Compositions
5 Pentatonic Sketches
I spent a weekend working on different ways to manipulate 5 note scales and collections. I ended up with mixed results from Sarah. She liked somethings. Didn’t like others. (Mostly I believe this to be from a combination of non-idiosyncratic writing for piano and she was less prepared for the harmonic palette I was embracing.) Ultimately a fun weekend exercise. Follow along with the music here!
7 Modal compositional Etudes
I focused for 2 weeks on writing in the 7 different modes. When I was writing, I spent about an hour on the etude. First, sketching a melody and then sketching a harmonic progression. The harmonic progressions mostly follow Tonic - Pre-Dominant - Dominant - Tonic motion, testing quality changes to tonic and dominant.
Some of the modes were more challenging than others but I really enjoyed working on them!
Songs for Sarah
These were my first songs after practicing with my etudes, 7 Modal Etudes and 5 Pentatonic Sketches. I spent about 2 weeks working on them.
I drew inspiration from a collection of Robert Frost poems from which the pieces are titled. The subtitle reveals how I think relates to Sarah as she finishes her graduate studies and begins her next step.
Check them out here!