pateceramics

The undulating eighth motif in the upper notes of the right hand helps glue everything together. Very rich and atmospheric harmonies. It feels like rainy day piece. What were the updates that you made if you don't mind sharing? And it just occurred to me for the first time that your initials could also stand for "Left Hand" as abbreviated in a keyboard score to show the hands swapping position, and I feel like you should play with that to write your name all over a piece. 😄

I hope that if you make a pot of mashed potatoes you eat some and think, "gosh, that's a good mashed potato!" I hope if you clean the bathroom, you look around at the end of the task and think, "that's much better," and then enjoy your shower a little more and know that you have contributed to the comfort of your family or guests. I hope that when you have a project for work or school, you get to the end and look at it as a success. And I hope you can listen to your own music and feel proud of it. The heart of the problem is that we put the creative arts on too high a pedestal compared to our other tasks. That can create all sorts of problems that hinder our music-making. If writing a novel is the work of geniuses, then to attempt to write one as a mere human being is an act of narcissism. If painting is the reflection of the best of the human spirit, then as soon as we reach a certain level of self-awareness in childhood, we are no longer allowed to practice painting, because we aren't good yet, and without practice no one will ever get good enough to reach the standard that we hold artists up to. If we think composers are all inspired by some mysterious ineffable force, then we are not allowed to listen to our own work without complicated feelings of guilt if we think it went well, or shame for having the temerity to write and to share our work if we think it went poorly. None of this helps new art and music make their way into the world. On the other hand, we can look at music and other arts as things that all humans do. Our most ancient hominid ancestors made petroglyphs and cave paintings and pottery, toddlers sing little songs to themselves, college friends spontaneously decide what the choreography of dancing at a particular party looks like for their bodies, and you, writing a thank you note, may be pleased with the way that you choose the words to entertain and fully express your gratitude. Enjoy the process of creating and also the final product without getting wrapped up in yourself. Acknowledge that humans make things. All humans. You, and also everyone else you know. Cheer on your dad's photography projects. Eat the mashed potatoes. Play the piano piece you wrote. Know that none of these things mean anything at all about you or anyone else, other than that we are human, and humans are makers.

Thanks so much for taking a listen, Thatguy! Because we live right on a coyote trail in between a few patches of woods, we see them frequently, usually late at night or early in the morning when we are coming and going with the dog. They are absolutely amazing creatures. After the dramatic rescue of this one, I had to call the team for another one later in the year who had been hit by a car and was hunkered down, hiding in a pile of raked leaves on the sidewalk. She didn't make it unfortunately, but I'm glad they were able to get her to the vet and see what was possible. Yes, when I get a little time I'll sing all the parts. Most people prefer to hear things actually sung, but it's quick to make the midis, so I thought I'd go ahead and get this one out there instead of waiting until I have time to do some recording. If you want a good coyote book, (a bit about wolves too), I recommend "Coyote America" by Dan Flores. It's sort of a history of the United States told through the history of our interactions with coyotes. Coyote stories from various American tribes, the history of early colonization and the expansion of white settlers into the West, the founding of the national parks, a long discomfort with any sort of wildness near our farms, ranches, and homes, and then increasing urbanization and the times in which we live now. I'm always amazed by interactions with wildlife when you actually pay attention. Last summer my neighbor called me over in wonder and distress. She had been pulling Virginia Creeper vines in her yard and had accidentally uncovered a gray catbird nest that she hadn't known was there. She said the sound when she pulled the vine was a heart-wrenching shriek. A few days later, I was pruning the Devil's Darning Needle vine that I run up my porch railing, and one of the catbirds flew over and sat in it a foot from my face and stared me down, while its mate made stressed little chirps from the bush with the nest fifteen feet away in the neighbor's yard. I have never seen one even half that close before. It literally could have hopped onto my hand. It had just had a major family emergency involving a human pulling and trimming vines, and here was a different human, also trimming vines. Not vines that affected it personally, but it was willing to get VERY close to me to see what I was doing and express its worry about my actions. I mentally assured it that I wasn't going to go near its babies, and that neither would my neighbor if she had known they were there, and didn't breathe for a few minutes, and then quietly slipped back inside and let it have the yard to itself to calm down and consult with its family over the ordeal.

In January of last year, four wildlife rescue organizations coordinated to catch a sick half-grown coyote who had been finding refuge under my porch. Coyotes are a protected species in Massachusetts, so before attempting a rescue, they had to get permission from the state. The day that they finally received permission, he disappeared. The temperature dropped to the teens, and we watched the forecast with growing alarm, worried we had missed our chance and he had frozen to death in a hole in the woods somewhere. Finally he reappeared. I saw his feet go by under the porch, and texted the team. Within thirty minutes, six people arrived and made a whispered plan to surround the porch from all sides. Armed with old comforters and sheets of siding we ran in from three directions and blocked off his exits, while other volunteers grappled for him with a catch pole through a basement window. After several tense minutes, with only the sounds of his panicked breathing, the indoor team hauled him through the window and into my cellar, head first. Everyone agreed that if we hadn't gotten him that day, he wouldn't have made it. He was suffering from secondary rodenticide poisoning. At some point in his short life, he had already eaten enough poisoned field mice or rats to be dying of poisoning himself. He was hypothermic, dehydrated, his blood wouldn't clot, and with his immune system nearly non-existent he was almost hairless from an overgrowth in the mites, bacteria, and fungi that are normally a natural and balanced part of the skin biome. He was probably under my porch because there was a little warmth coming through the foundation, ignoring his instinct to avoid humans because he was so desperately cold. After three months of specialist care, he was healthy enough to be released to the wild again. Because coyotes are social animals, and frequently use common trails, it's very probable that members of his family passed by my house in the days after his capture and read the story in the scents on scuffed leaves and churned snow. Thanks to Newhouse Wildlife, Friends of Horn Pond, Cape Ann Wildlife, and Berkshire Wildlife for all their work to advocate for him, to catch him, and to heal him for a return to the woods of New England. Rage forest daughter; Stand and sing. He is everywhere, a scent on snow. He is the unforgiven air. He is the curled leaves. He is everything. He will come back changed. He will come back again. The lost child returns in spring, Traveling over dark water; Stand and mourn forest daughter.

I hope you get a chance to do an actual recording of this! The vocal midis always seem to be the least satisfying of all the midi instrumental fonts, we singers get neglected, but it should be much more emotionally nuanced with a real voice, and it's such a lovely text. Thanks for sharing!

Video with updated score and audio from Oxford's wonderful Korrigan Consort.

I don't have the ones that pronounce syllables either. 🙂. You have some really nice harmonies here. I might suggest either a general marking at the beginning of the piece of a tempo rubato or ad libitum, or some rit. and a tempo markings to help the phrases flow musically. (Good musicians will probably do it, even if you don't mark it, but marking it officially gives them permission). This is great! How long have you been composing?

Hi StripedGazelle, Welcome to the community. You will probably find that you get more engagement with things you post if you include both the pdf and a sound file so people can listen and read along simultaneously without having to get to a piano, or be a particularly good pianist. You can add one here by using the edit function. Most composing software makes it pretty easy to generate one, even if midi voices aren't as nice as a live performance. At a glance, this looks like a great start. Ranges are good and your score is pretty tidy. You have some melismas to make things interesting, but they aren't so long that breathing becomes problematic. (Depending on tempo). Did you have any thoughts about tempo or dynamics?

This topic would make a fascinating thesis for someone. Make a list of under appreciated works, make the case for why they are great, and try to determine why each didn't make as big a splash as other pieces by the same composer... Requires an instrument that's a little harder to find? Premiered at the same time as some other really great pieces, so it got a little lost in the crowd? Composer was going through a difficult patch popularity-wise at the time it premiered because of local politics, a snit with someone influential in their local music community, some known bad behavior? Local tastemakers were promoting a particular type of sound at that moment in musical history, and this was not that? Composer too busy with personal or family obligations to give it a good premiere and it just sat in a drawer for a long time, while their other works gained popularity and became the big pieces in their canon? What are the conditions that make something really gain momentum, and why weren't they met in this case?

This is some really lovely Romantic harmonic language. The sophisticated shifts in mood feel very French, and the consistent left hand helps keep a structure with for the rhythms of the right to bounce off of. I would love to hear how a variety of good pianists would interpret this piece in a competition setting. It would be fascinating to see what emerges with individual interpretation. 🙂 Is there something particular you've been reading that you would recommend? Bravo!

I really like your Agitato, and the slow burn starting material before it. I wonder if some quarter note rhythms in one of the instruments that isn't playing at that point would add structure to help the musicians stay in time well in an actual performance without taking away from the character at that point, since there is so much going on? I thought the sneaking cello pizz. line at 7:00 worked well, and wished it had continued longer. 9:00 reminded me a bit of The Lark Ascending, with cello taking the place of violin. 🙂 Bar 199! So nice! A great contrast from what happens before. If it were mine, I might extend that sound a little longer. This is really great! Thoughtfully put together and expressing a lot of musical ideas, but without feeling too disjointed. Thank you for sharing!

Thank you so much for taking the time to listen! Yes, I did write the text. It's often easier to write what you want than to find a text that discusses a particular topic and that is in the public domain. It often feels like the world is ending lately, between climate change and unstable political situations and Covid, but having someone there with you, even if there is nothing they can actually do to fix anything, makes life a little easier. Over all, I was looking for stillness and simplicity with this piece. I know what you mean that a little chromaticism would have added something, but I didn't want too much lushness, if that makes sense? More, a sense of the plain and the quiet. At the end of the world, things are pretty stark. We're down to the essentials and just quietly sitting. Thank you for sharing your thoughts! I appreciate it!

Yes! Such a good point! It's really easy to get bogged down trying to write something great, and you aren't going to. You don't know enough yet. And the only way to learn what you need to know is to write. So let go of all your expectations and just play. Do try to polish things a bit as you go, incorporating things you are learning in class, but don't get so twisted up about it that you can't put a thought down on paper. The more you write the better you will get. What we think are the major composers' first works almost certainly weren't. Those are the first ones that were good enough to be shared with anyone other than immediate friends and family, and the ones that were good enough that people held on to copies. I can guarantee, they all wrote lots of bad stuff before they started writing good stuff. So go ahead and get your bad writing out of the way as soon as possible so you can learn from it and start getting better. You don't have a finite set of ideas in you, I promise! There is an expression in the game of Go (it's a bit like chess), "lose your first 100 games quickly." You are going to lose. You don't know enough to win. So don't overthink each move, just play a lot, and you'll start getting better.

Hi Eva, Some things that I find helpful... Get your phone out and use it to make an audio recording so you don't have to write down what you come up with at the same time that you are generating musical ideas. Get some ideas to play with first, and then if you can't remember that good harmonic idea you had, you can listen back to your recording. Find a classical piece you have never listened to before, or at least don't know very well. Listen to just the first few bars, while humming along, then turn off the music, but continue humming. You'll have a feeling for how you want it to go next, and then next after that... Inevitably this won't be the same way the original composer developed things. Use that as starting material for one instrument of your quartet, then go back and start expanding the line, adding harmonies for the other instruments, and when you are far enough away mentally from the original piece you listened to that you are sure you aren't accidentally going to copy the composer's ideas note for note, write a fresh beginning. Find a piece of classical music you don't know well and listen while humming with the volume turned WAY down so you can't quite hear what is going on. Even turned down to the point that it becomes almost white noise, you'll still feel a sense of structure coming through your headphones, and your brain will try to fill in all the gaps of what it can't hear. Hum away for a minute or so, then go back and listen to what you hum-recorded and use that as your starting material, expanding on that line and harmonizing it. Go for a walk somewhere with few people and hum or whistle to yourself. There is something about being in motion and the rhythm of footfalls that can just wring music out of you. If you think well at the piano, you can always noodle at the piano, but it sounds like you already do that and are getting stuck, so maybe try getting away from the keyboard? Good luck!

Thanks, Henry! The Washington Heights Community Choir just sang this on Broadway 😲 and then again in Brooklyn, so I felt like, in case those performances generate any extra interest, it would be good to have some fresh demos for people to take a look at. Even if that means they need to hear me singing autotuned bass. Glad you enjoyed it!