Open Mic Adventures CLIX: “Dido’s Lament”

16 December 202516 December 2025 The Portly PoliticoLeave a comment

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Years ago, my dear mom found a copy of The Usborne Book of Piano Classics (that’s an Amazon Affiliate link; I receive a portion of any purchases made through that link, at no additional cost to you) at a book sale and picked it up for me. I have used that book countless times over the years for gigs, piano lessons, practice, arranging, etc. My High School and Middle School Music Ensembles have performed arrangements based on those in the book many times at the annual South Carolina Independent School Association Music Festival.

While it consists of piano arrangements of famous pieces from the Baroque, Classical, and Romantic periods, I often play the pieces on saxophone. I found myself pulling the book out in preparation for a gig this past Sunday (a wedding proposal—the client’s girlfriend said yes!), and came upon a melancholy piece from the Baroque composer Henry Purcell, “When I am laid in earth,” perhaps better known as “Dido’s Lament.” It’s from Purcell’s opera Dido and Aeneas.

Lazy Sunday CCCXVII: Musical Reflections

13 July 202512 July 2025 The Portly PoliticoLeave a comment

It was a more musical week than usual here at The Portly Politico, so I thought I’d take today’s installment of Lazy Sunday to feature recent music-related pieces:

“Open Mic Adventures CXXXVIII: ‘Crunchy Roll’” – a funky piece for electric bass and drums that leans heavily into triplets.
“Wedding Music” – a piece detailing my (possible) selections for wedding music; apparently, the bridge and her mother are “supposed” to make these selections, but I’m the musician, so I think that trumps tradition.
“SubscribeStar Saturday: Mallets!” (Subscribestar) – three pieces for mallets (vibraphone, marimba, etc.); one piece if you’re not a subscriber.

Enjoy this brief trip into the very recent past—and enjoy listening!

Happy Sunday!

—TPP

Other Lazy Sunday Installments:

Wedding Music

9 July 20258 July 2025 The Portly Politico10 Comments

In case you missed it, yours portly is getting married. Yesterday, I decided to sit down and figure out music for the ceremony (pending Dr. Fiancée’s approval, of course) so that our pianist—the incomparable Robert Mason Sandifer—can get to practicing.

I’m not selecting anything controversial or daring for the processional or recessional. I’ve asked Mason to have fun with the prelude music and to play some of his original compositions, but for the ceremony itself, it’s straight-up Baroque classics.

Phone it in Friday LXXXIII: YouTube Roundup XXXIII: Pianistic Silliness

28 February 202528 February 2025 The Portly PoliticoLeave a comment

Goodness, yours portly needs a vacation from his vacation! It’s been another crazy week, as my consistently tardy posts have demonstrated.

Last night I played a little cocktail hour at the big hospital system in my area. They host an annual fundraiser in February, and they’ve booked me to play sax for a few years. This year, they asked me to play piano on their beautiful baby grand. As such, I put in a lot of hours this week and last to hone my chops.

At one point, I started playing Electric Light Orchestra’s “Can’t Get it Out of My Head,” which gave me the idea to put together a promo reel for a fake ELO cover band:

Open Mic Adventures LXVIII: “Cook’s Brief Bourrée in E minor”

13 February 202411 February 2024 The Portly PoliticoLeave a comment

On Friday, 2 February 2024 I released Firefly Dance, my latest collection of original digital compositions. It’s a fun album, and I’m pleased with how it came out in the end.

You can purchase and/or stream Firefly Dance through the following services:

Bandcamp ($5!): https://tjcookmusic.bandcamp.com/album/firefly-dance
Apple Music: https://music.apple.com/us/album/firefly-dance/1724130522
YouTube : https://youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_k5xlOgwiUIFHGrMXpJ4bjmKHGGepfpCYM&si=U5tXOlFABVRwmA-E
Amazon: https://amzn.to/3SyTMHJ (Amazon Affiliate link; I get a small portion of any purchase made from clicking this link, at no additional cost to you)

Most of the tracks are fairly short, and several of them started life as small sightreading exercises for my various music students. Such is the case with “Cook’s Brief Bourrée in E minor”—an exercise for bass players to learn the bass clef, and for pianists to sharpen their left-hand playing.

TBT^4: Hand it to Handel

3 November 202225 October 2022 The Portly Politico3 Comments

Autumn is here, and it’s a time for music! There is something about the fall that makes music even better. Sure, summertime is for outdoor concerts and music festivals, but I find music sounds better in the fall.

There is some science behind this feeling: sound waves travel farther in colder weather. It has something to do with air particles being further apart in the cold, so sound waves can keep going. I’m sure I’m explaining it incorrectly, and I’m too lazy to look it up, but just trust me on this one.

Unfortunately, I am no longer teaching the Pre-AP Music Appreciation course that saw me steeped in the best that medieval, Renaissance, Baroque, classical, Romantic, and modern composers had to offer. That doesn’t mean I have to stop enjoying these composers, though!

One of my all-time faves—and a composer who is quintessentially English, even if he’s German—is George Frideric Handel. His works are among the finest from the Baroque period.

With that, here is 18 November 2021’s “TBT: Hand it to Handel“:

TBT: Hand it to Handel

18 November 202117 November 2021 The Portly Politico8 Comments

We’re back in the Baroque Period in my Pre-AP Music Appreciation course this year, though based on the timing of this post, we’re just a few days behind this year. We’ve watched the excellent BBC documentary on Handel linked below, and just got into his works this week (we also recently viewed, in snippets, Henry Purcell’s opera Dido and Aeneas, which is really great—and, at just under an hour, perfect for classroom viewing).

Regardless, it’s good to see that my pacing from one year to the next is mostly on track. It’s one of those things that teachers like to see, especially when it’s only the second time running a course. I guess I am just more long-winded this year.

What’s not long-winded—I hope!—is this post on Handel’s music.

With that, here is 10 November 2021’s “Hand it to Handel“:

The Joy of Hymnals II: The Cokesbury Worship Hymnal

13 November 202013 November 2020 The Portly Politico8 Comments

This week I’ve been teaching and learning a great deal about George Frideric Handel, the great German composer who became, over his long life, a great British one. In discussing Handel and other Baroque composers with my students, we also veered into the world of hymns.

Hymns were and are important in Protestant congregations as simple, memorable tunes with theologically rich texts. Hymn melodies are often based on folk tunes or popular compositions. In some cases, such as the lovely Christmas carol “Silent Night,” the text is written first, then set to music (indeed, most hymns, being based on Scripture, evolved this way). Sometimes the tune is written, then an enterprising poet sets the text. Such was the case with Isaac Watts, who set his text for “Joy to the World” to a Handel melody. And, of course, there are hymns written and composed by the same person.

In talking about hymns, I brought to my students a slender little hymnal in my small collection of them, The Cokesbury Worship Hymnal. From what I can gather, my copy was published in or after 1966, when the copyright from 1938 was renewed. There is a stamp on the inside front cover stating that the hymn book once belonged to Carteret Street Methodist Church, which I thought was in Charleston, but appears to be in Beaufort, South Carolina. The hymnal includes 296 hymns, with fifty responsive readings—a good collection, but slim by the standards of a pewback hymnal.

Hand it to Handel

10 November 202010 November 2020 The Portly Politico2 Comments

One nugget of wisdom I’ve heard before is “if you want to learn something, teach it.” As a private school educator who taught pretty much every course in the standard high school social studies curriculum and a plethora of music courses, I can attest to the Truth of this statement. I essentially taught myself, for example, the highlights of Western philosophy from teaching a Philosophy course for many years (a course I very much wish the school would revive).

I’m shifting increasingly towards teaching music exclusively (though I’m still teaching a couple of American History survey courses), and teaching a Pre-AP Music Appreciation class has been one of the great joys of that transition. Years ago I created and taught a course called “History of American Popular Music,” which covered the early Tin Pan Alley tunes all the way through blues, jazz, rock ‘n’ roll, and beyond. This Pre-AP course is focused on the great works of Western music, going back to the medieval period.

Currently, we’re wrapping up a big unit on Baroque music. The Baroque style—as epitomized by greats like Bach, Monteverde, Corelli, Handel, and others—delights in contrasts. Just as Baroque paintings highlight stark contrasts between light and dark, Baroque music revels in sudden contrasts in dynamics. It also loves to play around with complexity, as any Bach fugue will quickly demonstrate.

The last composer in our unit is George Frideric Handel. Handel, a German-born composer, made a major splash upon his arrival in England in the 1710s, where he sought to introduce Italian opera to sophisticated London crowds. What was meant to be a temporary visit turned into over four decades, and Handel is interred at Westminster Abbey—a huge honor. It’s one of those delightful twists of history that Handel the German became one of the most English composers in history—and one of the greatest composers of all time.

The Portly Politico

One Southerner's unique, erudite, conservative perspective in a hectic world

Tag: Baroque