Compositions

Trinkets Series (2005)

This started when a piano student told me he loved new age music. I said that stuff is easy, I thought anyone could write that. He looked at me like I was crazy so I sat down at the keyboard and started composing something on the spot and came up with the first few bars of the first song in this series. I went home determined to make a point, so I sat down for four straight days and cranked out a bunch of "trinkets", many of them not complete. If I got stuck on something, I would simply switch gears and start something new or go back to something I hadn't finished yet. Most of these are the results from that experiment.

Incidentally, please don't ask me to finish them. That's because something else interesting happened. That same student at one point complained because I played a backing track for him that I'd composed, and he loved it but that was all I had. He pleaded for me to finish it, and I said heck no, you finish it. He looked at me like I was crazy, but then dove in and started experimenting with melodies to complement the backing track. Of course it sounded awful at first, but it didn't take long before we both poked our heads up in surprise and I said hey! That was cool! And off he went, on his own journey on learning to compose.

So if you want, figure these out on your own and finish them yourself. :) Think of this as an alternative approach to fake books.

Metamorph Series (2006 - 2007)

Backing Tracks (2004 - 2007)

Garageband (2004)

These were written when Garageband first came out and we were experimenting with it.

Background

I am a French School of Music alumna (Plainfield, NJ) who took ten years of piano lessons from age 7 to 17, classically trained. As an amateur composer I had a few false starts and began experimenting a little more systematically starting around 1989. Around 2002, I branched into some jazz on my own. What is listed here was created from 2004 on; most everything else I've either trashed, forgotten, or can't/won't post. The exceptions are the rough recordings below, to give a glimpse into some of the history. I didn't spend a whole lot of time on them, they're in the past. :) My modus operandi is to go on a creative jag for about two or three weeks until it burns out. Then I'm usually quiet for anywhere from a few months to a couple years until I go on another jag. The interesting thing with these earlier works is that I had no control over the creative process back then; whatever came out, came out. So in some ways it's a more honest window into my subconscious because I didn't know how to create something and filter/mold it at the same time (nothing would have been written).

Incidentally, if a few of the recordings on this page sound like there's a glitch in the Matrix, it's because there is. I'm in the middle of a chelation regimen to remove high levels of mercury, as well as arsenic and lead. Possible unwanted side effect of doing real estate rehabs in older homes. What you're hearing is some of the neurological fallout. Permanent? I don't know yet, but if it's not, I'll re-record some of these later.

  • 01 - Untitled Snippet A, 1982 - This was the very first thing I wrote.
  • 02 - Untitled Snippet B, 1982 - Instead of continuing with the first thing I wrote, this was the second thing that popped into my head. At least the first snippet had a beginning, this was just some random part in the middle of the piece, and I knew there was no way I could possibly backtrack and come up with a beginning. At this point, I bagged the idea of composing, I figured I was in way over my head. My sister, on the other hand, was much more disciplined about composing, so that by the time she was 16 she'd written a Toccata that, to this day, I think is the most incredible thing she's ever written.
  • 03 - Untitled Snippet, around 1985
  • 04 - Untitled Snippet, around 1989 - Inspired by a vacuum cleaner commercial
  • 05 - Rosie, around 1990 - At this point I was sick and tired of having nothing but unfinished snippets, so I hit the reset button and decided to write a simple children's song and actually *finish* it.
  • 06 - Untitled Snippet, around 1991 - I was on the train commuting from Basking Ridge, NJ to the World Financial Center in Manhattan early one morning when this just exploded into my head, at full speed. I hadn't even had any coffee yet and I remember I winced as I debated whether to get a sledgehammer so I could put myself out of my misery and get some sleep, or grab a pen and paper and start writing this down. I wrote it down and was surprised later when I got to a keyboard, that I'd captured it correctly. Strangely, this is the only time that ever happened, and I say it's strange because sis and I had perfect pitch. She says she writes stuff all the time in her head, and I can't seem to do that. Except for this one time. This is physically impossible for me to play at full speed without help from Garageband. I suspect in some alternate universe, this piece exists in its entirety, it's incredible, and can be played perfectly and at full speed by a human. :P And for all those people out there who claim they hear the most extraordinary music, sometimes entire orchestral works, they just can't write them down, I believe you.
  • 07 - Untitled Snippet, around 1993 - Inspired by a murder mystery short story I was reading
  • 08 - Untitled, written from 1995 - 1997 - This is the last thing I wrote and the only major work I completed before I cut refined carbs out of my diet. This recording was done around 1998. After I cut out the refined carbs I was such a different person I stopped composing and didn't pick up again until around 2002.
2008 updates:
  • 01 - Snowflakes, 1982/2008 - This is the finished version of the first untitled snippet above. I didn't realize I was channeling Phillip Glass long before I knew who he was. Maybe this is why I have a love/hate relationship with Phillip Glass. The muse in me says oh brother, that was the first thing I wrote. Get over it, move on. Which, thankfully, he has. He's written some pretty awesome stuff. But if you ever want to see my dust cloud, just start blasting Einstein on the Beach.
  • 08 - Peripathetique, re-recorded 2008 - I couldn't leave the last thing I wrote above as the only official recording of this piece. I re-recorded it without the mistakes, except for one area that I had to rewrite because I've forgotten the original part of it and I never write anything down, except for that one time on the train when I had no choice. I've also finally given this a name. The last time I played it or heard the 1998 recording was about five years ago, and there is something I want to mention about this piece.

    10/20/2008: When I first heard the 1998 recording again after five years, my first objective impression was that it was addled, and full of shortcomings. It represented the best I could do in 1995 - 1997 but there's no way I could possibly fix those shortcomings; that would entail an entire rewrite and no way am I about to embark on that.

    However, I did reconnect with a feeling I had when I was writing this, that I'd forgotten about until I started trying to play it again. Around the middle of the piece, I think it's fairly obvious but there a few sections that just seem to go wonky. They just don't sound right. And that's because there is nothing in the chromatic scale that allows me to accurately render what my muse wants. She's never very helpful either. All I ever get are vague notions like: "it's richer than that and less jarring", and somehow it's up to me to get from point A to point B. As you can see from my history, that can take years.

    And I know for a fact that those tones don't exist on my piano keyboard because I've tried various combinations and I think no, it's not this and it's not that, it's *somewhere in between*. The best I can do is come up with approximations, and those are the areas where it seems to go in and out of tune, it feels like Dali's Persistence of Time. In other words, I need a completely new custom scale with completely new tones and new harmonics. And I'm not talking just about what people have done with whole steps, half steps and now let's go quarter, 1/8, etc. I feel those are simply an extension of the same tyranny of the chromatic scale, albeit a little more flexible. I'm talking about blowing the field of music composition wide open. I need a new synthesizer and/or software for my existing Roland where every key is customizable.

    It's possible Frank found something that might do this - Scala. I'll have to play around with this. But before I do, I'll continue with getting my current thoughts down on paper just so I have a record.

    In the case of Peripathetique, I think it's fairly simple because I had my limits back then. I think those approximations are just tweaks on the chromatic scale. But it will require toggling back and forth on the fly during a performance between, say, the default setting ("Earth mode") and this new custom scale, (say, "K-PAX mode"). I don't think this is any different than all those works that change key signatures or time signatures mid-stream. Who knows, maybe we have a fourth pedal next to the soft pedal. And I sincerely hope it's just one custom scale that will handle Peripathetique, and not K-PAX1 for this approximation, K-PAX2 for that approximation, etc. I do think, however, that Peripathetique represents just the tip of the iceberg. The same way we have a gazillion and one different fonts, we could come up with a gazillion and one different custom scales with custom harmonics.

    I think the most similar analogy I can think of right now to what I'm trying to do is a honky tonk piano. It sounds de-tuned, but it's not unpleasant to listen to, unlike a neglected, out of tune piano which used to make my sister's eyes water and make the hair on the back of my neck stand up. In fact, although I'm not the piano tuner in the family, I suspect no less precision goes into de-tuning a honky tonk piano than that which goes into tuning a Steinway before a performance at Carnegie Hall.

    This also made me wonder about other composers. Say, Debussy and Shostakovich. Having reconnected with these frustrating approximations in Peripathetique, I wonder if Debussy was entirely happy with Gardens in the Rain? And what would Gardens sound like if he could have created his own custom scales?

    I wonder if Shostakovich was driven by a similar muse that said "no, it's richer than that but less jarring." Or worse. He wanted it to be far more jarring than our chromatic scale will allow. Which leads me to my next point. This could easily lead to musical heaven and musical hell. The human race being what it is, I have no doubt it will find both ends of the spectrum.

    Could there be consequences and fallout from this? I have no doubt. First of all, no one will ever have perfect pitch again. And/or, we will have to completely redefine what it means to have perfect pitch, and how to develop it.

    It's quite possible, not only should the scales be fully customizable, but the keyboard mechanism itself may have to change. Default Earth mode would be a regular piano keyboard with black and white keys. When it switches to K-PAX mode, the terrain completely changes and the color of the keyboard changes to purple, to indicate that you've switched. Hopefully in such a way as to not lop off someone's fingernail or fingertip. Who says the keys have to have cracks between them? Maybe this new keyboard is simply a flat sheet of material, and when you toggle to Earth mode it turns black and white and the black keys become raised. You switch to K-PAX mode and the entire terrain shifts.

    • Or maybe you build an entirely new keyboard. Since it may have a lot more notes maybe you shift from 2-D to 3D, say spherical in shape to collapse the real estate. And hopefully in such a way as to minimize the danger of repetitive stresses and injuries, e.g. carpal tunnel or bursitis.

True Talent



Saint-Saens Piano Concerto No. 2 in G Minor, Op. 22 - Performed by a 16 year old Japanese girl around 1979. She repeated my piano teacher's feat back in 1907 (stick around for the commentary after the applause). She and I both took ten years of lessons, but I was undisciplined and she wasn't, so at the end of that period, I was grappling with Chopin's Scherzo No. 2 and Ravel's Jeux d'Eau and she was doing this. :)

Performed with the local Ridgefield, NJ Orchestra. This was originally on 45, transferred to cassette tape, played endlessly by yours truly for years (how I managed not to wreck it, I'll never know). Transferred to Garageband a year ago, Frank found some software online to clean up the background static, and this is the end result. Definitely representative of some of the best of French School talent at the time (and when I started lessons at age 7, my piano teacher was already in her 70's. I can't imagine what she was like in earlier decades).

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Last updated:  Monday Oct 20, 2008 @ 4:30 PM