Yours portly has been composing up a storm lately, thanks to my Noteflight subscription.  While the software doesn’t have all of the sound fonts I’d like, the limitations have also challenged me to find interesting combinations of timbres to create some unusual and pleasing colors.

This Friday, 2 February 2024—Groundhog Day!—I’ll be releasing a new album, Firefly Dance, composed entirely in Noteflight.  I finished the album in late December, but have been waiting to release it to coincide with Bandcamp Friday.  It’ll be available on Bandcamp and all major streaming platforms, except for Spotify.  You can listen to the title track now:

This past Saturday, I spent the morning and most of the afternoon composing the title track to another upcoming release, Epistemology.  Epistemology will released on Friday, 1 March 2024.

My school observed three days of virtual “learning” last week due to widespread sickness in the student body and faculty.  I actually taught legit classes—we did notes, discussed music, etc.—but the glory of virtual learning days is that classes tend to be a bit shorter, so there’s more time in between each one.  Having caught up on most of my work, I took a few bits of extra time this week to compose, and that snowballed into more composing.

I’ve reached a point to where I go so nonstop all the time, it’s hard to shut it off.  It is rare that I get home and switch off mentally to watch a flick or the like.  Yes, I do those things—and sometimes deadscroll through Instagram like a fourteen-year old girl—but I’m also always doing something productive:  working on lesson plans, putting together study guides, writing blog posts, composing music, researching something, etc.  Even the things I do for fun have become content.

But I’m not complaining, even if the above paragraph sounds like a critique of late-market capitalism (that’s my older brother’s thing, not mine).  Yes, I do get exhausted sometimes, and I do think productivity can be a trap.  When I’m firing on all cylinders, though, I love how the music pours out of me.  It might not always be the best music (although, lately it’s been pretty darn good, I think), but I’ve been dashing off compositions, both long and short, at a speed I haven’t in years.  It feels good.

That said, after spending most of Saturday composing, I’ll likely take a break for a week or two, other than some shorter form compositions.  I have an idea for a sequel to Leftovers that will feature some unused compositions, as well as some stuff I wrote years ago for a planned-but-never-completed Electrock III album (you can hear Electrock Music and Electrock II: Space Rock on Bandcamp or on Youtube; it’s also on all major streaming platforms—even Spotify!).  I also want to compose an album of instrumental sacred music, music written specifically to glorify God and to set a mood of reverence and contemplation.

I’ve always loved composing chorales, and I hope to study the formal methods of that work in more detail.  In college I would write them as exercises in seeing how chord progressions could unfold when trying to maintain at least one common note between different chords for as long as possible.  The results were sometimes interesting, and sometimes meandering.  My “Listless Chorale” is an example of the latter (and it’s somehow gotten over 360 views on YouTube!).

A friend of mine asked me the purpose of all this composing, and why I don’t use more orchestral sound fonts when I compose on a computer.  My responses boiled down to the following:

1.) I compose because I enjoy it.  YouTube also gives me an easy way to generate loads of content in the form of video versions of my compositions, so I can get them out to a wider audience.  I also hope that if I produce a large quantity of music consistently, I’ll gradually garner a following on Bandcamp and streaming platforms, which will result in some additional revenue.  Yes, I like earning money, but I had a Bandcamp page for something like twelve years before I sold my first album on there.  Like anything, it’s a matter of “get rich slowly.”

2.) I’m composing pieces that can be enjoyed as digital compositions, but (for the most part) can also actually be played by real musicians on real instruments.  A good bit of the composing I do also dovetails with my private music students and my students at the private school where I work.  I want to compose material that they’ll enjoy and find challenging, but that fit their instruments.  I also compose for myself.  As I only have one violinist in class (and I do compose and arrange for her!), I don’t dive into a lot of string repertoire.  I’m learning clarinet and have a young clarinetist who just joined my class, so I’m trying to write material for him and me to learn together (which is one reason why Epistemology is very clarinet-heavy).

Anyway, I’m having fun with it.  I would like to be able to bring in a respectable amount of income from composing, but that’s a long-long-term goal.

In the meantime, I’m going to keep writing what I like—and annoying stuff like this piece:

Go out and create something today—and Happy Listening!

—TPP