One Beautiful Sunday - A word from Mel Elias This album has been an immensely satisfying project. Classical/solo instrumentals are great to write because you don't worry about song structure, time, tempo, lyrics and all those potentially limiting things. With the voice of a solitary piano, nothing breaks the delicate connection between the music itself and the inspiration of the music. I also carefully selected the piano sound to complement the material - it is dark, moody and sensual, as are many of the tracks on this album. As an amateur pop and alternative music songwriter, this project is a departure from my comfort zone from both a songwriting and performance standpoint. Thanks to my stubborn dedication, and due in no small part to a little help from modern technology, I am happy to see this “on and off” 3 year project come to a satisfying conclusion…phew! I don't know where these melodies come from, I don't think any songwriter can truly say where the combination of chords and variation of musical phrases germinates, but I think they are inspired from personal experiences and from emotions prevailing at the time of writing. In composing some of these themes, misery was my friend for that moment in time. In other cases, a feeling of happiness drives the song. Whatever the case, writing music forces me to feel deeply and it is that feeling that makes the music come alive. I am so lucky to be given the ability to express myself with music and I make it a point to always be thankful for having an ear and the opportunity to use it. These tunes were written over a few years, modified and added to at my own time and leisure. Some were written in far away places on the piano, and one theme even came to me in a dream. Some were written and recorded within a day and others have been worked on for more than 16 months during which time my own life has changed in so many ways. So when I finally put all the tracks together a few weeks ago and listened to them one after the other for the first time, I knew it was worth releasing these tracks in an album for my own posterity and for anyone else who might have an appreciation for this type of music. I also added a couple of fully instrumented tracks which may, on a first listen, seem out of place. In fact, they are very much included to show the contrast between the purity of the piano and the complication of the full orchestra. The same song played purely with one instrument allows you to focus on the soul of the melody. An orchestrated piece, takes your concentration to the holistic nature of the song, the combination of instruments and the harmonies within - Truth be told, I happen to also love arranging music themes so I couldn't help myself but to add a couple in this collection of songs. Over the past few weeks, I have really enjoyed hearing these pieces before I sleep, or when I read or especially when I travel and need calm. My driving to work music of choice is now this collection and it actually puts me in a good place before facing the chaos of life. There is way too much clutter these days and the subtle message of this CD is to remind the listener to slow down and take the away the complication – life sometimes happens in the spaces between the words and in the silence between the sounds. I hope the music here at least delivers on that promise to the listener. The long and short of it all is that this album is essentially a collection of calming, emotive and cinematic piano instrumental pieces. They can either be just background tunes or they can be as meaningful and real for you as they are for me. Enjoy!!!