These musical games are a fun and effective tools for learning useful concepts and skills.
I know that at least a few people have been anxiously waiting for me to finish the piano reduction for my alto saxophone concerto, Transition. This is an officially announcement to say that I have now officially included the piano reduction in both versions of the Transition download. For more details, please visit the Transition page for more details.
This video is only a sample of the work.
Download Score and Parts (PDF) (11.99)
Foreign Currency? Click Here.
Download includes both versions of the piece; with euphonium or with tenor saxophone. The euphonium part will also work well on cello.
Instrumentation: Violin, Euphonium (or Cello or Tenor Saxophone), and Piano
Duration 7:00
Movement I, Ambition
Movement II, Disappointment
Movement III, Moving Forward
Performance notes: This is a piece written both for children and about children. Any fun ideas to incorporate into your performance accordingly is perfectly appropriate and encouraged. For example, the premier of this work incorporated a painting demonstration. While this work is written for an unusual combination of instruments, the euphonium part can be easily played on cello. There is nothing particularly challenging about this work that I can see, although because of the precision in intonation that is required for a great performance, I would recommend this for at least first or second year collegiate musicians. However, this should not discourage a solid high school group from attempting it.
Background information: My friend Tiffany (violin) organized and premiered this work in the fall of 2009 for a recital she designed specifically for children. Despite it’s purpose, adults should of course feel free to enjoy the work just as much as children in the same way that adults tend to enjoy movies that are meant for children.
Musical Interpretation: Children are very curious human beings and sometimes are so to the point that they get themselves into trouble. This piece depicts the process that a child goes through when they decide to pursue something that they are really not supposed to for reasons that they are unaware of. It starts with Ambition driving them towards finding out what they want to know despite formal sanctions from their authorities. Then the time comes when they discover what they were looking for, and either discipline or physical discomfort comes from their ambition resulting in Disappointment. This emotion seems to always resolve in them well before it should taking into account the sorrow they seem to display, which is why I made the second movement as short as I possibly could. As the child is Moving Forward they seem to forget all about the entire incident of their lesson. They go on just as they always did, but through observation we can clearly see that their experience has somehow changed their behavior.
This sample is taken from my album, Prelude. Click here for more information.
Download score, parts, and solo part (PDF) ($129.99). (Includes 8.5×11 and 11×17 versions of the score as well as a complimentary piano reduction.)
Foreign Currency? Click Here.
Purchase piano reduction, solo part, and accompaniment mp3 ($16.49)
Duration: 21:00
Performance notes: This Concerto features an extremely difficult saxophone part utilizing the saxophone’s countless timbres, agility, and altissimo register. The performer must have a particularly acute sense of rhythmic precision and strong upper range; like any other concerto in history the soloist must be an extremely accomplished musician. There are also special effects that are particular to the woodwind family including multi-phonics, growling, pitch bends, portamenti, and quarter tone trills.
If the performer generally has a dark sound, the soloist will be overpowered, particularly in the second movement. This can compensated for by the performer using a brighter timbre during these densely scored sections, performing in a brighter hall, telling the band to switch to one on a part, or by artificial amplification. Be sure to consult a sound engineer on how to amplify the soloist if you choose this solution.
Musical interpretation: The title of this work has two meanings. In one sense it is the representation of life in general going through change. In order to settle upon a contented state, one must not fight the changes they go through in life but rather change their attitude towards their new surroundings. It is not our circumstances that make us happy, but our attitude towards our surroundings that governs how we feel. After all, a person can have everything in the world going their way and still be unhappy. I have attempted to capture this concept with this work. My suggestion to see this in the music is to think of the saxophone as a person seeking contentment and the band as the person’s environment (I hope you now see why I have chosen to not thin the orchestration).
On the other hand, this work is a perfect representation of how I have viewed life throughout the year of June 2007 through June 2008. I listen to this work and remember days and times that I assign to certain sections of the piece, some of which are documented in my journal. I will obviously not go into depth about this, but I will leave this by saying that I learned a lot that year.
In a sense you can say that this piece is about growing up; the attitudes of a person before they start to mature, the pain that is required to mature, and then finally looking at the world through eyes that are seeking deeper understanding. In any case, the work represents a person painfully transitioning into a new and better outlook on life.
I wrote this wedding music for piano with an accomplished pianist in mind. However, this detail should not stop anyone from attempting it. I set out to create a broadly usable piece to be used towards the end of wedding preludes and I hope that I have done this well enough to appeal to most performers. The only questionable challenge is that there are some wide intervals throughout the work. I am able to reach a major ninth with ease and therefore wrote many without a second thought. If this is not the case for you, please feel free to change a few notes using your best judgement.
Download score (pdf) – $11.49
Foreign Currency? Click Here.
There are three hymns woven throughout this work. The sample above contains an arrangement of “O Perfect Love”. The other two are “Take my Life and Let It Be” and “Be Thou My Vision”:
These samples are taken from my album, Purpose. Click here for more information.
Additional information
I wrote this wedding music for piano to be premiered for my friends, Pam and Ryan, at their wedding for prelude. The danger with this role in a program is that the beginning material is either easily missed, or it rudely interrupts conversations. I have attempted to use this problem to the performer’s advantage by utilizing John Cage’s philosophy: Any sound you hear during the performance is part of the music. While I disagree with Cage on many points, I do believe that there is something to be had with the idea of artistic noise. I actually want the audience to passively participate in the performance by talking at a respectful volume until the piece starts to unfold it’s main themes more clearly. It is the performer’s job to play beneath their mummer and crescendo as they decrescendo by becoming interested. I have yet to see it actually work out that way, but it’s a nice idea…
Since I was writing for a wedding, I have obviously written a piece about marriage. I’m am very passionate about the issue of divorce, and am strongly against divorce outside of marital unfaithfulness and even then only in extreme cases. This work is a charge to any bride and groom to fulfill their oaths to one another out of unconditional love no matter what their situation is. The harsh section of this piece represents the more unpleasant parts of marriage; but this section is fleeting and resolves quickly by returning to the original themes depicting unconditional love and faithfulness. The main take away I want people to have is that the love within marriage unites two people so intimately that the darker parts of the relationship are nullified.