(October 24, 2015) Although I have dedicated
pieces to people who were not my students, this is the first piece that I have
written that was intended, from the beginning, for a person who is not my
student.This was written for Amy West,
whose older brother Ryan studied with me his last four years of high school,
and whose sensitive playing of Mompou’s “Pajaro triste” resulted in lots of
YouTube fan mail.
During a break in lessons I heard her practicing
across the hall, and was impressed with her musical growth, and decided to
write something for her.She studies with
my colleague Sally Traylor, who likes to pass her gifted students to me when
they reach a certain performance level.And she teaches young beginners in a way that I envy.
I asked Amy if she wanted something melodic and reflective, or a little bit flashy. I began work on a piece titled "Allegro Burlesco", but then this happened.
This is one of five or six Christmas carol arrangements I did sometime in the mid-nineties. I'm not sure of the year, but there was a video made at First Baptist Church on the Square in LaGrange, GA, of what I recall to be the first performance of this arrangement. I have played this one more than any of the others through the years, and it works quite well on an electronic keyboard, as the video below demonstrates. It is a Casio Privia PX-160, purchased November 7, 2015 at Sam Ash Music in Atlanta.
(September 5, 2015) This simple piece is based on a pattern similar to "Guitar Serenade", but simpler. Five-finger positions move stepwise down the keyboard, with some basic harmonic and melodic interval work. It is dedicated to my student Haylee Ward, who started lessons with me in the summer of 2015. She is currently studying the piece, and I hope to make a video of her playing it soon.
(October 10, 2015) This piece also has a bit of a checkered past, but I am pleased with the results. It began in D minor, a key I tend to overuse when I am feeling contemplative. I also discovered that the middle section was "self-quoted" (a device that worked well when Francis Poulenc did it, but Senator, I'm no Francis Poulenc..) and was basically a rewrite in 3/4 time of the middle section in "Dreamer's Nightfall".
I recast it in C minor and rewrote the middle section. And to me it sounded a bit "Pathetique". (Like many other people with "absolute pitch", I associate certain tonalities with certain emotions.) Then I tried recasting it again, this time in B minor - and to me the piece sounds plaintive, but not too over-the-top sad. And B minor it became.
I shared the video and got some good remarks from my friends. Among them was pianist David De Lucia, who recorded my Romance in D Flat, the first commercial recording of any of my music. David is an opinionated person, and when he likes something he likes it - but when it doesn't light his fire, he will let you know. SO... other attempts to dedicate a piece to him in the past have hit a dead end.
Not this one. He replied "Remarkably beautiful. This could pass as a sketch for a rediscovered Faure Nocturne!" Perhaps a touch effusive, a trait we are both "guilty of", but I'll take it. My original dedicatee, who never knew the piece was coming, will have to "get another piece" in the future, and this became my "thanks offering".
And here is a performance from a "Meet the Composer" workshop on November 21, 2015 on the campus of Jacksonville State University, sponsored by the Northeast Alabama Music Teachers Association. This is the first time, believe it or not, that I have played it on a nine-foot grand, and my first performance at JSU since 1984.
(July 9,
1996) "Cut" time, F major. Composed in one
sitting during a thirty-minute break between lessons. Lots of sophisticated jazz-like harmonies and some simple double-note work.
Dedicated to Elizabeth Collins, who gave the first performance in the
winter of 1997. I have used this piece many times as a church offertory, and I must confess that it has grown on me through the years.
The day of this posting, October 24, 2015, is Elizabeth Collins's 31st birthday. Happy Birthday, Elizabeth! Do you still play this?
(1997-2012)This started as a French valse for the
left hand alone in D major, and in my opinion was a very strong work. The original dedicatee, Tiffany Oliver, did not
like the work and would not perform it, because she felt it had too many
leaps. I transposed it to D-flat major
and recast it for two hands as Valse lente.
As it shares some motivic shape with the Sonatine first movement, I
added a coda and recast it as the second movement of the Sonatine. This piece has had a longer "gestation period" than any of my pieces, until when - or if - that first movement of the Sonatine ever comes to light,
When I decided not to release the Sonatine
as a three-movement work, I reverted to the “Valse lente” title for a brief
time. In its most recent and most
drastic makeover (2012) I recast it in 6/8 time, tidied up the middle section,
removed an obvious Ravelian flourish in the coda, retitled it “Autrefois” (In Olden Days) and dedicated it to Angelyn
Traylor.
Not only has this work given me a huge amount of "composition" trouble, I have frankly had a mental block in performing it to my satisfaction! The following video will simply have to do until I grab the bull by the horns and make a better one - or perhaps I can sweet-talk a colleague who lacks the "baggage" that I have with it. Lucy Wenger? Chase Kimball?
(July 28, 2015) One day I arrived a little early for my first lesson, and told the church music department secretary "I think I'll go on upstairs and try to write something." I did, and this is the result. It is dedicated to that secretary, Barbara Grantham,
I was aiming at an intermediate-level etude in broken-chord passage work, with a more climactic middle section. I posted a "scratch video" to Facebook and got positive comments from friends. A few adjustments here and there, and I am now happy with the result.
(February 2, 1993) This piece was practically written at one sitting, with the fair copy completed in the next day or so. This began a little "creative spurt" which resulted in my writing "Reverie" and "On Your Toes" (unpublished), as well as "Solitude", "Passacaglia", and "Improvisation". It was first performed by student Michelle Greene. The "first version" was in 3/4 time, and I later recast it in 6/8 to make the phrasing more apparent. This revised version is dedicated to my former student Erin Willoughby, who now practices law in Atlanta.
It has been a favorite of mine for years, and I have played it many times at weddings, social gatherings, and in church services. I was surprised to realize that it took me until 2015 to make a video.
(November 27, 2014) My first "blues", and my only one so far. Based on the standard 12-bar blues, this piece contains a few veiled references to Beethoven's immortal (and overplayed) "Fur Elise". (Imagine the umlaut, y'all.) It is, of course, dedicated to the mysterious Elise.
(February 20, 2015) This piece was written from the beginning with a specific student in mind, as a reward to Kirsten Williams for her hard work during the school year. I had planned to give it to her as a reward to "grow into", as it was above the level of the Faber Piano Adventures book that she was playing in. She took to it immediately and played it in the spring piano recital.
From the beginning she surprised me with her weekly progress, and she didn't see her teacher shedding an occasional tear as she played in the lesson. But I guess she knows now.
The opening section was written to "walk" the student through small stepwise changes in hand position. The middle section is a little more difficult, but she was motivated and learned it quickly.
(November 10, 2014) A slow, mournful melody over a block chord accompaniment - similar to "Arietta", but with more of a Baroque feel. It is dedicated to the memory of my dear friend Patricia Walters McCuiston, who succumbed to stage 4 lung cancer, living less than a month after her diagnosis. Her daughter Tabitha studied piano with me.
I was inspired somewhat by William Gillock's "Sarabande" when I began this piece, but in the end I felt the melody was more in the vein of an arioso, and didn't lend itself to much sarabande-y ornamentation. I have used it as an offertory in church services as well.
(March 5, 1993) This piece is admittedly based on the same little motive as "Reflections Past". For this reason, it sat unplayed for several years. Eleven years later, I decided it was worth saving and gave it to Hillyer Jennings, who took it up and performed it on his high school senior recital in the spring of 2005. The piece is dedicated to Hillyer, who is now a graduate of Harvard Law School and is practicing law in London. (So. learn this piece and see how far it takes you. I'm just saying.) It is currently the closest thing to "jazz" that I have attempted.
I have also used this as service music (offertory) and played it as wedding prelude music.
(February 16, 1996) "Reflections Past" is a wistful piece, almost in the manner of a movie "love theme". I like to think that the memories here are more happy than sad - perhaps a look back to happier times. It is dedicated to my former student Melanie Richburg Hall, who at the time was a high-school senior and performed it in a solo recital in the spring of 1998. I have used it as well in church services as a prelude or offertory. In March 2003 I played it at her wedding reception.
(February 4, 1993) "Solitude" was written at one sitting during a break between lessons, and first performed by Beth Cleaveland, in the spring recital of that year. Now she is Beth Cleaveland Smith, married and raising a family, and probably wishes she HAD more "solitude"!
This is also one of the few pieces that I have written that included student "input". During an early lesson, Beth over-reached a broken chord and played a C natural where she should have played a B. I liked the sound of the passage and changed it.
This piece has always been a favorite in my studio (until "Arietta" in 2005 it was my most-frequently-studied piece), and has been played by pianists of all ages. I have used it as a church offertory, and played it at weddings as well. It is a simple melody with just enough supporting broken chords to keep that melody front and center, with a few surprising harmonic turns along the way.
(May 26, 2013) This piece has a checkered past. It was originally part of a longer, discarded piece. I decided to take it out of that context (a lyrical B section to an inferior more rhythmic A section) and add a coda. This was completed on what would have been my mother's 83rd birthday and is dedicated to her memory. That following Sunday, I played it as an offering at Franklin (Georgia) United Methodist Church.
I like this piece very much, but don't play it as often as I should. It's a little more difficult than a casual glance would suggest, and I am guessing that it would appeal more to an adult or advanced student.
(May 12. 2014) This piece became an immediate "hit" with my Facebook friends when I posted a "scratch video" after writing it. It is, for all practical purposes, a figuration-driven piece, perhaps a mini-etude. In my studio, it has been a favorite of students of all ages, and it is dedicated to an adult student of mine, Dale Allen.
(March 18, 1996) This originated as a sketch for flute and piano, and has been played in that form. Tiffany Oliver Cole gave the first performance in a piano competition at Gordon College in Georgia. (The judges disqualified her; they didn't think the piece was classical, but she returned the next year and WON. You can read our common story here.) Her first public performance of "Seaside" was as her farewell performance as Miss Troup Teen 1995.
It is a favorite of mine - a little more difficult than most of my output, and possibly unique in my output. To this date I haven't written anything else in a similar style.
Here it is performed by my friend Andrys Basten. The pictures used were taken on a trip to Pawley's Island, South Carolina, in August of 2014 with my friend Van Martin.
My first composition. 1971. I was eleven years old. I played it in a recital in the spring of 1971, along with "Our School Band" by David Carr Glover. It is unpublished.
Not sure of the year, but I'm pretty sure this is close to the time this piece was written.
(May 11, 2015) This little miniature has become one of my favorite pieces. I hope to include it in some sort of suite or collection. I have used it in church as a short offertory, It is dedicated to my student Jasmine Murray. I also suspect Jasmine won't be the only one to ask to play it.
This piece is now available at Piano Pronto through their Composers Community site! I am happy to be included with this group, and encourage you to check out all of the offerings there - by publisher Jennifer Eklund and the rest of the Piano Pronto Composers Community.
And at last, a "first draft" video by the dedicatee, Jasmine Murray. I think she's gonna get it. We'll do another video on a better piano at a later date.
(September 8, 2012) This is a transcription I made of the simple and beautiful song "Crepuscule" (Twilight) by the French composer Jules Massenet (1842-1912). This is a homage to one of my favorite sopranos of the early twentieth century, Amelita Galli-Curci (1882-1963) and to one of my favorite living pianists, Stephen Hough (who has also made a transcription of this song.)
Galli-Curci's recording was one of the first recordings of her voice that I heard and owned, and my 78 rpm copy (pictured below, with a link to a video) is still a favorite in my collection, Back in my college days, I often listened to this, and other historic opera and piano recordings, with my classmate Susan Flick. This transcription is dedicated to her, and this blog was originally posted on her birthday. Happy Birthday, Susan!
My mother, Helen French Robertson Moring, passed away in December 2010 due to complications from chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder (COPD). You can read my December 2010 post about her, and our musical connection, at my other blog here.
On July 6, 2011, I finally finished one of those projects that we had planned to do together. Mama wrote a song years ago, as a young girl. It may be better to say that she "made it up", since she could not read or write music. She played beautifully "by ear", however.
The name of the song was "In the Arms of Jesus", and there were never any lyrics, just the tune. A phone conversation with my late aunt LaVelle Langley in August 2011 confirmed this. Also, Aunt LaVelle recalls hearing Mama play it often, which is something that my brother and sister do not recall - understandable, since they did not spend as much time with Mama at the piano as I did.
I wanted to make videos of Mama's playing while she was still alive, but she had "camera fright", and arthritis got to her before the COPD-related dementia did. The touch of my Baldwin baby grand was too heavy for her to play comfortably. I promised her for years that I would write "her song" down.
When I was done, I decided to make a demo video to share with friends and family on Facebook. The original plan was to make another video for YouTube later and on a better instrument. This beloved Baldwin, a college-graduation gift from Mama and Papa Doug, has not been tuned since nineteen-eighty-something - one of the "downsides" of living in the country is finding a reliable tuner/technician.
In the end I decided to post the "rough video" on YouTube, and it was the only version up for a few years. After all, this is where I had most recently heard her play HER version, on this piano in this room, and this was the last opportunity I had to "film" myself playing there.
I have left her tune as is and recast it in "my style", rather than in the hymn-like chordal way in which she played it (much to the dismay of my brother, who still wants me to make a block chord arrangement). I have also retitled it "Mama's Song",
Why?
Because we all have different religious beliefs, but we all have - or have had - a Mama.
Here is the first video, made in the early morning hours after the piece was written.
On May 24, 2015 (the 26th would have been her 85th birthday), I finally made a video on the excellent Yamaha piano at Franklin (Georgia) United Methodist Church.
