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The music I compose is heavily based on baroque, classical,
romantic and modern concepts within a progressive rock
context. In a generalized sense, it is of the neoclassical
and progressive genres. The progressive side of my music
contains extremely complex rhythms, exotic scales, and
unusual harmonic underpinnings. All of my music is composed
note for note on paper, or a score editor, before ever
picking up a guitar. It is not until after everything is
written that I begin the process of learning the parts and
distributing the scores to the players, which for the
recordings is me on the guitar, bass, and keyboards, and
Marco Minnemann on drums. When I was originally signed I
had sent the record label hundreds of pages of sheet music
for the musicians to learn. The label was like..."What's
this? We've never done it this way before." Or
something to that effect anyway. But, I am meticulous with
my composing, were every single note has a place, every
chord a function, and all with detailed performance notes.
Composing is an extreme passion of mine that has not
dwindled since I first started writing. The musicians that
appear on my albums are of the world's highest caliber
players, of which I am very grateful to have worked with.
On several of my most recent releases I have recorded with
world class drummer Marco Minnemann. And throughout my
career I have also recorded and/or played live with: Dean
Castronova, Virgil Donati, Ansley Dunbar, Mike Terrana,
Vitalij Kuprij, Matt Guillory, Mistheria, Trent Gardner,
Phil Mogg, John West, Mark Boals, Michael Batio, Uli Jon
Roth, Joe Stump, and many others.
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AIMS AS A MUSICIAN / GUITARIST |
To be highly creative while composing unique music that
utilizes classical compositional elements as well as modern
elements. The progressive side of me really enjoys writing
music that I haven't heard before. And the classical side
of me enjoys composing rich contrapuntal textures, romantic
harmonic and thematic schemes, simple and elaborate forms,
and creatively detailed instrumentation. Aside from
composing, I also very much love to improvise. All the
solos on every album I have done have been improvised; some
were first takes, and other times it took more than one pass
until I was happy with the expressionism, performance, and
melodic sensibilities of the track. Since I was very young
I have always strived to learn about and develop my
performance and composing skills to the nth degree and
beyond. I am never satisfied with rehashing the same old
forms, methods, and techniques. I constantly yearn for new
ideas and composing techniques that I haven't used recently,
or at all for that matter.
As a guitar player I have always strived with the utmost
discipline to be as proficient as I could possibly be. As
an example, when I was very young I practiced excessively
for 10 - 18 hours per day on a Fender acoustic that had .013
- .058 gauge strings. And I mean intense workouts with
minimal or no breaks. I was very hard on myself and
constantly pushed my physical abilities. During that period
my finger tips on my fretboard hand were black and green,
yes, thats right, black and green.
Another aim as a composer has been to musically project my
inquisitiveness for the grand scheme of things; by using
inspiration from my fascination of science, in particular,
astrophysics. Scientists that have fueled my imagination
include: Albert Einstein, Carl Sagan, Stephen Hawking,
Michio Kaku, Amy Mainzer, Brian Greene, and several others.
Another keen interest of mine is mathematics, which is
profoundly evident in my fondness for intricate rhythm
writing. I began studying composition when I was very young
and feel quite fortunate to have discovered some of the best
books ever written on the subject. I completely immersed
myself in the study and development of harmony,
counterpoint, orchestration and form, as well as intensely
focusing on my performance skills as a guitarist. It has
always been a fine balancing act for me to juggle between
performance and composition, but I can't imagine it any
other way.
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TELL US MORE ABOUT YOUR LION MUSIC RELEASES |
George Bellas - Venomous Fingers
Coming from Shrapnel Records, this was my first release on
Lion Music. The album is a combination of neoclassical and
progressive instrumental styles. Some of the tracks on here
are very progressive which contain odd-meters, an abundance
of modal concepts, rich guitar orchestration, and a plethora
of improvised solos. Other tracks are more straight ahead
rhythmically and include counterpoint, classical based
progressions, lyrical melodies, as well as virtuosic
instrumental melodies. A few of the pieces on this album
are short contrapuntal songs that have an improvisational
character
Palace Terrace - Flying Through Infinity
This
is a vocal album in the neoclassical and progressive
styles. The album continues
with
what has been exemplified in my previous releases, only this
time with vocals. Contrapuntal vocal lines, colorful
orchestration, recurring themes, and rhythms ranging from
simple to the complex are all characteristic of what is
presented in these songs. As usual with other instruments
on my releases, all music was written before any vocals and
guitars were recorded. I normally write an album within a 3
- 4 week period, have the drums recorded within a week or
so, and all the other instruments done relatively quickly
too, but this album took longer to complete than what I had
anticipated, which is evident by the gap between this and my
previous album
George Bellas - Planetary Alignment
This is an extremely modern and highly unique progressive
album that contains a myriad of exotic scales, complex
rhythms, unconventional harmonic schemes, and outlandish
melodies. Composing this album began with writing rhythmic
motives, which were then used to write the drum parts for
every song. After all the drum parts for each song were
written, I then decided on scales, melodies and chords.
This approach aided in the uniqueness of the final product.
The album is very unique in the sense that it uses many
elements that a lot of people do not incorporate or have
even heard for that matter.
George Bellas - Step Into The Future
This is a progressive album containing a single 75 min
song. It is not several songs that were segued together
after the fact, but it was indeed written as one continuous
piece. It was not my intention to write such a lengthy
song, it just came out that way naturally. The album is
atonal in nature and has a plethora of modern compositional
elements that include: quartal and quintel harmony, 12-tone
serialism, odd-meters, poly-meters, all displayed throughout
various textures of this colossal piece.
George Bellas - The Dawn Of Time
This is a neoclassical and progressive instrumental album
that contains a CD packed with 19 songs. The aim for this
album was to compose a collection of songs that was more
accessible than my previous release. So, I strived for
shorter approachable songs that were tonal in nature and at
the same time exploratory. I actually had more music than
is possible to fit on a CD, so I had to cut some of the
notes, which was a challenge all unto itself. Since the
title of the album is "The Dawn Of Time", I suppose one can
consider the missing notes the 'dark matter' of the disc.
Shawn Lane Remembered : Volume 1
On
this compilation release I composed a fusion style song
entitled
"Always Remembered" for the late guitarist Shawn Lane. The
piece is played in a slow tempo while traversing through
jazzy chords and progressions. The melody on top is mostly
lyrical, with the exception of a few radical outbursts of
intervalic based lines. The arrangement, rhythm, and
orchestration are all relatively simple, it is the
expressive melodic content that really carries this piece
along.
Mistheria : Messenger Of The Gods
As a guest artist I collaborated with keyboard wizard
Mistheria on several songs on this album. There are some
insane sections were he and I trade some over-the-top
improvised solos.
Vitalij Kuprij : Forward And Beyond
As a guest artist I collaborated with keyboardist
extraordinaire Vitalij Kuprij on this release. I have
worked and recorded with Vitalij many times in the past, but
this was our first time together on a Lion Music release.
As always, Vitalij and I captured some raging solos played
over some intensely driving material.
Marco Ferrigno : Hanging Gardens
As a guest artist I collaborated with guitarist and composer
Marco Ferrigno on this release, of which I performed several
solos and melodies. The music is progressive with a very
nice open sounding production.
Mistheria - Dragon Fire (coming soon)
As a guest artist I once again collaborated with keyboardist
Mistheria on several tracks for this release. I won't
reveal to much as this album has yet to be released
(tentatively slated for late 2010), but I will say it
contains some insane improvisation interplay between us!
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ANY OTHER PROJECTS YOU ARE WORKING ON? |
A few months ago I completed the writing for another album
and will begin the recording in the next few weeks. This
album is heavily immersed in Romanticism and uses some
highly advanced forms that I have not used on any of my
previous releases. More details regarding this newly
written album will be revealed after "The Dawn Of Time" is
released.
GUITARS
Fender '57 Stratocasters
Gibson Flying V's
Gibson Les Paul's
Ovation Acoustics
Fender Precision / Jazz Bass
Musicman Stingray Bass
AMPS
Marshall JCM 800
Marshall 1976 MKII
Marshall 1977 JMP
Marshall JCM 900 (several, each equipped with different
tubes)
Ampeg SVT Classic
MISC.
Ibanez TS9
NOS Tubes
Sennheiser MD421 Microphone
Sure SM57 Microphones
Mogami Cable
Dunlop Jazz III Picks
Dean Markley .010 - .046 gauge strings
Apple Computers
Logic Pro DAW
Abbey Road EQ and Compression
Apogee Rosetta 800 Converter
Apogee Big Ben Wordclock
Coleman Audio SR5.1 Sound Distribution
Focusrite Red Series Mic Preamps
Mackie Monitors
Alesis, Roland, and Studiologic Keyboards
RME audio cards
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WHERE CAN PEOPLE GET MORE INFO ON YOU? |
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PARTING MESSAGE TO THE READERS |
Click the banner below for all the information on
George's amazing new album.
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