Tag: chorale

Open Mic Adventures CXXVIII: “Airy Chorale in Two Movements”

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Want to play the sax?  Read my ultimate guide to getting started for under $350.

Wanna be utterly perplexed while laughing uproariously?  Grab a copy of my first book, The One-Minute Mysteries of Inspector Gerard: The Ultimate Flatfoot (that’s an Amazon Affiliate link, so I’ll receive a portion of any purchase made through that link, at no additional cost to you—plus I’ll get the book royalties).

I’m still brainstorming what my next music composition project will be, but I’ve been noodling around with a few ideas.  Even when I am not sure of a thematic direction, I keep composing.

Composing is one of those things that scratches a very deep itch for me.  I like to tinker with sets of music theory rules—some of my own creation—to see what kinds of sounds and ideas I can develop within fixed limits.  The challenge of “solving” the problems these limitations create is part of the fun for me, as I tease out melodies and harmonies within whatever confines—arbitrary or otherwise—I’m set for myself.

One thing I’ve been interested in lately is writing trios consisting of three of the same instruments, or three very closely related instruments.  It limits the palette of sound fonts I have to work with, but that also creates unique opportunities for music expression.

The piece this week is one of the first such attempts, a piece that explores the airy, high woodwinds.

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Open Mic Adventures CXXIV: “Cosmic Choral II”

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Pickup my newest release: The Galactic Menagerie!  Use promo code obesekangaroos to take an additional 20% off all purchases on Bandcamp!  Code expires at 11:59 PM UTC on Friday, 4 April 2025.

Want to play the sax?  Read my ultimate guide to getting started for under $350.

Wanna be utterly perplexed while laughing uproariously?  Grab a copy of my first book, The One-Minute Mysteries of Inspector Gerard: The Ultimate Flatfoot (that’s an Amazon Affiliate link, so I’ll receive a portion of any purchase made through that link, at no additional cost to you—plus I’ll get the book royalties).

Yours portly is all about amorphous chorales, oozing harmonic dissonance and consonance in a blurry, flowing amoeba of sound.

That’s the gist of this week’s selection for Open Mic Adventures, “Cosmic Choral II“:

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Phone it in Friday LXVI: YouTube Roundup XXII: Sleeper Hits

The Portly Politico6 Comments

Yours portly uploads a bunch of content to YouTube.  Most of those videos only get a handful of views (other than the shorts of Murphy, which usually garner a few hundred views).

Sometimes, though, for inexplicable reasons, one of my musical compositions—which usually clock views in the single digits, or maybe in the 20s-30s—will take off and get a (relatively) large amount of engagement.  That still might only translate to a 100 views or so, but it’s always fun when it happens.

So this week, I’m looking at some “sleeper hits” in this installment of YouTube Roundup.

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Open Mic Adventures XCIII: “C20r4735 (Chorales)”

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Yours portly released a new album earlier this summer, Heptadic Structure.  It’s an exploration of pieces in 7/4, 7/8, and 7/16 time.  Each piece is twenty-one written measures, for a total of 147 measures across the seven pieces.  Also, 14+7=21.  Math is fun!

You can listen to and/or purchase the album at the following links:

This week I’m featuring the fifth track from the album, “C20r4735 (Chorales)“; the numbers in the title add up to 21—hey-oh!

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Open Mic Adventures LIX: “Listless Chorale”

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Okay, I’ll admit—this week’s Open Mic Adventure is a bit of filler.  Even the best albums have some filler, right?

I really have been trying to up the content game a bit lately, but in an effort to work ahead on the blog a bit, I’m digging deep into some compositions that are really more exercises for me than intended for general consumption.

Still, I thought this piece would give a bit of an insight into how I go about composing, specifically when I write chorales.  I like to try to challenge myself to link together a single note across multiple measures in one or two of the voices, morphing the other voices around those pedal tones.  The challenge comes in trying to find chords that fit these pedal points.

“Listless Chorale” is one such attempt.  I’ll confess, I’m not totally pleased with the outcome—thus the “listless” in the title, as it feels like it’s not really moving anywhere—but you might find some beauty in its harmonies.

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Lazy Sunday CCIX: Original Music, Part II

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By the time you’re reading this post, I should be about an hour or so into a long drive to Indianapolis, where I’ll be visiting my older brother for a week.  We’ll laugh, we’ll cry, we’ll vomit—well, probably not those last two, unless I overindulge on the chicken sausage dogs he picked up for the Fourth of July.

In the spirit of keeping Lazy Sunday lazy, here are three more pieces of original music from Open Mic Adventures, the series that keeps on giving:

  • “Open Mic Adventures XXVIII: ‘Song of the Bigfoot’” – “Song of the Bigfoot” is designed to be a simple étude (a “study”) for acoustic guitar to help students learn the notes on the B and E strings.  It also teaches note durations, with quarter, half, dotted half, and whole notes.  I like the slightly mysterious sound of this simple piece.  Listener consensus says that the guitar version better captures the mystery of the piece, and I agree, but I like the more robust piano version, too.
  • “Open Mic Adventures XXX: ‘Chorale for a Sleepy Wednesday’” – I composed “Chorale for a Sleepy Wednesday” during one of my planning periods.  I thought it would make a fun sightreading exercise for my Middle School Music Ensemble, and eventually I’ll upload their full recording of this piece (audio only).  When I write chorales, I tend to do so as a music theory exercise, so it was fun to see my more astute student-musicians notice some of the stepwise motion in this little piece.
  • “Open Mic Adventures XXXI: ‘Carousel’” – I wrote “Carousel” as a Haydn-esque little gigue or dance in 3/4 time.  My Middle School Music Ensemble students nominated two possible names, “Carousel” and “Ambata,” and “Carousel” won the day.  I promised the student who proposed “Ambata” that I would composed that piece, and I still need to do so.  I already have a good sense for what it will sound like in my head.

Happy Sunday—and Happy Listening!

—TPP

Other Lazy Sunday Installments:

Open Mic Adventures XXX: “Chorale for a Sleepy Wednesday”

The Portly Politico13 Comments

Yes, it’s Tuesday—the traditional day of the week for Open Mic Adventures.  No need to check your calendars—or to question my sanity.

I wrote this piece, “Chorale for a Sleepy Wednesday,” last Wednesday, 26 April 2023, during one of my planning periods.  I thought it would make a fun sightreading exercise for my Middle School Music Ensemble, and we spent class that afternoon sightreading this piece and “Song of the Bigfoot.”

When I write chorales (as I’ll explain in the video), I tend to do it as a music theory exercise.  I used to write them with the idea of sustaining one or even two notes for as long as possible, and always keeping notes within stepwise motion of one another.  That stepwise motion is largely maintained, with a few exceptions, in the manuscript below.

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