TV Times

TV Times

Justin creates computer music
Justin Warrington Abeywardena, a classical guitarist and one time music director has embarked on a unique journey to create orchestral music on the computer and has so far successfully composed 80 melodies in the past year,

Mr. Abeywardene who is a graded radio artiste since 1960 has in the course of his musical career composed music for several short films such as ‘Bagna Asha’ and ‘Eliya’ and for feature films such as ‘Tharanga’, ‘Sevenali Eda Minissu’ and ‘Biththi Hatara’. He was also the first Sri Lankan to hold a one and a half-hour long solo classical guitar recital at the Lionel Wendt in 1964.

Mr. Abeywardene returned to Sri Lanka after working overseas for over a decade two years ago and has since plunged full time into creating music. ‘ I have studied music at a very young age and with the help of that education as well as my knowledge in computers, I was able to use the various musical packages to create the new melodies’ he said. ‘The new music I have generated, can be used either as instrumentals or as background music for films and teledrams or can be used by individual singers’ he explained.

The unique thing about the computer-generated music is that one can achieve the music that is created by an orchestra minus all the musicians and instruments. “It is ready made music you could say. You only have to put in the lyrics and sing and you have your song,” Mr. Abeywardene said.

He added that even though this concept is rather new in Sri Lanka, it is use in most western countries as it is less costly and also less time consuming. Mr. Abeywardene also said that the melodies are fully orchestrated for brass, woodwind, strings and percussion and musical instruments in the computer programme are used in a variety of ways to amplify the rich diversity of harmony of four part writing of western music.

Justin Abeywardene who is a dedicated classical guitarist said the guitar remains is first love but he now plays as a hobby while indulging in creating more melodious melodies through the modern medium of computers.

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