name for the Cherry Mint Tonic cocktail
Taskbar Returns		After 6 months of excruciating frustration and tenacious effort, the taskbar is back, along with some semblance of normal operation. This is not to say that confidence is restored, nor that our limited and no doubt temporary success did not require superpowers. Hence the complex time signatures and melodic allusions to Spiderman audible in this commemorative composition.
Etholén		Track 8 of Potboilers. This is our first experiment using FluidSynth, Qsynth, and General User GS 2.0. The title is from a book, The Etholén Collection, by Pirjo Varjola et al. Helsinki: The National Board of Antiquities of Finland, 1990.
Flickering		Track 9 of Potboilers. We continue using FluidSynth, Qsynth, General User GS 2.0, and other .sf2 libraries..
Kandinsky		Track 1 of Inventing Abstraction
Picasso		Track 2 of Inventing Abstraction
Klee	Rhythm and phrasing are based on Lucky's Monologue from Waiting For Godot, by Samuel Beckett. English translation, Grove Press, 1954, pp. 33-35.
Mondrian Boogie
Schwitters Collage
Delaunay-Terk
Léger
van Doesburg	A bit more influenced by Nelly van Doesburg than by Theo. See also Nelly van Doesburg
Goncharova
O'Keeffe	See also Georgia O'Keeffe's Favorite Music
O'Keeffe 2	Final track of Inventing Abstraction
Desolation Row	Track 1 of Radar Base TX	The eponymous street is actually in Radar Base TX 78852.
Abbey Road		The eponymous road is actually in Radar Base TX, running parallel to Desolation Row.
Fire Fly Lane		Like all the other track titles in this album, "Fire Fly Lane" refers to a road in or near Radar Base TX.
Styx Street		Veterans Day, early morning, cold, dark, foggy. A man -- he might be a ranch-hand -- walks alone, slowly, his gait unsteady. He crosses Monarch Path and continues south on Styx Street toward St. Anne Road.
Monarch Path
Saint Annie Avenue		Representing Stannie Street and Saint Anne Road
El Rico Arrinconado		Representing Riconada Street, Rinconada Street, and Rinconada Road "Ser rico es nada mas que ser arrinconado."
Maverick 2
Del Rio Boulevard
Chaparral Run
Blair the Square		Track 1 of Post-Bop Hymnal Volume 6 Basic ideas adapted from Arnold Schoenberg & Sonny Stitt
SIster Brinley
Silesian Dawn		Inspired by Jimmy Wyble, The Art of Two-Line Improvisation
Transfiguration Blues		How fast can robots play? Almost this fast.
The Hedge of Black Thorns
A Feast of Snacks (take 2)
Granny Salis
Bobo LeBorro
Zot! (take 4)		It's a UC Irvine thing.
Tarskian Fantasy		referring to Alfred Tarski (1901-1983)
Commentary		Final track of Post-Bop Hymnal Volume 6
Joshua Tree		Track 1 of Post-Bop Hymnal Volume 5
No Time Now
Knute's Canoe
Fizzy
Passers-by
Bergen Bounce		Solos based on Eric Dolphy, "Dahomey Dance", (Weimar Project transcription)
Radiation
Lu's Cha Cha
Homino Idea
Cardinals' Inn		Final track of Post-Bop Hymnal Volume 5
Funky Machine 2	All compositions in Post-Bop Hymnal Volume 4 are written, performed, and produced by Jay Shafto	Track 1 of Post-Bop Hymnal Volume 4
WhataMelon
Frying Monkeys
Figments		Track 1 of Post-Bop Hymnal Volume 3
Next To Godliness
Dusty Rails
Frozen Cookie
Sherry With a Cherry
The Missing Riff
Esther
Kiko the Kook
Mercer County
Verity		Final track of Post-Bop Hymnal Volume 3
Revival 75		Track 1 of Post-Bop Hymnal Volume 2
Behind the Scenes
Cooking at Versace Slim's
Codex
Mambo 98	Jay Shafto and Mike Shafto	Based on an etude by John McLaughlin
Mambo Pajambo
Encyclopedic
Hawking (no horns)
Hawking
Algeciras		Final track of Post-Bop Hymnal Volume 2
Firmament		Track 1 of Post-Bop Hymnal Volume 1
Music Mouse
Ornery Theology
Bird Suit
Apology
Pile of Pearls
Heptalogy
Sylviazation
Barbecue Blues		Final track of Post-Bop Hymnal Volume 1
Assurance		Track 1 of Assured Aggregates
Immer Denken
Yum Yum Sauce	Mike Shafto & Sylvia Shafto
They Left It On Top Of My Tesla
Spangles		A tribute to the Spangles restaurants of Wichita, Kansas "Baby, a Spangles burger will never do you wrong. All those other nowheresville burgers? Those are for squares."
Proximity
Aggregation
Fount of Ambiguity
Leviticus 19
Romans 7
Grey Dunes		Final track of Assured Aggregates
Dogs Got Rhythm		Track 1 of Jazz Concentrate
Tucumcari
Hard To Light
iThing
Poco Roboto
One For Erik
Concrescence
Entitled
Untitled
Blue Potato Blues		Final track of Jazz Concentrate
Modern Narrative		Selected tracks from the album Next
Good Faith Blues
Donuts and More
Extra Buttons
Circuit Breaker
I Remember Gerald
Laveyda
Three Shirts and a Coffee Maker		revised June 12, 2022  Last selected track from the album Next
		Revised March 4, 2022
Horizontal In Harrisburg
Pleasure Principal
Committee For Nostalgia		Selected tracks from the album Quickies
Cucumber Vine
El Hugo
Drizzle Trove
Lion's Court
Lacking a Lady
Ray Ray 4U
Phroebe		revised June 10, 2022
Marblino 4		revised June 9, 2022 Last selected track from the album Quickies
Vavau		First track of Selections from Shakedown Not Vava'u, the island group in Tonga. Vavau, the village in Upolu, Samoa.
Parametric
The Library Song (781_655)		781.655 is the Dewey Decimal code for Modern Jazz.
Lake Tower Song Flower
Night
Phosphine		Not phosphene.
Stoking It		There's no "r" in "stoking".
Nigel's Summer Home		Final track of Selections from Shakedown
X43		First track of selections from the album Sketches of Legrand Jazz, an homage to Michel Legrand's great album from 1958.
Possible Birds
Angle of Attack		revised June 6, 2022
Latter Days
Dance Nuance
Pomona
Evasion
Baylands
Mid-Afternoon		Final track of Selections from Sketches of Legrand Jazz
Dance for Five Angels		First composition of 2020 Five Angels Image by Giovanni di Paolo Condé Chantilly
Tribute to Charles Ives		The only intentional intersection with Charles Ives's music is through allusions to and quotations of the hymn tune "My Faith Looks Up to Thee", pp. 67-68 in The Charles Ives Tunebook (Clayton W. Henderson, second edition, Indiana University Press, 2008).
Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night		Based on the famous poem by Dylan Thomas
James 5		Based on James 5 (New Testament NRSV)
Self-portrait in a Convex Mirror, Part 1		The eponymous poem is by John Ashbery
Self-portrait in a Convex Mirror, Part 2
Self-portrait in a Convex Mirror, Part 3
The Ice Storm		The eponymous poem is by John Ashbery
Etude No. 1 ("Aspects of 20th Century Music")		After examples in Aspects of 20th Century Music by Richard DeLone et al., ISBN 0-13-049346-5
Etude No. 2 ("Lament")		After Henry Purcell, Aria from Act III of Dido and Aeneas, "Remember Me"
Etude No. 3 ("Adagietto")		After Mahler: "Adagietto," Fifth Symphony, 4th Movement
Wagner 429		Selected studies based on songs and motifs from Wagner's operas.  429 is based on Parsifal.
Wagner 364		Die Meistersinger
Wagner 310		Tristan und Isolde
Wagner 251		Götterdämmerung
Wagner 191		Siegfried
Wagner 152		Die Walküre
Symphony 1 ("The Man With the Blue Guitar") in one movement		The poem by Wallace Stevens
Symphony 2 ("Owl's Clover") in one movement		The eponymous poem by Wallace Stevens
Symphony 3 ("Foreign Song") 1st Movement		Based on "Earthy Anecdote" by Wallace Stevens
Symphony 3 ("Foreign Song") 2nd Movement		Based on "In the Carolinas" by Wallace Stevens
Symphony 3 ("Foreign Song") 3rd Movement		Based on "Invective Against Swans" by Wallace Stevens
Symphony 3 ("Foreign Song") 4th Movement		Based on "Of Mere Being" by Wallace Stevens
Symphony 4 ("The Comedian As the Letter 'C'") 1st Movement		Based on The Comedian as the Letter 'C' by Wallace Stevens "The World without Imagination"
Symphony 4 ("The Comedian As the Letter 'C'") 2nd Movement		"Concerning the Thunderstorms of Yucatan"
Symphony 4 ("The Comedian As the Letter 'C'") 3rd Movement		"Approaching Carolina"
Symphony 4 ("The Comedian As the Letter 'C'") 4th Movement		"The Idea of a Colony"
Symphony 4 ("The Comedian As the Letter 'C'") 5th Movement		"A Nice Shady Home"
Symphony 4 ("The Comedian As the Letter 'C'") 6th Movement		"And Daughters with Curls"
Symphony 5 ("Ghosts") 1st Movement
Symphony 5 ("Ghosts") 2nd Movement
Symphony 5 ("Ghosts") 3rd Movement
Symphony 5 ("Ghosts") 4th Movement
Symphony 10, 2nd Movement
Symphony 10, 3rd Movement
Symphony 10, 4th Movement		Influenced by Ellen Taaffe Zwilich's String Quartet No. 2, Second Movement
Symphony 18.5, Movement 1 ("Softly and Tenderly")		Based on the hymn by Will L. Thompson
Symphony 18.5, Movement 2		Variations on "Oh, Dear, What Can the Matter Be?"
Symphony 18.5, Movement 3 ("I Know Where I'm Going")		Based on the Scottish or Irish folk song
Symphony 18.5, Prelude to Movement 4
Symphony 18.5, Movement 5		Using thematic material from The Hymnal of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America. (1940). New York: The Church Pension Fund
Symphony 21 ("Easter Story"), Prelude		Jesus travels to Bethany and brings to life, after four days in a tomb, His friend Lazarus.
Symphony 21 ("Easter Story"), 1st Movement		Anointing at Bethany: Mary, sister of Lazarus, anoints Jesus' feet with expensive perfume.
Symphony 21 ("Easter Story"), 2nd Movement		Palm Sunday, Olivet Discourse: Jesus makes His Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem. Monday: Jesus enters the Temple and cleanses it of money-changers and vendors. Tuesday: Jesus teaches extensively in Jerusalem, including the ominous Olivet Discourse.
Symphony 21 ("Easter Story"), 3rd Movement		"Spy" Wednesday: Judas Iscariot meets with authorities, betraying Jesus for 30 pieces of silver. Maundy Thursday: Jesus celebrates Passover with his disciples (The Last Supper) and prays at the Garden of Gethsemane.
Symphony 21 ("Easter Story"), 4th Movement		Good Friday: Jesus is condemned and sent to Calvary for execution and entombment. While Jesus is entombed, soldiers keep watch to prevent anyone from stealing His body.
Symphony 21 ("Easter Story"), 5th Movement		Easter Sunday: Women discover the empty tomb, and angels declare that Jesus has risen.
Symphony 21 ("Easter Story"), Postlude		The resurrected Jesus appears to Mary Magdalene and later to more than 500 disciples and followers.
Symphony 21 ("Easter Story"), Finale		Before ascending to Heaven, Jesus promises to return at some indefinite time in the future.
Push	Jay Shafto	Legacy 1995. Composed for a Pomona College dance concert. Remastered from tape by Production Value Productions for Piltdown Music.
Studio Jam Drone Original	Jay Shafto	Legacy
Studio Jam Drone piltdown	Jay Shafto	Legacy
Studio Jam Drone distortion	Jay Shafto	Legacy
Angular Momentum		ca. 1999
Kyrie	Unknown	Swing adaptation for 8-string guitar, ca. 1999
Techno Thing	Jay Shafto	2001
Angel Eyes	Earl Brent & Matt Dennis	Dorsey Brothers Music, 2001
One For My Baby	Johnny Mercer & Harold Arlen (Harwin Music)	And One More for the Road. 2003
Caine Plain		Based on a solo by Uri Caine. 2003
Cat Man Do		2005
Calorita		2006
Chocolate Sox		A new arrangement of a tune from the 1960s
Jazz for Feldman		Legacy 2006
Geeks of Lacey Station (take 2)		Legacy 2006
You Made Me Love You (I Didn't Want To Do It)	Joe McCarthy & James V. Monaco (Broadway Music Corp.	2007