For the next 20 years Alistair put his musical interests on the back burner as he studied Artificial Intelligence at Middlesex University and built a career in Information Technology management and consultancy. Today, Alistair continues to build upon his IT career while also making a bit more time for creating and publishing music.
The inspiration behind Alistair's music largely derives from film and TV scores, and as the short clip below demonstrates, one can get a bit too much inspiration sometimes!
The site alistairjohnston.com is built using Freeway 5 Pro. The music is created using a USB piano keyboard (M-Audio Keystation 61es) sequenced with Logic Express 8 on an Apple MacBook. The early compositions used instruments that are included in Logic Express 8 and GarageBand '08. The more recent pieces feature the Authorized Steinway Virtual Concert Grand Piano by Garritan and orchestral instruments from Garritan Personal Orchestra v4.0.
The scrolling scores are generated by Logic Express 8; recorded using iShowU HD; edited with iMovie '08, and converted into Flash animations using Wasp. And many of the photographs on the site (and the album cover artwork) were taken by Alistair's wife, Marianne.
A selection of Alistair's music is currently playing on Jango, a US-based internet radio station. Jango's analysis suggests that people who like Alistair's music also listen to John Williams, Billy Joel, Ennio Morricone and Johann Sebastian Bach (see below).
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