Tag: Samantha Hogan

2023- Let’s DO THE THING!

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round brown and black analog clock

Happy 2023!

This is the post where, every year, I usually list the goals that I intend to accomplish.

What am I doing to make things happen this year?

Well, I’m taking the lessons learned from the past few years and instead of posting goals like I have been, I am instead posting the actions that I am building into my daily and weekly routine to make things happen.

If you read the post from a few days ago, it was apparent that some of the goals that I intended to accomplish did not happen as planned. Instead, I am taking a new approach to accomplish the goals that were left, AND set myself up for even more success in the future, in whatever form it may come. Some things are going well, and I will continue to keep up the habits I’ve already established.

Action Item #1

Schedule Composing, Instrumental Practice, Gym, Meal, and Email time into my calendar at SPECIFIC BLOCKS OF TIME.

Sunday evening at 7:00 is when I have scheduled to plan out the week. My phone is programed to remind me to do this.

Every month, I have a concrete checklist of music business Items that I have to schedule on my monthly calendar before transfering to my weekly. These include things like writing the newsletter for my composing business, checking on contest info for students, and other specific communications and research items.

The 28th of the previous month is when I have scheduled to take care of this. However, getting into the habit of writing down monthly appointments into my calendar as they come up has helped with planning in the past.

Some of these are floating tasks that have to get done at some time on the scheduled day or week. Having a visual checklist helps me with this!

Action Item # 2

Replace Phone Screen time with the activities listed above.

Although the Tik Tok and Twitter addiction has been hard to break, I’ve been improving at using it as a reward rather than disassociating with it.

Also, my new rule is No Checking Email past 7:00pm! Otherwise, I have a tendancy to overthink about how to respond and agonize about it all night instead of sleeping, which I totally should do instead for health reasons.

Action Item # 3

Adopt a CONSISTANT bedtime and wakeup routine.

Although I do the expected things like showering and brushing my teeth every day at.. some haphazard time, my morning has only had one thing consistent up until now: Coffee. I do not wish to replace this wonderful to me beverage I lovingly call Godberry juice, as I genuinely enjoy the taste and it’s become a personal staple for waking up. However, every day has been varied and sometimes I forget to eat breakfast or shower and all of a sudden it’s 15 minutes until I’m supposed to leave to teach and I haven’t eaten lunch yet.

To start with, I will begin my day with showering, teeth brushing and a glass of water BEFORE Coffe. Coffee is a reward for taking care of these important things. Also, my second cup of coffee will be accompanying breakfast, which will not only save time but serve as a habitual reminder to eat.

At night, I’ve been winding down with Tea over the last month which has helped. I will also be replacing the phone habit with reading on time. Lately, I’ve been switching between the two. Leaving the phone downstairs has helped. Soon, I will NOT be looking at my phone past 9:00 and instead be reading physical books.

Action Item # 4

Add my original compositions 1 piece a day to my WOOCOMMERCE Store. ( 10 minutes/ morning) to start.

For now I will leave my stuff up on Sheet music Plus as well for a wider reach, as I’m still working to build an audience that will purchase my music and play it more often, funding my good habit 🙂 I am, however, changing each compositions individual page to link to my Woo Commerce Store Page, in order to get a better idea of who is buying my compositions, keep in contact in case they would like help from a living composer, and the added bonus of getting to keep more of the profit.

I’m starting with Digital downloads and then will add physical copy offerings as I learn more about how to run the storefront. It looks like it will also calculate shipping, even overseas, so that is a plus.

I also have it scheduled to publish on both my Facebook Business page and Twitter Profile when I add a new piece to the store for some added awareness.

Once I run out of pieces I’ve already added to SMP, this will shorten to 1/week or every other week as needed. Engraving and editing takes time.

Action Item #5

Form a habit of Posting 1x/day, focusing on no more than 2 social media channels at a time.

In order to succeed at this, I am going to post one time/ day on one of my channels as most of them are linked anyway. When applicable , I will repeat the post in a different format- i.e. Text converded to a 30 second Video.

(Note- I will be exercising Action Item # 2 to keep screentime from getting out of hand again).

Action Item # 6

Hold myself accountable for these items!

If you know me well enough, please don’t be afraid to ask how it’s going either. Let’s put that toxic guilt complex to good use!!!! lol

Realistically, integrating all of these steps won’t happen all at once or even ALL of the time. However, as I work on making this my new norm, it will be easier to get back on the wagon when I fall off, and continue making things happen this year and beyond.

I’ll start by scheculing checkin posts on my calendar.

Why Halloween is My Favorite Holiday

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When I was a kid, I always looked forward to this time of year. For me, Halloween meant looking at cool decorations in people’s yards, dressing up in a costume and not having to be mundane me for an evening, going out after dark, and of course, CANDY!

Halloween brought on many fun memories, like the time my friend Carolyn and I made a Halloween themed 2 person Dragon costume together and wowed everyone 2 years in a row (it was that awesome!), going through some yards that had actual haunted houses or trails built into them in order to get the opportunity for trick or treat, and seeing everyone’s costumes of course. Two that stick out in my memory are a cow costume (I doubt anyone else thought of that) and the year someone went dressed as Quailman- belt on head, underwear outside clothing, and all.

These days though, Halloween has evolved to mean something more for me personally.

As I’ve gotten older, I’ve come to realize that many people don’t share my sentiment and it’s understandable. Some people just don’t like the “spooky” atmosphere that comes along with the holiday. Being scared, watching people be scared, or being surrounded by home dĂ©cor decorated with rotting corpses does not always sit well with everyone.

In addition, Halloween has many stereotypes now associated with it having evolved from a pagan/ witch associated festival known as Samhain, the most severe being Devil worship. (Spoiler alert- most witches I’ve come to know do not even believe in the devil, but that is a deeper discussion for another day and time.). Having come from a Christian background myself, I can understand why the association is as it is.

Heck, I even briefly considered axing the holiday that has been beloved by me since being conscious of it from the age of 3 from my personal list of holidays to observe, when someone in made me aware of their belief in this association with evil spirits. Mind you, it only lasted about a minute or two, but it led me to research and question things.

The conclusion that I came up with in my own path is that what you associate with a day has more to do with personal meaning and your own knowing and belief system. If Halloween fell on May 1st and you had the same personal beliefs associated with it, I would be willing to bet you’d behave the same toward it as you do on October 31st. If you choose to avoid the happenings of the day, regardless of the reason, that is your choice and that’s ok.

It also led me to research where Halloween truly came from (why do we celebrate it as we do and how did it used to be celebrated and what the reasons were/are?). There are several resources to look at the day from a purely historical perspective and I encourage you to go find them. Google and the Library have great resources.

These days, for me, Halloween, aka Samhain, is a gentle reminder to take a day out of the year to remember my family and friends who have passed on. It’s a bit like Memorial day in The Unided States, where we take time to remember and thank all of our service men and women, because we are conveniently reminded on a calendar. It is what it is…

I use the day to not only remember them, but celebrate the fact that they were here and gave me pleasant memories to look back on and smile every once in awhile during the rest of the year. It’s also a chance to say thank you and move on from any past grievances if any come up. Whether or not the message gets through is hard to say but at the very least, I feel better, and the positive effects of purposely taking time to do this last for quite awhile.

If it makes you feel better, I promise you I’m not doing the devil’s work and practicing necromancy. That literally could be dangerous, not to mention a bit more icky than handling the purely decorative plastic corpses that adorn my living room.

Anyway, I hope you have a Happy Halloween, Blessed Samhain, and/ or, have a fantastic day everyone!

2022 Music, and Life, Goals.

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The last few years I have been psting my goals for the coming year in order to look back at periodically and hold myself accountable. Here is this years list of goals in their respective catagories.

Composing

FINISH the projects from last year that were started.

  1. ) Enter Spirit- Flex band score. I am currently working with a band director to have it read and finish the graphic score element. This should be ready for the public by May if all goes according to plan.

2) Painless Parker- Band Score. I need a few volunteers to read the piece and give feedback for the final score. I aim to have it available for purchase asap.

3) Continue my editing of past works. – I got a litle more than halfway through, and then I lost my productivity streak. By the end of the year I aim to be finished with all prior pieces. It will help that I’ve gotten better at engraving for anythihg that I write this year, so lots of time will be saved!

4) Documentary Score- Almost finished. It was postponed due to covid and a big life transition for the director. I just need to touch base with the director a few more times to get this done.

5) Vocal and Instrumental piece with a Librettist- I started this one with them as a new type of collaboration for me. Most of the Ideas are in the germ phase, but this will get done by the end of this year at the latest.

Sell at least 1 score a month

I will be ramping up advertising on Facebook as well as taking the initiative to contact more musicians and directors directly. I’ll also be adding lots more pieces and arrangements to My website store and on Sheet Music Plus.

Start Making some Money from Composing

Eventually, I’d like this to make up the bulk of my livelihood along with performing and teaching. Luckily it’s looking like at least one paid commission is shaping up with a fantastic Trombonist.

I can’t wait to share more of these details with you in the coming months.

My one Resolution- normally I don’t do these but I’ll make an exception in this case- is to Share more of what I am working on. Please follow me on Instagram or TikTok @shogan_composer to see more of my process this year.

Lesson Studio Goals

Build studio up to 30 students.

Have at least 2 big recitals this year ( With at least one being in person, Covid Pending), and generally find more performance opportunities for my students.

Host A Quarterly Studio GET-TOGETHER via Zoom with Games and playing opportunities for peers only.

Have more students participate in MMTA contests and festivals.

Increase educational content on the studio YOUTUBE channel. (sorry, as of now this is for MY STUDENTs only, although I may make some of the videos public eventually). Every other Friday, I plan on recording a short video and UPLOADINg it.

Continue to become a better teacher for my students.

Musicianship Goals

Play an EtudE Every Practice session

I’m starting with the good Ol’ Rochut book 1 and will work my way through the book one etude at a time. When I’m done, I’ll look for a new book to progress to. It is my hope that I will become a better player by making this commitment to my practice routine. It should also help me……

Improve my sightreading on both Piano and Trombone

Establish a functional practice routine and schedule a time to practice every weekday.

Life and Relationship Building

Continue to improve my health and stregnth.

I started this last year in 2021 and began strength training with Barbells as of June.If I can keep with the schedule of 3-4 days of stregnth training and eat well, I’ll be well on my personal goal to be able to squat my body weight by June as well as do 1 unassisted pullup by then. Maybe I’ll even surpass it! Although My goals here are not asthetic, I am looking forward to see how things change here as the year progresses. The reason for this is that it helps my mental health quite a bit and I’d like to remain as healthy as I can to do thie things that I love- Mainly Make Music! Also, as I am now in the dirty 30’s, I’d like to not be complaining about back problems like so many of my peers are already.

Continue to Volunteer at leAst 4 times a year

I am excited to see what opportunities 2022 brings, especially with MMTA. Assuming things keep opening back up, I’d also love to have a recital or perform at a nursing home.

Plan monthly phone calls and emails, Aim for 1 New person per month to start with in this list.

This may be a lofty goal, since being extraverted in this capacity takes quite a bit of uncomfortable effort on my end, but I’m going to try by listing a set day on my planner calendar to do this. It wil be at the end of the month too so I have that long to come up with someone.

Support fellow artists through Album/ music PURCHASES and RECOMMENDATIONS, and email them with compliments.

Attend at least 3 newtorking events or festivals.

Next Month, I’ll be attending Brass Chix as I have every year, and in March, the MMTA convention is in Minneapolis, so I’ll be attending at least 1 day of this as well.

2021 Goals- How did I do?

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It’s that time of year- The end of the year where I give you my report card and evaluate the goals that I set at the end of the previous year.

Here is what happened:

BIG GOAL: Make More Money/ Be able to solely do MUSIC to survive.

Update: Success! I am surviving. As of June, I was able to just teach and complete an engraving project to make the minimum that I neded to bring in to justify being my own boss. Next year I will set my goals toward Thriving… and then some.

Mini Goal: Sell 10 scores of my own music. My goal is a minimum of 25 total including arrangements.

Update: I sold 12 total. Yeehaw. It looks like I’ll have to evaluate and revise my strategy.

Mini Goal: 15 students by June

Update: I have since surpassed that goal and am up to 20 students!

BIG GOAL: Get to know more people

Update: I didn’t meet as many new people in person as I was hoping to ( thanks Covid) but did meet some. I talked to Alex Gardner and Matthew Driscol via the magic of zoom and meet a few local musicians and composers through a Monthly Composer Meet up and throught the Z festival, both of which met online. I’d really like to actually get to know more people this next year beyond briefly meeting them.

If you count it though, I did get to meet some awesome new students and their wonderful families 🙂

Mini Goal: Contact 2 new people in music/ month minimum

Update: This fell by the wayside but I did manage to average 1-2 every other month. Next year I will schedule monthly phone calls and emails in my planner.

Big Goal: Write 3 hours minimum of music

Update: If you count all of the unrecorded improvising I did, I ….probably?… reached this goal. However, my composing focus was nonexistant most of this year and getting things written down just did not happen.

Mini Goal:Create more creative opportunities

Update: I did it- but via a different avenue that I set out to follow. I am now part of a trombone trio called The Trifore Trombone Trio and got to exercise my creativity by making marketing content for the Twin Cities Brass Band. I also participated in Z-Fest this summer which provided some interesting ppportunities as well.

Big Goal: Be even more giving and spread more JOY

Mini Goal: Send more notes in the form of cards and emails

Update: Success. I’ll keep this goal active for next year too.

Mini goal: volunteer my time in a musical capacity at least 4 times

Update: This happened exactly 4 times. I volunteered at an MMTA event this Fall, helped out with a large music sorting project, and helped a few friends with their musical projects a few times this year. Next year, I hope to help out at more events because helping is fun. 🙂

Throwback Thursday September 2021 Recap

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September 2nd 2021

This Week’s #throwbackthursday piece is related to the event I’ve been excited about that is happening this weekend: MNKINO Film Score Fest!(BTW- It’s this Saturday at 8 In Mears Park, St Paul MN if you can come).A few years ago, in 2017, I wandered to an event that I had heard about on a podcast called Composer Quest called the MnKino Film Score Fest Meetup. It was at an underground bar in the middle of Minneapolis- or was it St Paul? As is tradition for me with trying new things, I had no idea what I was getting into. Also, meeting new people in groups still terrified the bejeebus out of me, but there I went. At the time, I was starving for creative opportunities outside of my mundane day job and, although it scared me, I reasoned that the best way to make this happen was to step out of that comfort zone and talk to strangers. Somewhere in the large crowd a, talented yet also introverted and kind animator named Beth Peloff talked to me and decided that I was going to be her composer (YAY!).Together, we created a little film called Blob’s Adventure. You can watch it here:https://vimeo.com/218081763

September 9th 2021

Do You remember looking up at the sky on a carefree summer day, imagining the pictures and scenes in the clouds? Today’s #ThrowbackThursday piece was written on such a summer afternoon. When I used to work at a printer factory, I’d come home and need to decompress. Being that the job left little time for much else between driving home, eating dinner, and sleeping to wake up early and do it all over again, there was a 30-minute window that I’d have to myself. I chose to walk from my Dad’s trailer home to the end of the road and back most evenings after scarfing down my meal. That day in 2010, I admired those picturesque clouds in the sky and imagined what it could sound like. At the time I was listening to a lot of Debussy piano music as well. Cumulus Humilis- The scientific name for the type of clouds that I saw that day- is the name of this piece. It was premiered by Jimmy Knezetik- a pianist I knew in undergrad who has the most sensitive touch of any pianist I’ve known. Listeners enjoyed it because it is easy on the ears and my theory teachers loved it because it uses something called Locrian Mode. (Note- I did not do this on purpose. It was a happy coincidence). A few years after composing the piece, Avguste Antonov recorded the piece and did a wonderful job. It is included on his debut album, An American Journey.https://www.sheetmusicplus.com/…/cumulus…/21854853…#pianomusic#newmusic#solomusic

September 16th 2021

In 2009, around this time, I started my undergrad degree at Youngstown State in Ohio. At the time, I had just met my – unbeknownst to me- future husband. He took me to one of Youngstown’s greatest hidden treasures, Mill Creek Park, as part of a tour of the area. We walked around on this adventure for a while when a rather large tree branch suddenly snapped, and almost beamed us in the head on the way down from the fall. Me being me, blamed it on the trickster Faeries that obviously got a laugh at almost killing this intruder, .and yelled something unintelligible back at them. Darko laughed, I laughed, and this whole near-death experience is now immortalized in a Trombone and Euphonium duet. Today’s #ThrowbackThursday piece is dedicated to these Wood Nymphs who happened to give me the inspiration to finish the duet I was writing for fellow composer Dan Brandt and I, just in time to not get scolded by our studio professor. #Brass#BrassDuet#Trombone#Euphonium#WomanComposer#NewMusichttps://www.sheetmusicplus.com/…/meliae…/21816732…

September 23rd 2021

Who Likes Thunderstorms???…….. Actually, not me. In fact, I sometimes find them terrifying! This week, we had a fairly loud one that kept me up quite late. The loud sound of the thunder hurts my ears and seeing a Lightning strike victim in the ER when I was little because my mom used to work nights and sometimes had to take us with to her job, may have contributed to this uncomfortableness. Thank goodness though. MN needed the rain. That brings me to this week’s #ThrowbackThursday piece.https://www.sheetmusicplus.com/…/reign-of…/21833455…Reign of Thunder is a flute solo and one of my first pieces that premiered at YSU. However, it was written it in the summer before starting my studies Shanyse Strickland , a Fantastic Musician known for her Horn playing and Composing these days, was the Flute Player! Cory Davis did a wonderful job accompanying on piano and I took his suggestion to double the octave in the left hand, thus improving the piece. #Flute#Flutesolo#piano#womancomposer#newmusic

Throwback Thursday August 2021 Recap

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Hello Music friends and fans,

If you’ve been on Facebook page at all you may have noticed that I’ve been posting memories associated with the pieces I’ve written or arranged over the years on Thursdays. I hope you’ve enjoyed reading them just as much as I have writing them.

Anyway, I’ve been thinking about how to add more content here and how to prompt myself to write more, as creativity begets creativity in a lot of cases. At the endo of the month- or the beginning of the next month, I’ll be copying those posts from Facebook and archiving them as blog posts.

August 12th 2021

It’s #ThrowbackThursday! YAY!- So I will be resharing an old memory and a piece attached to it.This past week’s new moon had me thinking bout this piece.https://www.sheetmusicplus.com/…/lunar…/21815638…I wrote Lunar Tides while I was thinking about my grandpa and how he made sure I got piano lessons when I was a kid after I was figuring out my younger brother’s lesson songs and movie songs by ear. It is because of him (and my piano instructor 🙂 ) that I was eventually able to articulate the music that I was hearing in my head and start the journey to becoming a Composer. Lunar Tides was written under the moon and the underlying broken chord accompaniment flows, much like water. A friend and fellow composer, Carol Ann Smolka once called it “spa music”, which made me chuckle, but I must say the description fits! Give it a listen and you’ll hear what she meant. #newmusic#vocalmusic#solomusic#composer

August 19th 2021

Aah, August: The perfect time to walk into a store and see all of the……Halloween Decorations?!? Not that I necessarily mind of course 🙂This #ThrowbackThursday had me thinking about my favorite holiday and how it was the only time I was allowed out after dark as a kid and could dress up as one of the creatures of my imagination. It was also the time that Mr. Adams, my Elementary Music Teacher would break out the Halloween music and I’d delight in singing the songs that sounded nothing like the cheerful happy songs we sang the rest of the year. Have you seen the Ghost of Tom/ John? My Old Black Cat and You Better Watch Out! are the ones I still sing, sometimes in August, to this day. One year he had a whole assembly/ party where the entire elementary school showed up in costume and sang Halloween songs together. I was a sleepy soccer player ( I wore soccer pj’s and carried around a soccer-ball-shaped pillow- being inventive with cheap to make costumes was something I had fun with), but I specifically remember someone dressed up as the Tin Man from the Wizard of Oz completely with a metal garbage can body and full metallic makeup.Anyway, enough rambling.Here is the piece/ arrangement that is associated with this memory. Please enjoy, or purchase for your own Halloween-related #Brass shenanigans!https://www.sheetmusicplus.com/…/this-is…/21874496…

August 26th 2021

Happy Thursday Friends and Music Fans,Today’s #throwbackthursday piece brings back memories. When I needed an escape growing up, my way of dealing with emotions like fear anger, and sadness, and needing to feel protected was to find an instrument, usually a piano but in this case a PINK guitar, and just improvise. To this day, I still don’t understand exactly what I am doing on the guitar beyond the names of the basic chords, though maybe someday I’ll take lessons. 🙂Anyway, this was created with a vamp of 2 chords that I would play, and I’d imagine a jam over it.Fast forward to the end of college where I was asked to provide music for a game, but that is a different memory for another day.🙂 Using Finale, I created an ending theme using this vamp and the jam I heard in my head for all of those years. Although the notation is atrocious, the sonic result is delightful and sounds pretty close to my imagination.https://samanthahogan-composer.bandcamp.com/…/mellow…

ZFestival- a July 2021Adventure!

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This past month I participated in the first Composition Festival I have in a long time- ZFestival.

I first heard about ZFestival from a fellow Twin Cities Based Composer, Johnathan Posthuma. When I first applied to participate, as per usual fashion for me, I HAD LITERALLY NO IDEA WHAT I WAS GETTING MYSELF INTO! That was on purpose. 🙂

So what is this festival you ask? ZFestival is an online month long festival where they pair you with artists, composers and musicians from all over the world ( but mostly North America) and tell you to go create something.

They also have workshops and talks with guest artists and It’s all online. That’s right. I didn’t even have to leave my house or wear pants to participate in this event. ( I mean, I did wear pants except for that one time I wore a skirt. It’s just that it wasn’t required.)

Also, unbelievably, it’s FREE to participate.

They had 3 tracks this year for composers to participate in. The one I was chosen for was a multidisciplinary track.

The group consisted of Clarissa Littler, Timothy Leimu Sillman Walters, Tyler Katz, and Myself. So, a group of composers, multi instrumentalists, an amatur watercolor artist , and a computer programmer (Their instrument was listed as Math) who may or may not have doubled on these skills with prior knowledge that that was what they were going to do.

To create the project, we decided to trade pieces and record and engineer them from our own homes. A lot of Trial and Error on my end was had.

The final Gala Took place on July 31st and August 1st 2021. It was amazing to see what all of these groups came up with and celebrate their creativity. Our Project, which resembles a Prog Rock Space Opera with improvised live visual programming , was on August 1st and is the second one on the program.

As a BONUS and for your viewing pleasure, please watch the product of the 48 Hour Challenge I did with Tim, along with the rest of the projects. The prompt was…interesting to say the least. XD

You can learn more about ZFestival by visiting zfestival.org

What’s New in the life of Sam?

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Well, lots of things as a matter of fact. First of all, I applied to be accepted to a 12 day Summer Composition intensive in Indiana and….I GOT ACCEPTED!!! This is an awesome opportunity as I will get to study with professional composers such as Zae Munn, Michael Schelle, Kristin Kuster,  Jay Batzner,  and Joshua Marquez, meet and network with other young composers who have similar musical goals in mind, and learn some new techniques to broaden my horizons. I will also be working my tail off in the near future to save for this learning experience (though I will also be gratefully accepting donations so that I can justifiably afford to eat).

Secondly,I’ve recently heard back From Avguste Antonov concerning the upcoming CD with Cumulus Humilis on it and that is nearing it’s final stages. As a contributing composer to his Debut album, I am both honored and excited.

Thirdly, for your playing Pleasure (or agony), several new Scribbles and Doodles have been released. Please feel free to investigate these and if you wish to perform any of them, they are free of charge, though it would be appreciated if you would send a copy of any programs.If your instrument is not there, do not worry. It will likely make it on there in the near future. Also, any recommendations or requests for a new scribble are always welcome.

Fourthly, I wrote a new Band Piece! This one is very different from most other works I’ve produced as of yet due to its placid simplicity. It is called Reverence and was composed with a young or small band in mind. The profound Fraggle Rock quote from Cantus the Bard ” There is Movement in the stillness just as there is Music in the silence.” was the main inspiration for the mood of this piece (as well as the 2 night long bout of insomnia and boredom from not sleeping). I tried to Follow Steven Bryant’s advice that he gave to me during a very fortunate meeting at Midwest last December, which was to build off of a simple motive rather than be programmatic, and kept the lessons that were learned talking to music educators teachers about needs in repertoire and what would help their students in mind. Hopefully, I’ve succeeded…or at least come close.

Fifthly, life has been a whirlwind of musical performance meeting real life lately. A midst preparing to move out into an apartment this summer and searching for a new job (as sadly I must leave my library campus job when I graduate), life has had an interesting way of creating musical opportunities that present themselves to keep one busy. Since February, I’ve been singing with  the Youngstown Trinity United Methodist Church  on a regular basis (my first full time church choir gig since 2008), performing in several concerts (Trombone day,  The C.P.E. Bach premiere,  multiple recitals and others) writing essays, and working on Scribbles and Doodles to keep myself composing on a regular basis. Any spare time has been spent organizing, practicing and rehearsing groups for an upcoming recital.

Speaking of which, the planning for the Sr. Composition recital is well underway. This will take place April 25th  5pm at Trinity United Methodist Church in Youngstown. thanks to 23 willing Victims  musicians who graciously volunteered to play my music. Stay Tuned for an update on the program.

 

 

My Latest Expirament

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Thanks to my composition inquisitor (aka teacher), I have been working on a piece completely unlike any other I have attempted as of yet. Scott challenged me to  abandon my usual frame of having a story to compose  and instead  write what is called a Visual-Spacial notation piece. Basically the piece does not have bar lines to designate strict meter subdivisions. Instead, it leaves it up to the performers to designate where the musical figure is to fit within where the designated time specifies. It calls for ordered improvisation with a demand for the group to play as an ensemble.  So far, the piece looks like this:

(Click picture for a larger view)

Composing this piece has forced me to think more freely about musical lines and textures and to consider multiple possibilities for the building blocks of a work.  Along the way, my teacher has had me looking at various scores with non-traditional notation by Cage, Varese and others I may not have picked up otherwise and we have discussed them in our lesson. Many Cagian  ideas such as indeterminacy have made it into this piece as a result. For example, I got the idea for how to break up the time by rolling dice except for the 30 second section, where I anticipate the performer to successfully make a sandwich with the ingredients already set (mainly because I timed this myself at home).

Other than the fact that I am using kitchen percussion and adding the humorous element of a musician making a sandwich for no other reason than to add improvised non- traditional sounds, this piece lacks a preconceived story and instead has its own underlying framework. Although I anticipate that the piece will sound “wonkey” if and when it is performed, I have enjoyed trying to think within this loose structure.

Highlights from the Last Month

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So, it’s been awhile since I have had time to post anything on here. 1 month in Internet time is equivalent to “like forever” in real world time as we all know. In order to make up for that time, I will attempt to explain the highlights  in a nutshell:

1) Cumulus Humilis was performed 3 times by Avguste Antonov the week of the New Music concerts at the end October. In that time, he was approached by Hartshorn record company in NY to record a cd of New piano works. To make a long story short (too late) he chose my piece to record on the Cd and I am still ecstatic!!!

2)New Pieces have been written- As an added unexpected feather in my cap, I was asked to write music for the upcoming Worlds Quest browser game. This was my first official video game related project and I am elated to say that my first attempt was a success .To sum things up, they liked it-a lot and I am grateful. The game will be released  on December 20th.

Also, I have been working on a new experiment at the request of Scott. I will be writing a blog post about it shortly. Other plans include creating a  collection of one page solos for  from all of the 8 bar excerpts that were composed for Instrumentation class this semester. I am debating calling the collection Doodles and Scribbles or something to that effect.

Desiree Carrion and I after Carols and Cocoa 2013

3) I played my last Carols and Coccoa concert of my undergrad. This was a surreal experience as it is hard to believe that the time has flown that quickly. Kudos to my friend (and soon to be SAI sister) Desiree Carrion for having her first arrangement for Trombone ensemble performed. God Rest Ye Marry Trombonists was a ball to perform for a last hurrah ,and I especially cracked up singing the Lyrics “to save us all from Schoenberg’s Music when we’ve gone astray”. For a three hour plus long annual concert that we all complain about, I’m sure going to miss performing in it-sort of.

4) In November, I helped premier  a piece for Trombone quartet by fellow composer Richard Zacharias called Pardon My Slide with my friends Mariah Bailey, Bo Violette and Andrew Stamp. I also had the honor of Performing The Dance of Spring for Yanda Zhu’s Graduate Composition Recital. If you haven’t heard of him, you probably will soon.