Tag Archives: Modern Music

Piano Sonata in c# minor, 4th Movement

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Over the last few weeks I have posted (out of order) the first three movements to my Piano Sonata in C# minor which I composed in 2007. Today is the final movement, the 4th!

As I mentioned, I wanted each movement to grow out of what came before, and the fourth had bits of all of the other three included, though not in any obvious way. So here it is

(Click here if you don’t see the video below)

Anyway, a friend/music mentor had been asking for a fugue since I had started my serious study of “classical” music. This person owned an art gallery and had earlier, before I studied composition, commissioned four (4) pieces of music from me over a handful of years. I recently posted the first piece he commissioned, Sortes Vergilianae (The Fanatic), to YouTube and thought I did a post here, but can’t find it. Hmm, maybe I will some day. Anyway, click on that name if you are interested.

Back tot he story, Gary wanted a fugue, but I hadn’t studied fugue in depth, so I kept telling him “no”. Unfortunately, he passed away before he got his fugue. So I decided to write a fugue in the fourth movement here in his memory. Well, almost. I still hadn’t studied fugue and, though I understood how they worked, I didn’t have the form exactly right. So the middle of this is filled with fugue-like sections (fugato), though I think a purist wouldn’t call it “fugue”.

I do like the huge contrasts of super simple and super dense passages in this.

Here are links to the four videos:

1st movement
2nd movement
3rd movement
4th movement

If you start with the 1st, there are links from each video to the next one. And here are links to the three other blog posts about them:

1st movement blog post
2nd movement blog post
3rd movement blog post.

I hope you enjoy!

Piano Sonata in c# minor, 2nd Movement

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Some of you may have seen my posts on the 1st Movement and the 3rd Movement of my Piano Sonata in c# minor that I have posted recently. I wrote the four movement sonata in 2007 when I was in the middle of my classic composition studies. It was the first, and one of the few, pieces that I wrote because I was inspired to write, not to answer a challenge or to use as a study.

So, now is time for the 2nd Movement, the adagio. Here it is:

(Click here if you don’t see the video below)

Continue reading →

Piano Sonata in c# minor 1st Movement

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A couple of weeks back I posted a video for the 3rd movement of my Piano Sonata in c# minor. After thinking about it, I have decided to put up the entire sonata, one movement at a time. So, without further ado, here is the first:

(Click here if you don’t see video below)

A little background. Well, a very little, since I already wrote about this piece of music, here. Anyway, long story short(er), As I was working my series of 24 piano preludes, I was posting them to a music forum. A lot of people told me to make a longer version of the prelude in c# minor, so I did. I wasn’t quite satisfied with ending there, so I renamed it “1st movement” and went on from there, not calling it complete until I had the four movement piano sonata completely written.

At the time, late 2007, I was very much in a learning stage and every piece of music I wrote served a purpose in my musical education. Until this piece. Yes, I was still learning, and tried to push my boundaries, putting new ideas into practice, but the big thing here was that this was the first piece of music that I wrote in my “classical phase” “just because”. It was the first piece of this time period that was written because I was inspired to write.

Because this was something composed because i was inspired instead of because i was learning something new, it has a special place in my heart. Of course I also like it better than most of what I wrote in that time frame.

Anyway, I hope you like it too!

Child’s Play – Music Video

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beach-sunset-02a

Last week I created a new music video.  Before we go any farther, just start it up.  It is only a little over a minute long (1:17 to be exact).

(Click here if you don’t see the video below)

OK, is it playing in the background?  Great.

I took two of the miniatures from my composition “Child’s Play” and rearranged them a little.  Actually the biggest rearrangement is making the super simple starting piece, “Happy Feet”, a little more complex by having it modulate from the key of G to the key of D.  When you hear it again at the end, that is how it is in “Child’s Play, Book 1”.  Actually, that piece, “Happy Feet”, is based on one of the first things I ever wrote, back when I was a Freshman or Sophomore in college.  I broke a few counterpoint rules at the time, which were fixed when I added it to “Child’s Play, Book 1”. Continue reading →

Challenge Thirteen

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Osprey

One of the very first posts I ever put up on this blog was called Challenge Me!  It was about musical challenges that I used to participate in when I followed a music forum back about a decade ago.

Here is a super quick synopsis of that post.  Someone would post a phrase or a theme.  The “contestants” would compose music based on that theme.  The music could take any form, any genre, etc., as long as it used the music software that the music forum was about.  The winner of each challenge would post the theme for the next challenge.  You can read more on the original post. Continue reading →

Music That Means Something – Recap!

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Pyschodelic Music

I recently finished the “Music That Means Something” challenge.

Don’t know this challenge?  Here is the basic idea:

Post a song a day for five consecutive days.
Post what the lyrics mean to you.  (Optional)
Post the name of the song and a video.
Nominate 1 or 2 bloggers each day of the challenge.  –>Well…, All of you! :)

I was “volunteered” by Sue Vincent ;) And I did it my way (like Frank, both Zappa and Sinatra).  Because of that, I felt I needed a little nightcap.  Uhm, I mean I need a little recap….

Here is the Intro I did for this.

And here is the list, with links, of posts:

First, you’ll noticed I chose entire albums, not songs.  I also posted videos instrumentals (OK, since I ended up posting the entire of Shine on You Crazy Diamond there were lyrics). Continue reading →

Music That Means Something Day 5

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Pyschodelic Music

This is Day Five!  I’ll tell what album I chose in a minute.  Look here for my intro.

Don’t know this challenge?  Here is the basic idea (which I’ll semi-ignore):

Post a song a day for five consecutive days. (will do, well album, not song)
Post what the lyrics mean to you.  (Optional) (nope – instrumental)
Post the name of the song and a video. (will do – a song from the album)
Nominate 1 or 2 bloggers each day of the challenge. (Well…, All of you)

(I was “volunteered” to do the challenge by Sue Vincent ;) )

— —

In my teen years I continued my search for electronic music, but I also got drawn deeper into the world of harder rock.  I soon began to listen to what would later be called “Progressive Rock ” – the name existed back then but had a very different meaning.  I liked Genesis, but my favorite was Yes.  And yet, these bands just didn’t go far enough into pure electronics…

At the fringes of Prog-Rock was a blues based band that didn’t push as deep into the classical or into the bombastic.  They didn’t show off their skills just to show off.  Back then I heard this band described as a Heavy Mental band (notice, ‘mental”, not “metal”), but usually not a “progressive rock” band.  But they created one of the best electronic rock albums of all times.

Pink Floyd, Wish You Were Here. Continue reading →

Music That Means Something Day 4

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Pyschodelic Music

This is Day Four!  I’ll tell what album I chose in a minute.  Look here for my intro.

Don’t know this challenge?  Here is the basic idea (which I’ll semi-ignore):

Post a song a day for five consecutive days. (will do, well album, not song)
Post what the lyrics mean to you.  (Optional) (nope – instrumental)
Post the name of the song and a video. (will do – a song from the album)
Nominate 1 or 2 bloggers each day of the challenge. (Well…, All of you)

(I was “volunteered” to do the challenge by Sue Vincent ;) )

— —

When I was a freshman in high school I used to tag along with my brother who was a senior that year.  This was very true during marching band season (not football season ;) ).  I remember one night sitting in the back of his car while a group of us were out doing stuff.  Someone put a tape in the player (cassette tape – if you don’t know, Google it – I’m old).  I closed my eyes.  I rarely have synesthesia, but I had it that night.  The music came to me as colorful geometric patterns.  They swirled and danced according to note, harmony, instrumentation, etc.  I kept bothering my brother after that about that tape, but I didn’t hear/see it again.  Until Christmas, when the vinyl album was waiting for me under the tree (notice this was the third Christmas present in this series? And the last was me to my brother).  And what was this magical album? Continue reading →

Thirteen! (Music Video)

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Small clip of score - music by Trent P McDonald, phot by Trent P McDonald

Several years ago, when I was deep into composing contemporary classical music, I belonged to a music forum.  One of the things we used to do on the forum is have challenges.  You can see this post for more detail, but basically the winner of the last challenge would come up with a motif and everyone else had to write a piece of music based on the theme.  I thought I had a real chance to win Challenge 12 (I might have if I would have only put in one entry) so I decided to create a theme for Challenge 13, just in case.  I wrote a short sample piece to go along with this little motif, not to play as I posted it (no influence to the competitors) but just to show that the abstract motif wasn’t that far out.  I didn’t win Challenge 12, so I never used that theme except for this short work.  I posted it and everyone loved it, but that was the end.  I had always meant to expand it, and the people on the forum expected me to, but I never got around to it and eventually stopped writing classical music.

I really liked the music, Thirteen!, and so I decided to make a little video of that snippet I created as an example.  It’s a little dark at the end, so I thought “Halloween”, but I didn’t have time to make Halloween graphics.  I used fall foliage scenery, including short videos of me running around in the woods behind my house and call it “autumn inspired” instead of “Halloween”  Enjoy! Continue reading →

Video – Hamlet Symphony IV

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Since today is a special day, I had to post another movement of my Hamlet Symphony.  This is the Fourth Movement – Remembering Ophelia.

(Click here if you don’t see the video)

This movement is in some ways the most beautiful, the most sad, the most delicate, the most simple, the most complicated the… well, you get the idea, there are a lot of contradictions.  It is by far my favorite.  It doesn’t end here, but goes right into the fifth movement, so the ending is abrupt.  Anyway, here is what I wrote about it as I was actually composing the music (I worte most of the below before i wrote the music and then corrected i to fit the music after I was done) ::

– Continue reading →