The Making of Beautyquest: Concept, Construction, Content

An album by Stephen Weber, composer/performer

December 1, 2018

Some Background

My new 2018 album Beautyquest, has officially been released (more on that later).
This is an album that took me in a new direction, to some degree musically and
philosophically, but more significantly in terms of conceptual content. Beauty has
always been a fascination of mine. I’ve done considerable readings (Kant,
Beardsley, Schopenhauer, and many others) and research in the area of aesthetics,
beauty and the sublime, even writing papers and presenting at conferences on the
subject. It’s generally understood that beauty is subjective, and I’ve always wanted
to try to define it objectively, but alas, it’s clear that we cannot agree to universal
defining characteristics, elements, and manifestations of beauty.

Personal Perspective and What I Learned

Beautyquest is my own personal perspective and reflection on beauty, its guises, its
forms, its identities, and its characteristics, utilizing the skills and tools available to
me to create, compose, and perform. Once I had adopted the concept upon which
to build tracks on the album, I pursued the creative process vigorously and
relentlessly, trying to make each track more beautiful than the previous one, or
each track a different perspective on beauty than the previous one. Some
discoveries and understandings I made along the way:

• Beauty can indeed be found in various styles, genres, and forms.

• Beauty is not only an external thing, but can be the beauty in people,
relationships, connections, processes, designs, and many other things.
• I have inclinations as to what comprises beauty in terms of instrumentation,
tempo, timbre, harmony, and even key selection.
• The beauty I’m trying to express never comes out as beautiful as how I hear
it in my head.
• Not everyone will find beauty in what I’m expressing in my music.
• Because of my hearing disabilities, I compose on a very sensory plane. I’m
especially inspired by visual images.
 • Beauty is something that deserves our attention and is much-needed in our
world - simple details, ornate decoration, simplicity, symmetry, etc. – yet we
rarely take time to fully immerse ourselves in beauty.

Nature, Process, and Construction of Beautyquest

As I delved further into the project at no point was I devoid of ideas; they came
freely, generally mapped out in my head, then rendered at my workstation. All the
compositions/songs were constructed in essentially a 4-month period. The
spontaneity of this process at my Digital Audio Workstation is the polar opposite
of how I compose “art” music for publishers, for which I use pencil and staff
paper, write everything out away from the keyboard, and then check everything on
the keyboard before I note-set in Finale software. I dare say that I spent more time
finding or crafting the sounds I was seeking than constructing the compositions.
Assuredly, I’ve spent more time on mixing and mastering than on creating the
tracks.

Much of the album centers around nature and the seasons, the source of inspiration
for many of the Romantic composers of the 19th century. The album includes four
songs that have vocals and my own texts. I’m comfortable expressing my ideas
through poetry but singing them proved to be challenging and discouraging as I’m
not happy with the quality of my voice and its limitations. Nevertheless, I was
determined to improve in this area of my musicianship. You have no idea how
many takes I did on the vocal tracks, and I’d rather not think about it.

As the album took shape, the tracks fell into tidy categories. It begins with two
tracks with “rock” ensemble and vocals. The first of these, Beautify Your Corner of
the World, is a plea to appreciate, create, and perpetuate beauty in the world of the
listener and to surround oneself with beauty. The second, Set it Free, is a
conversation about the creator and his/her process, how they take an idea and grow
it into something potentially beautiful. This is followed by a set of four
“Naturescapes” – tracks influenced by nature: Mountainscape, Plains-scape,
Desertscape, and Seascape. This set is followed by the rock ensemble track with
vocals, Guises of Beauty. Then follows a set of three “Scenescapes”: Skyscape,
Nightscape, and Rainscape. The next stand-alone song for rock ensemble and
vocals is Seeking the Sublime, about the quest for those deeply profound
encounters with beauty. The next set of four pieces fall into the category of
“Seasonscapes”: Summerscape, Fallscape, Winterscape, and Springscape, each of
which tries to capture the aspects of beauty unique to each season. The first two in
this set are piano improvisations. The album ends with an improvised acoustic
version of the opening track, Beautify Your Corner of the World, featuring just
piano and voice, a final plea to seek, create, and perpetuate beauty in your world.

1. Beautify Your Corner of the World (Feat. Richard Groce)

Stephen Weber, vocals
2. Set it Free (Feat. Cory Moon)
Stephen Weber, vocals
Naturescapes
3. Mountainscape
4. Plains-scapes
5. Desertscape
6. Seascape
7. Guises of Beauty (Feat. Dystopia of Truth)
Stephen Weber, vocals
Scenescapes
8. Skyscape
9. Nightscape
10. Rainscape
11. Seeking the Sublime,
Stephen Weber, vocals
Seasonscapes
12. Summerscape
13. Fallscape
14. Winterscape
15. Springscape (Feat. Cory Moon)
16. Beautify Your Corner of the World (Improvised Reprise)

The album is 66 minutes in length and is available for download or streaming on

various sites: CDBaby, iTunes, Apple Music, Pandora, iHeart Music Spotify,
GooglePlay, Amazon, my own website, YouTube, and numerous others. Here are
some links to purchase the album if you’re so inclined:

iTunes:
https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/beautyquest/1444242579

Amazon:
https://www.amazon.com/Beautyquest-Stephen-
Weber/dp/B07KRS42SL/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1543699539&sr=8-
1&keywords=Stephen+Weber+Beautyquest
CDBaby:
https://store.cdbaby.com/cd/stephenweber5

GooglePlay:
https://play.google.com/store/music/album/Stephen_Weber_Beautyquest?id=Bgqe
cqlo5aowlanxzaiwjqag6wu

I’ll be doing more blogs on the various tracks, so stay tuned for more.