Music from this Semester

This last semester was a great one for me for several reasons, but firstly because I got three recordings from this semester! (the player for them is at the bottom of this post (the player won't display the song titles, but I put them in the order that the player will play them))

Death of Death Reading this was my reading of my senior project, my wind ensemble piece. This is the project that I literally spent over a thousand hours writing. Honestly I think it took so long because everything takes me a long time... I mean I have several songs that I have spent over a year writing out on my guitar... and they still aren’t done. Regardless, this piece and recording were ultimately the culmination of my degree. The conductor, Dr. Kish, thinks he is funny apparently...

Glow Reading, I also posted this piece on this blog when it was beginning. This was my first choral piece which was set to a text I wrote. I have had several complaints about the text by people, but I have also had several people tell me that they love the text... Which is pretty funny. I have never considered that I would one day be the center of a love/hate argument, but it is what it is, I suppose. I feel like this piece can also use some work, I feel like it has some pacing issues, and I could quiet the arguments that people make about the text. There is one line that states “grace us with your putrid stank” that seems to be the line that really sets others off.

Your Wildest Dream is a piano piece that was performed by my friend Margo. She performed it in my schools Monday recital class and did a great job. The piece is built off of a synthetic scale, so in a literal way it is atonal, but there is definitely a tonal center that you can hear. But it follows no normal rules (ie using I-V7-I). This piece was supposed to be a short score for orchestrating a six-eight instrument work, but I ended up liking it more as a piano piece. It is actually the piece that I am talking about three posts earlier. I didn’t realize that until I began to write this out. I feel like I could create more pieces using this scale, and make this a suite.

Just so I can make you mad... or so you can love me
here is the text:

Glow!
Oh fire of tires
Burn in defiance
To rain
Blasphemy snow
Whose purpose is to make you dry
Grace us with your putrid stank
That makes eyes water and lungs
Stop
Other fires sway to the will of anyone or anything
But I say Glow!
Let the world see, know, feel, who you are
Lonely
Scared
Vulnerable
Damaged
Sinner
Let the world feel, know, see, the weight of who you are
Glow!

My composition teacher Cherise Leiter gave me some advice for Putrid Stank, she said to change the context of the word to offend less people. So stink stink stank. I think that it is a pretty good idea. (but she still liked it the way that it was)