(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 It is unpublished.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.
