Yelena Music

From Yelena's Journal:

"One evening while my family was gathering around the dinner table, I realized that I wanted some special background music to listen to, which would stimulate good mood and enhance the pleasure of family time together. I thought it would be nice to listen to classical music that would not sound too dramatic, but rather peaceful and happy. I also wanted my kids to develop tastes for classical music.

At that time I have already had multiple choices of different musical voices at my disposal: with the help of new musical technology a musician like me does not have to hire orchestras, because orchestras of any kind are hidden in various electronic modules. The big challenge for me was to unleash the sounds the way I heard them in my mind. Seems easy, but only in theory. The problem is that electronic voices, even when they are the samples of real life instruments, are still not the same as live ones. They sound real and lively only if you know how to make them sound live.

It took me a long time to master my techniques in order that the music I played by means of my electronic voices would sound no worse than if it was played by the real live instruments. If you know what you are doing with it, digital music can be much more manageable than live orchestra, and you can have much greater variety of sounds as well as better loudness consistency control. And it is much more personal, because both the orchestra and conductor are combined in just one performer. At least that was what I thought at that time, in the middle 1990th, when I just started to experiment with the MIDI and sequencing technology and was excited about my new electronic studio.

The artwork on the jewel case inserts is based on an image of my oil-on-canvas painting that shows a table serving coffee and dessert for two. The set-up for this still life I painted in 1985 was taken from real life."