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Saturday, June 14, 2014

Video of the Week: Opus 1

I started writing down and saving my music in 1984--my sub-freshman year (8th grade) in high school.  This video features five of these pieces.  Looking back with my current musical knowledge, I see that these are really simple pieces.  Only the first shows real signs of longevity, but all five show the beginnings of my musical exploration.  Enjoy!


A little more about the pieces...

op. 1 no. 1: My Special Girl -- I wrote this piece on a Commodore Vic20.  First I had to write a program that turned the computer program into a type of piano, which allowed me to play three notes at the same time.  But it only played white notes, and each of the three tones came from different octaves.  At the same time, I had this crush on this girl in band, but knew it wasn't going to work out.  Imagining the hypothetical "special" girl I would one day meet, I wrote this song.  I later adapted it for piano.

It has a haunting tune, which I think would make a great song.  The lyrics just don't exist, yet.

op. 1 no. 2: Stars (starting at 3:08) -- This one was "commissioned" as mood music at a church dance.  The theme was "Starlight and Carnations."

op. 1 no. 3: Minute of Stars (starting at 4:35) -- This one was for some presentation at an Episcopalian summer camp named Camp Mikell.  They wanted a Minute of Stars as some characters walked to the stage.

op. 1 no. 4: Heartbeats (starting at 5:44) -- I think I wrote this as a sequel to "Minute of Stars" ... just a simple exploration of chord progressions that follows nicely after the former.

op. 1 no. 5: Testimony (starting at 7:00) -- The LDS ward music director asked me to share my testimony through music.  I wrote this ... something that was appreciated at the time, but wouldn't fly today in today's LDS sacrament meetings, where now only hymn arrangements and other LDS-approved music is allowed.

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