My most recent CD, Transitions, is a bit more of a mixed bag than the first two. The original intent of the project was to be a personal score in the same vein as Come Together, but inspired by my last semester at Bucknell and student teaching experience. The end result wound up including that but with additional components, such as some music inspired by more general emotions/experiences as well as my job search that ran parallel to student teaching. I also chose to include an original arrangement of the music from Lost (my favorite TV show through college).
I’m not sure whether this really qualifies as a “score” or not. A few of the pieces have themes/motifs that get repeated and additionally developed in later tracks, like Come Together and Progress. Overall, though, each track feels a lot more self-contained than with my other two CDs. I was aiming for this CD to feel overall lighter and happier than the other two, and while it does have some more serious moments, I think I succeeded in that attempt. Like the other two CDs, these are unprofessional recordings and you can hear some background noise throughout. Hopefully the music still shines through nonetheless. Brief descriptions of each track are below the update below. As with the previous two CDs, I've included the music in multimedia format with corresponding representative pictures.
I also promised an update on future projects in earlier posts. I am still coming up with new musical ideas all the time! However, my pace of composing has slowed some from my peak college days. Teaching and grad school working consume nearly all of my time and I have little time to actually get my ideas recorded, either to paper or audio. I am also not sure what I am going to do with my new ideas when it does come time to record them. While at Bucknell, I could easily just slip into a music building practice room during a quieter period of the day, switch on my audio recorder, and be done in a few hours. Here in Memphis, all I’ve got is my keyboard in my apartment; if I recorded using that and my handheld recorder, the quality would be even worse than my first three efforts, a direction I most definitely don’t want to step in. I’ll ask around with some of my connections here to see if maybe a church would let me in to record on their piano after hours, or maybe if I could even have a low-cost, near-professional recording produced.
Assuming I can find a place to record, my current goal is to have two parallel CD projects ready to record by early next summer. The first CD will be the score to my year with the Memphis Teacher Residency and for the 2012 MTR Class of Excellence. The second CD will be a musical journey through the story of the Bible, with pieces that represent each of the major Biblical events. Look forward to future recordings and updates…you’ll hear about them here first! :-)
DISCLAIMER: Please, do not use any of the music, photos, or text from these videos without express permission from the composer/photographer/author (me). All rights belong to yours truly.
Video 1
Track # 1- “Worth Fighting For.” (0:00-3:36) I love fantasy stories and movies and wanted to write a piece that would be in the vein of what I would write if I ever had the opportunity to score a movie like Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings. This track was the result. It also ends up functioning as theme of sorts for the whole CD and pops up in recurring fragments when I wanted to represent a life moment/struggle that was “worth fighting for.”
Track # 2- “The Dream.”(3:37-6:52) This piece represents my anticipation of finally getting the chance to start realizing my dream of being an educator through my student teaching experience. I tinkered with it around the end of my Fall 2010 semester and Winter Break before I actually started teaching. It serves as another theme of sorts to represent teaching and also pops up in recurring fragments in later tracks.
Track # 3- “Part of Life.” (6:53-10:55) The melody of this piece started off as a reject from my earlier efforts. I was starting to rework it into something more listenable when I received the sad news over Winter Break 2010-2011 that the past director of Bucknell’s LGBT Office, Fran McDaniel, had passed away unexpectedly. Fran had been one of the biggest encouragers of my musical work when I started sharing it in the Fall 2010 semester. Suddenly, I knew exactly what this melody represented and how it could work as a complete piece. My intention with this song was to represent the losses, struggles, and challenges we all face in life- and how, with God’s guidance and collaboration with others, we can overcome our difficulties. I was honored to have the opportunity to perform this piece at Fran’s memorial service and again at my Spring 2011 benefit concert (that was her idea).
Track # 4- “Lewisburg.” (10:56-13:51) A musical representation of the community of Lewisburg, PA generally and the Green Dragons of Lewisburg Area High School, where I student taught, specifically. Another theme of sorts that pops up again in later tracks.
Video 2
Track # 5- “Long Beginning.” (0:00-4:20) This piece represents my return to Bucknell for the Spring 2011 semester and final anticipation phase pre-student teaching (we had two weeks of seminar coursework and orientation before we actually starting teaching daily in our placement schools).
Track # 6- “Planning.” (4:21-7:57) A piece dedicated to the joys of unit/lesson planning!
Track # 7- “Brotherhood.” (7:58-12:51) This track represents Bucknell’s Gamma Eta Chapter of Theta Chi Fraternity and all of the various antics that occurred during my time as a member of said fraternity.
Track # 8- “Required Learning.” (12:52-16:05) As a student teacher I demanded a lot of my students, but also made various mistakes and had experiences that I think were necessary for me to learn from and grow into a better teacher. This piece represents the mutual learning that occurs between a teacher and his or her students…me and my first students, in this case.
Track # 9- “Isolating.” (16:06-19:07) For a job that requires so much social interaction, being a classroom teacher can indeed be a very isolating and lonely task. Without the support of MTR during my student teaching days, I found my social life to be rather lacking at times throughout the Spring 2011 semester; this sad piece is the result.
Video 3
Track # 10- “Memories.” (0:00-4:34) Social isolation can lead to the pain of the past resurfacing. I wrote in a past blog post about how at times I’ve idolized relationships with women and searched for fulfillment in my relationships of a kind that only God can truly bring. At the time about halfway through my student teaching semester when I wrote this piece, I hadn’t realized that yet. I found myself wanting more romantic female companionship and wondering how some of my past relational mistakes could have turned out differently. I might note that the time frame associated with these sad and sorry tracks 9 and 10 is roughly associated with the week that most Bucknellians were off on Spring Break and we student teachers were sticking around following the public school calendars. Another reminder of the importance of consistent human interaction and companionship!
Track # 11- “So Many Possibilities.” (4:35-7:06) A piece to represent the many and varied options soon to be confronting me as a Bucknell grad in search of a teaching position, and associated feelings of overwhelmedness.
Track # 12- “The Search.” (7:07-10:40) The job search kicked into high gear with interviews in Pittsburgh, Memphis, and New Orleans…the musical reflection is this piece.
Track # 13- “Turning Points.” (10:41-14:14) As April passed by, I was offered and accepted a spot in MTR…I continued to student teach, make mistakes, learn and grow…and enjoyed a few brief moments of rest and respite. The haze of this month is captured in this piece.
Track # 14- “Short Ending.” (14:15-15:38) And just like that…my student teaching days were over. It ended so quickly after all that anticipation! The piece represents the joy of the short experience that it was and the sense of how quickly it ended.
Video 4
Track # 15- “Success.” (0:00-3:24) I viewed May 2011 as my month of “Celebratory Transition.” At the beginning of the month, I was wrapping up student teaching; at the end of the month I was moving to Memphis to begin my next teaching adventure. In between I said farewell to my Bucknell life and graduated; experienced a newfound depth in my relationship with God; and got to have a bit of relaxing down time. This piece is intended to represent the exuberant whirlwind that was that month. This is actually one of my least favorite “original” pieces. I started disliking it once I realized that it was based around one of the most overused chord progressions of all time, heard in everything from Taylor Swift to 39% of Christian praise and worship songs to random-movie-score-from-the-1980s. Alright, I guess it’s not that bad, but still not what it otherwise might have been.
Track # 16- “The Mirror.” (3:25-5:03) Gazing into the mirror on my bedroom wall during that month of celebratory transition. Looking at who I had become during college and who I was becoming as I transitioned into my new life in Memphis (yup, I was listening to you, John Bravman). Wondering whether I liked me, whether my life was pleasing to God. Expressing these emotions musically. The results…here you go.
Track # 17- “Each Life Must Have A Narrative.” (5:04-9:14) This piece represents that newfound spiritual depth to my life that I mentioned above. The title is taken from a phone conversation I had with David Montague (and, unbeknownst to me at the time, seven subsequent months of Spiritual Life classes) as MTR and I processed through whether or not we were right for each other. Basically, the idea is that everyone is living out some kind of story. The question is, what story are you living? I, and MTR, strive to live a life story that is glorifying to God and consistent with His story.
Track # 18- “Commencement.” (9:15-12:33) May 22, 2011…Bucknell graduation and a true transition in my life and the lives of my 900ish classmates. I wanted to finish and distribute this CD before leaving Bucknell, so the piece is more of a representation of how I was envisioning walking across that stage a couple weeks before I actually did. The reality ended up being pretty consistent with that vision, though. It was bittersweet. This piece amalgamates various themes and motifs from Transitions as well as Come Together to try to tell the story of the bittersweet momentousness that was that journey of commencement and transition.
Video 5
Track # 19- “The Journey: A Tribute to the Music of LOST.” (0:00-18:04) I was rather obsessed with the TV show LOST throughout my time at Bucknell…and why shouldn’t I have been? The show had so much to love…starting with Michael Giacchino’s gloriously beautiful orchestral score. I spent a good chunk of my Winter Break 2010-2011 writing my own piano arrangement of the music from LOST. (And yes, unlike every other track on my three CDs, which still exist only in audio and mental form, I actually wrote this arrangement down. Old school style, using only my pencil, hand, and some staff paper). It turned out decently, I think. I included it on this CD both because I had just enough extra space to share it, and because I felt it was a good metaphor for my own journey from being “lost” to achieving the spiritual peace that comes from knowing God and striving to love Him and others in the same way that He loves us- the truth that, in its somewhat misguided way, I think the show was trying to tell all along.
