The Big Apple Grind
Lily Stargazer
Tell Them Henry Sent You
Dancing and Playing in the Mud Puddles
Racing Against Time
For Lenore
Blue Note Rendezvous
Habanera
Sleepy Time
March Into the Dream
The Engagement Ring
Before Breakfast
My first volume of reveries was composed
between March 2004 and August of 2005 and contains the 12 compositions listed
on the left in chronological order. My original intention in writing these
reveries was to find, or create, a personal and distinctive musical style
which could express, or represent, in the language of music, who I am, what
I am about, and where my heart is.
Leading up to this project, I assembled, using a criteria of my own design,
a list of 150 different musical scales, or modes, each one a special 7-note
combination possessing its own distinct personality and potentiality. My
idea was, by randomly choosing a specific mode at the start of composing
a new piece, I would have a structure to work within, a context to guide
my creative process in a particular direction according to the nature or
character of the mode being utilized.
Working with these various modes, I found myself creating melodies and harmonies
ranging from traditional to jazzy to ethnic to quirky to everything in between.
In the process, I believe I chanced occasionally upon roads that past composers
must have been down before, composers such as Debussy, Satie, Rimsky-Korsakov,
Rózsa, Gershwin, Mancini, Guaraldi to name but a few. Other times
I felt I’d gained some insight or access into the cultures of foreign
lands, especially those of Europe, Asia and the Middle East, not through
learning any of the spoken languages, but through figuring out bits of the
musical ones.
Click on any of the titles listed on the left to find out about a specific
reverie from my first volume. To view the sheet music on the above-right
in greater size, click on the image.
