Through the Mist, musical rhapsody of New England lake

Through the Mist was written for colleagues at Information Resources, the company where I worked back in 1992. Three people (flutist, violinist, guitarist) organized a trio to commission this work as part of the company’s Christmas auction for charity. In the auction, the trio bid the price up (makes sense that no one else wanted it) and paid the commission fee to their favorite charities.

The imagery for the music is the lake in southwestern New Hampshire where my father built a cabin 40 years ago. The titles came after the music, as I make the connection to some part of my life.

Ashuelot Sunrise (1st movement - listen) is a rhapsodic cadenza for three. Shifting rhythms and rubato keep the music from settling into a regular pulse. I’ve often watched the mist as it evaporates under the warmth of a rising sun. It’s a time to listen for loons and avoid rippling anything that would stir the complete tranquility.

Rocky Shore (2nd mvmt listen), is more austere and hesitant, with a knocking motive. The lake is not too deep; it was created by damming the Ashuelot River in the late 1800s I think. Most of the shore is rocky and steep, great for exploring in a canoe or cayak as long as the strong midday wind doesn't blow you onto the rocks.

Nocturne (3rd mvmt - listen) feels to me like a romantic, tropical song. A friend questioned that, didn’t hear the “tropical” part; there’s no Latin rhythms or anything. The music sets me thinking of warm, languid summer nights - doesn't matter where.

In the original version the guitar part was rather difficult. It could be hard to hear the guitar with the other instruments. So, since I like to write for harp, and the Lexington Symphony Chamber Players have just this trio -- flute, violin and harp, I made the adaptation. I knew, though, that harp has its own limitations. The chromatic music of Mist was challenging to map onto the harp’s available notes. The melodies often alternate between major and minor, which for the harp, means constant pedal changes. So that had to be altered to make the harp music flow smoothly.

I'm very happy with the result. You can hear the recording made by Liz Whitfield, Danielle Boudrot and Barbara Poeschl-Edrich of the Lexington Symphony at the Spindrift Bandcamp store. In April, I've got a Name-Your-Price special going:  Listen and download. Or get the sheet music.

In May Liz, Danielle and Barbara will be doing the concert premiere of this version. May 5 in Acton, MA and May 19 in Cohasset, MA. Get info on the Spindrift concert calendar.

Inspired by Composers Voice

Composer's Voice, a concert series directed by Douglas DaSilva, is an engine for creativity. It's a project of Vox Novus, which also produces the 60x60 hour-long sets of 1-minute pieces. Composer's Voice presents concerts in New York City and occasionally elsewhere in the world.

For me, the 15-Minutes-of-Fame project, part of Composer's Voice, is the creative engine. The process is:

• A performer or ensemble steps forward and offers to perform 15 one minute pieces in a concert set called 15-Minutes-of-Fame. 
• A call for scores goes out with what ever theme or criteria the performer wants. 
• Composers who are inspired by that theme or instrumentation submit their one minute pieces.  
• The performer selects 15 of them and the concert happens. 

Composer's Voice has a YouTube channel where you can see some of the results. Most of the concerts are in New York City at Jan Hus Church but they happen in other places too, wherever the performers want to put together a concert.


Current calls for scores include one-minute waltzes, soprano with piano – one performer, Occupy Cello, soprano and piano duet to be performed in Romania, and wild music for contrabass clarinet. Get the details at Composer's Voice at voxnovus.com. The one-minute piece idea comes from Vox Novus 60x60 projects and allows a lot of composers to participate.

I love the creative stimulus -- I'm invited to write for a great variety of instruments, and I can polish up an idea relatively quickly. I think of these miniatures as creative puzzles that encourage experimenting.  I've written six or seven and three have been chosen for performance. The ones that weren't chosen have become seeds for other pieces. Now I've got an ongoing sketch book of ideas that are more developed than the little phrases I scribble on paper at times.

Sunday January 13 1pm, I'll be in New York to hear my one-minute harp piece "Cloud" played by Jasmin Cowin. (concert info; btw, the admission charge at Jan Hus Church is canned goods.) Even before I hear the premiere, I'm sure "Cloud" is a seed for something bigger.

Mugician: iPad as musical instrument

Last week, I discovered a cool music app for my iPad. It's called Mugician by Rob Fielding. I found it by searching for “microtonal” in the app store. It's essentially an 11-string guitar synth. You can turn frets on and off. When they're off you can slide up and down a string for complete control of tuning, within the limitations of your fingertip. You can also turn frets partially on so that you start on a tempered-tuning pitch, but then you can freely bend and vibrate the note.

Developer Rob Fielding’s blog has the instruction manual. He explains the controls at the bottom of the screen. The lock at the lower right kept me from discovering what the controls do. Unlock it (swipe the mini-slider to the left) and you  might not even need the instructions. The controls let you turn on and control reverb, several types of distortion, and echo.

He doesn’t aim to make the instrument easy to play by emulating existing instruments or by simplifying it with preselected scales or loops;  he says  his goal is to “keep things expressive by making sure that there are as many dimensions of expression as I can cram into the given space…”  He means for you to practice and develop your musical ideas, just like a violin or French horn.

Mugician isn’t being developed any more -- it's very expressive as it is. After all, you don’t want the instrument that you practice and become good at playing to change out from under you. I do hope they keep it working as the iOS changes though. (What a tedious responsibility for developers.) Rob  has developed another iOS synth, Geo Synthesizer, with Jordan Rudess of Dream Theater. I’ll have to check that one out soon.

i made a little demo of some of the playing techniques that intrigue me.

Inspiration from Walden

I keep going back to the book Walden by Henry David Thoreau for words and imagery of nature. It’s particularly compelling for me since Walden Pond is a local landmark and part of our community DNA, less than 15 minute drive from home. I walked there with a friend last week just as I was completing my “Walden at Evening” music for horn, percussion and chorus.

For the first and second movements, I used these words, adapted from the chapter “Sounds”, with some additions of my own to enhance the rhythms. I used them as sounds and phrases, rather than set as text. The phrase about the “stygian lake” didn't end up fitting the musical flow though.

Delicious Evening    adapted from Thoreau’s Walden

Delicious evening
cool and cloudy
gentle breezes
ruffling water
fluttering alder
rustling poplar
as bullfrogs usher in the night
    [troonk, troonk]

Whip-poor-wills chant evening vespers
sing like clockwork after sunset
from the stump by the door
from the ridge of the roof
another answers, then another,
echoing, echoing, retelling, echoing

Long after sunset
in the darkness
owl mourns aloud
tearful music
full of melancholy
with ominous foreboding
then wilder than a laughing loon

bullfrogs troonk on through the night
sturdy spirits of ancient bibblers
unrepentant
hoarse and solemn
mocking at mirth
as they try to sing together in their stygian lake

by lakeside, solitude
lap of rippling water
peeping treefrogs
trump of bullfrog
peent of nighthawk
echo of whip-poor-will
trump of bullfrog
tap of passing rain
screech of owl

serene, delicious evening
luscious, peaceful night 
[luscious, luminous, textured, resonant night ]

I struggled with the form of the piece and I didn't have an ending. I realized I wanted a real, poetic text that the chorus could sing fully. So I went searching and discovered the next poem. The poem finally turned the work onto the road toward being finished. The music became a multi-movement piece, leading me to create the extended "Capriccio Notturno" as the middle movement instead of being a brief interlude. The third and final movement of “Walden at Evening” sets this poem for chorus with horn and vibraphone obbligato.

Low-Anchored Cloud [Mist]
   by Henry David Thoreau

Low-anchored cloud,
Newfoundland air,
Fountain-head and source of rivers,
Dew-cloth, dream-drapery,
And napkin spread by fays;
Drifting meadow of the air,
Where bloom the daisied banks and violets,
And in whose fenny labyrinth
The bittern booms and heron wades;
Spirit of lakes and seas and rivers,
Bear only perfumes and the scent
Of healing herbs to just men's fields!

Private Creative Process

I’ve read praise for composer-bloggers who share their struggles and rejections. It’s the inside story that people want to read. Readers won’t find much insight if all you write is self-promotion and self-praise.

It’s really tough for me, however, when I’m working on a project, to think of anything to write about. I don’t want to write about a work-in-progress that I’m not sure about yet. I don’t have creative bandwidth for writing about other topics either.

While I’m searching for the core of a piece -- the right melodic elements and harmonies, or even the right text, I’m in a private phase of my creative process. I can’t describe ahead of time what the shape of the music will be because the search is what molds the material, and re-shapes it, and finally refines it into something I want to show performers and present to listeners. Usually, I don’t even have a name for the piece.

On Christmas Eve day, I put the final edits on “Walden at Evening”, a three-movement piece for solo horn, 2 percussion, and chorus, with words by Henry David Thoreau. I finally chose the name too. The music is for the August 2013 Symposium of the International Horn Society, which will be in Memphis, Tennessee, USA.

In the previous two weeks I finally shared the scores of the three movements with the commissioner and performers, calling them almost-final drafts. I always think that I will share the work-in-progress with performers, but I don’t feel like I have anything worth sharing until the piece is nearly complete.  The chorus director gave me some good feedback, and I made minor adjustments in vocal ranges. I went back to each movement for final revisions, especially of accompaniment harmonies. I finally decided I was done when the whole piece resonated for me.

After wondering, all through November, whether I had something worth offering, I’m finally very happy with the result. And I can rejoin the online community of friends and fellow musicians again.

The Fellowship of Music-Making: Performing Amahl and the Night Visitors

On December 16, 2012, the Concord, Massachusetts performing community at the 51 Walden arts center presented Menotti’s Amahl. It was a fundraiser for the center (FOPAC), and was a big draw in its second annual presentation. The soloists were local opera and theater performers, among the best around. Orchestra and chorus members and dancers came from the 51 Walden performing groups and the greater Boston musical community. Our conductor and our director brought the production to a high-quality level, and the young girl who sang Amahl gave a very moving performance.

It felt good to be a participant in this good-spirited, enthusiastic group of performers, with many excited children and adults in the audience. (I played the horn part in the orchestra.) Even while we mourned the Newtown shootings, which happened just before our dress rehearsal, I took great comfort in the community we build together to make music.

I wanted to write about this back on Dec 17, but in my next post, you can read why I couldn't manage it. Now that I finally did, I was tempted to pre-date it to then, but that's cheating, right?

New music so far this year

I've been creating a lot of new pieces this year. In August I've been focusing on travel and photos, so it seems like nothing is happening musically. I get a boost from reviewing past work!

New publications in the Spindrift Bandcamp store  : 
Through the Mist, trio for flute, violin, harp, downloadable mini-album 
Play Book, piano pieces for students, book and CD/download

Spindrift Commissioning Guild 2012 projects  :
Examinate Variations for flute and cello
Cascade (but need a new name) for the Yost Trio (flute, piano, percussion)

More chamber music  :
Natural Harmony for string quintet
Dance of the Hoodoos for oboe, violin, cello, piano.
Focal Point for clarinet, viola, and piano 
Labyrinth for 6 horns, premiered in June by Esprit de Cor
Altered for horn, 1 minute long, selected by Michelle McQuade DeWhirst for her Composer's Voice 15-Minutes-of-Fame concert
Greylock Mountain Fanfare also for horn, 1 minute long 

Choral  :  “The Bee Song” and “Grand grand mother is returning”, two movements from “The Future of Life”, adapted for women’s chorus
Improv :  Phrase by Phrase, improvisation design for  Junk Kitchen’s Ultra-New Music night.