Blessed are the Merciful

There are some things I write that I find I cannot leave alone. Wendy reminds me from time to time that I should be writing more new music. But then I find I don't feel like I'm quite done with an older piece.

Blessed are the Merciful is one of those pieces. It was originally written for choir and did get a performance. But then it has sat on my hard drive. Looking back at the piece now, while I like the actual melodic lines, I'm not happy with the setting of the text. So I thought I would try to orchestrate it.

Now that I have Garage Band and the Symphony Orchestra Jam Pack, I have some better sounds to work with. Still there are places where I want a more legato line and the realization of the score is not doing that for me. I still think there are some really interesting moments in this version. But I'm still feeling my way around Garage Band and how to make things sound better.



[ Link ] to Blessed are the Merciful.

Microtune, #4 (Fanfare for Change, yes we can!)

Writing a fanfare I think is one of the best things to do. The older I get the more important I think it is to just let go and do things that you enjoy. A fanfare should capture that feeling. It should also have a sense of the anticipation and hope of what is to come.

This has been a two week period in which the word "Change" has been thrown around quite a bit. I, among many people, feel that it is time for change-in our national outlook and in Washington, DC. So with that in mind I decided to call this one "Fanfare for Change, yes we can!" (And yes, I am an Obama supporter.)



[ Link ] to Microtune, #4

Microtune, #2 (The hand held game)

After listening to one of my previous microtunes, my friend, Boris, asked me "Is this micromalism..?" I think he might be on to something here. We've had Minnmalism--now is it on to Micromalism? In an age where most communication is cut into small packets to be sent as a TCP/IP message across the World Wide Web, perhaps this is to be expected? I don't know.

I do know that this Microtune #2 makes me think of one of the hand held games that my sons play. We're in some kinda of crazy jungle and we have to jump above rolling balls in order not to be flatten by them.



Link to Microtune, #2

And yes, sometimes technology is a pain...

Today I've been cleaning up this blog a bit. I wanted to add a few more microtunes I've been working on and such. Unfortunately I found out there was what looked like a bug in Firefox 3 that meant the audio players I'm trying to embed in the posts wasn't showing up. So I checked Internet Explorer, and it was working there.

Sigh...

Wouldn't it be nice if there was just one way to play back a mp3 file. As it is I think QuickTime needs to be downloaded on the system for these players to even work.

Oh joy. oh bliss.

Now back to music things.

Microtune, #9 (The dying bassist)

Here's my next microtune. For some reason, when I listen to this it sounds like the bassist isn't doing too well, and in the end, just kind of dies off. There is something silly about this, and I like that.



Link to Microtune, #9

Microtune #10

I'm back to my mircotunes. Here's a small dance number--sounds like something I could use as the basis for a whole piece.



Link to Microtune, Day 10

Tune of the Week

http://tinyurl... my tune of the week. (mp3 file)