Choir Music!

I'm starting to feel as if all I'm preparing to post up here is really old pieces I wrote when I was just barely beginning, but I know I've come a long way and that my stuff is actually good now.  To prove it to myself I wrote this choral piece this afternoon as a challenge to myself to write something without hearing what it sounded like first relying solely on my voice leading abilities.  I'm actually a little proud of me, if I do say so myself! :)

I don't think I'll ever write words for it, so I guess I'll just call it an "invention" and leave it to be sung on "ah" or "ooh" or something like that.

(Okay, people really don't realise how much out of my comfort zone I am when I post things here.  It's terrifying!)

Choral Invention in C-sharp minor

Spirit's Rest - Piano Solo

Sometimes I feel like I'm suddenly really eager to get all this music out there, but at the same time I don't want to wait a while and prolong posting just to put up something like this piece.  It's not my favourite or best, but I still enjoy it.

Okay, here's the story:

I wrote this piano solo over three years ago before I had any sort of music training beyond the basics of song harmony.  It was Christmastime, the end of the semester was coming up, and I had no ideas for gifts for my girlfriend at the time.  Being a poor college student who feels like I have no real talents to offer, I figured I would just write her a song.  I had had bits of this melody in my head before then but this seemed like the perfect time to actually write it all down.  Great idea, right?

All in all it took me about three days to get it all finished.  We went out on a date one night, I took her to the music building to find a piano, and I played this for her and gave her the score to keep.  We ended up breaking up about two months later.  Romantic, eh?

Well, I still have this.  It's very simple and I've discovered non-chord tones since then which I love!  At any rate, I hope somebody enjoys this.

Spirit's Rest

Dan's Theme - Piano Solo

This blog is meant to force me to share some of the compositions I create.  I do it quite a bit but don't typically like to share them with people, but hopefully if I do this I will feel I have to finish projects and put them out there for people to listen and critique.  That thought really terrifies me so I'm putting myself out on a limb here!  I'll probably also likely end up using this as a sounding board, since I know many people likely will never find this and I can feel free to unleash things to the Internet!

Most of the stuff I do is more musical theatre and classical since I'm a trained singer.  These are all pieces I have in my head that I write down on occasion, but I by no means feel they are perfect.  To start I thought I'd just share one of my more recent compositions.  It's a piano piece entitled "Dan's Theme".  Maybe some time in the future I'll elaborate on the title, but for now you can just listen and enjoy (hopefully!).  This is converted from a MIDI file so there are some tempo/ritardando issues that don't appear.  Just use your imagination.  (Oh, for any that care or even know what it means, I would term this to be a sonata-rondo.  That is all. :))

Dan's Theme