gaspard

i got it into my mind that i want to make better recordings of stuff i’ve already recorded, but still have it be very much my homemade youtube video style. so John Come Kiss Me Now (Byrd)….itll be my 4th recording and I hope the new one will be the best one out there Robin Hood (anonymous) i made a crappy recording of this one three years ago and i think the piece deserves better. most everything i recorded in the past could be a lot better but i don’t want to overload myself, so I’m sticking with those two right now. Also working on a piece by a living composer but I may wait to record it til I get a full chromatic 4 octaves instead of the short octave virginal which would make it a lot easier. Also, one reason I’m wanting to do robin hood and john come kiss me now, now and not later is because they seem like they were written, perhaps not on a short octave keyboard but a split-sharp, so the stretches in a few cadences are actually easier on a short octave. And like I said Ill be switching my current virginal in for an identical one that had the chromatic octave. you get the idea (maybe). also, i expect a new piece to be finished this spring, it’s a galliard/ corant about 5 minutes long. but the writing of the presentation score could take longer. @PeterthePapercomPoser i didn’t know you were such a pop music fiend

thanks @Luis Hernández, yeah I tend not to ever get too slow and stately just owing to personality, despite the nature of the historical Pavan, and also I feel like long sustained notes are not great on a plucked string instrument. anyways i really appreciate you listening!

I listened and I think you have a really good sense of extended harmony and how to make it “pretty” without being generic at all

Hi everyone, I finally recorded my new Pavan and Galliard…I decided to make the two movements separate videos, unlike how Ive done multi-movement stuff previously. I should probably add some more ornaments to the score but it will be on the videos should you watch. The piece is dedicated to my great aunt. here are the two videos:

@PeterthePapercomPoser Thanks - yeah, I liked the melody, which , despite that the competition stated must be used in a dance form, originates from a 16th century plainchant. I actually didn't read all of the rules before I wrote the piece so I kind of just went with the keyboard figurations over a plainchant because that's what it felt like @Henry Ng Tsz Kiu and @Thatguy v2.0 thanks for listening/ watching.

Here are two dinky renaissance keyboard pieces I wrote for some informal/ goofy competitions on various discord servers....in both cases we were given a theme that we were supposed to use.......Feel free to comment anything at all.

thanks luis, i’m glad you sat through one of my long-winded compositions. Yep, there are still people writing in “historical” styles on period instruments, some of whom genuinely have “something to say”….but I definitely wish it were more. So I hope if nothing else my stuff prods others to do their own creations and that the scene can be a bit more vibrant for composers. I think there’s something about early music being distant enough from our everyday that gives it a novelty that actually makes it very fertile for new music, contrary to what might be assumed (that it is impossible to communicate or say something new and individual in styles that are of the past).

I recently recorded this keyboard piece that took me a while to write - some sections were actually partially written over 4 years ago, some about 3 years ago, and the rest more recently. Unfortunately I was having severe microphone issues and had to re-record some sections using just my phone. Since clavichord is a really quiet instrument, this isn’t ideal at all. But I just wanted to give an explanation as to why the audio quality is different in certain parts. I definitely should record it again on a more robust instrument. The influences are definitely Froberger’s Toccatas, Buxtehude’s organ “preludes”, and probably some other assorted stuff. Im definitely proud of the illuminated letter and it took me a while to make the “presentation” copy of the score….i hope you like it!

I think the orchestration is pretty good - I kind of agree with Peter that while the first group of themes are very capably written and do have drama, the second part (somewhere after the 2 minute mark) sounds more "majestic", it definitely gave me a Bruckner vibe.

@Henry Ng Tsz Kiu thanks, your reviews are something i look forward to whenever i post here. im really glad the narrative structure came through, entertaining interpretations of what’s going on in the story on your part, which is cool because i only had a vague outline of what’s going on myself.

It’s not a “composer death”, but one of the “best” composer near-deaths is a canon ball landing on part of Thomas Tomkins’ house during the English Civil War. A fantastic composer who wrote some great music in his final years, as well as making a kind of last-ditch (and ultimately successful) attempt to preserve some of the music of his age….. a kind of musical hero in some ways.

tchaikovsky 3rd piano concerto is imo his best. when i heard it i was baffled by who it could be because it sounded too complex in certain respects to be a melodic composer like tchaikovsky.

I notoriously prefer outer movements…..but i think my favorite scherzos is probably bruckner 7. Interesting because Bruckner is otherwise often times a very ponderous, plodding composer. but i remember the first time i heard it, the big augmented chord really hit. it manages to have energy and pace but be sort of noble simultaneously. I also think Bruckner 4 is a great scherzo, the quartal moments with the horns really adds to the vibe.

beethovens 9th, bach st. matthew passion, and many, many others, but most of all….. Let it Go from frozen. I never really hear lyrics so i’ll just leave that part alone even though personally i find “letting go“ to be an overrated concept……but the music itself is terrifyingly bland music theater…..not even much if any orchestration at all, just piano.

This is my finihsed competition piece although I haven’t submitted it yet bc i need to get the score in pdf format. It’s really a single movement but you see timestamps because of the programmatic nature of the music. i also recroded it in pieces just to make it easier on myself performance-wise. It should be playable on any keyboard instrument. Edit: Attaching a pdf score.