Tag: classical music

TBT: Beethoven’s Routine

The Portly Politico4 Comments

I’m on the cusp—in a calendrical sense, quite literally—of Summer Break 2023.  Going into summer vacation is like heading into the weekend at that magical moment around 4 or 5 PM on a Friday afternoon, except the “weekend” is two months:  endless possibilities spread out before me.

Of course, every summer I say, “I’m not going to squander this one,” and proceed to squander it.  Then it’s back to the grind in August.  But I’m sure this year will be different—right?

Yours portly actually does make the most of his summer.  I kick off June with a couple of weeks of Minecraft Camp, and I teach lessons all throughout summer.  My roster of summertime lessons is looking fairly healthy at the moment, so that should buoy my finances during the relatively lean summer months.

The key to success, it seems, is keeping a good routine.  I’m not always the strongest in this regard, but when I do keep a routine, I find it does make the rest of the day easier.  No less a genius than Beethoven adhered to a fairly regimented routine, and his was pretty awesome, full of strong coffee, long walks, and composing.

With that, here is 25 May 2022’s “Beethoven’s Routine“:

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Open Mic Adventures XXXIII: “Spore Song (Mushroom Dance)”

The Portly Politico8 Comments

I found myself with a rare bit of free time last Thursday, 18 May 2023.  It was Field Day at school that afternoon, and while the kids were frolicking in the rain (yep, it was raining steadily yesterday), I slipped inside for a few quiet moments.  I found myself at the piano and, staring down a blank sheet of manuscript paper in my music journal, I decided to compose.

While I didn’t name it right away, the result was “Spore Song (Mushroom Dance).”  I’d been wanting to compose a piece named “Spore Song” after reading Stacey C. Johnson‘s post “Spore Song” at her blog Breadcrumbs.

The more I listened to this airy, atmospheric piece, the more I realized that this was “Spore Song.”  Because it’s mostly in 3/4 time (with two brief measures in 4/4), I added the parenthetical title “Mushroom Dance.”

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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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Open Mic Adventures XXVI: “Sonatina”

The Portly Politico4 Comments

Last night was my student’s big Spring Concert, which I am sure I will write about soon, but because of that concert—and the busy weekend preceding it—I’m actually writing this blog a full week early.  Ergo, I’ll likely have some footage from that concert for the next installment of Open Mic Adventures.

For this one, however, I’m sticking to my recent bout of pianistic noodling videos.  This week’s installment pulls from the Alfred’s Basic Piano Library Complete Level 1: For Late Beginners book.  It’s the book my one-eyed Aunt Cheryl used to teach me to play piano, and it’s the one I use with my own piano students.

The piece is near the end of the book, and is called “Sonatina.”  “Sonatina” literally means “a little sonata,” but there is no fixed definition for what constitutes a sonatina.  They are usually light in nature, even amusing, and often meant to reinforce some technique (like an etude, which literally means “study”).

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Open Mic Adventures XXIII: “Gabbi’s Gavotte”

The Portly Politico6 Comments

I’m a tad pressed for time this week, what with the big Music Festival coming up for my students on Thursday.  It’s a flurry of activity for yours portly, so I have a very short little snippet for this week’s edition of Open Mic Adventures.

Regular readers will know of my red tardy slip composing project.  My students have largely been showing up to school on time lately—drat!—so I haven’t had occasion to pen many more miniatures, but I do have a short one that is a bit lively and fun.

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TBT: Composing Humorous Miniatures

The Portly Politico6 Comments

There’s something about these winter doldrums that always get my creative juices flowing, and I’ve embarked upon a new composing project, which I wrote about briefly last week.  Piano miniatures—and mine are mini-miniatures—are a fun way to attempt to express a musical idea in a very brief format, much like “flash fiction” or very short stories.

Last year I penned P​é​ch​é​s d​’​â​ge moyen and a short sequel, then my composing pen laid fallow for much of the rest of the year.  I’ve sketched out a few short pieces that will eventually (probably, maybe) make it into Pdam III, but nothing with the drive and focus of the original and its shorter follow-up.

Then I hit upon the idea of taking the small red tardy slips that students bring to class and composing short pieces on that very small physical medium.  I now have a small stack, and it makes for a fun way of composing first drafts.

With that mini-project in the works—it’s perfect because I can take five minutes even on a busy day to jot down a few bars of music—I thought it might be fun to look back to the origins of what would become P​é​ch​é​s d​’​â​ge moyen.  As my red tardy slips project suggests, there are frequently “arbitrary and absurd sources for inspiration.”

Well, at least for yours portly.

With that, here is 8 February 2022’s ” Composing Humorous Miniatures“:

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Lazy Sunday CLXXXIII: P​é​ch​é​s d​’​â​ge moyen Picks

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For the past three editions of Open Mic Adventures I’ve been featuring pieces from my modern classical piano project, P​é​ch​é​s d​’​â​ge moyen, which I released on 4 March 2022.  I’ve been unable to get out to open mic night since school and lessons have geared back up, so I figured I’d dip into the portly video archives to bring back some goodness.

I also really liked this composing project, and I think I came up with some good material  If you haven’t already, you can pick it up for a buck.  I’ve got another piano miniatures composing project in the works, but more on that another time.

Regardless, I thought I’d take a break from the movie review retrospectives and look back at those three recent editions of Open Mic Adventures, all dedicated to pianistic noodling:

Happy Sunday—and Happy Listening!

—TPP

Other Lazy Sunday Installments:

Open Mic Adventures XIX: “Two-Day Minuet for Left Hand”

The Portly Politico6 Comments

With Bandcamp Friday rapidly approaching, I’m diving back into 2022 and pieces from my modern classical piano project, P​é​ch​é​s d​’​â​ge moyen, which I released on 4 March 2022.  This week, I’m featuring the final track from the collection, “Two-Day Minuet for Left Hand.”

The title is a bit on the nose—uh, I should write, the hand:  I wrote it across two days, and the melody is in the left hand.  See?

The first section, composed on 24 February 2022 (and in red pen, no less!) is in 3/4 time and consists of a slightly irregular seven-phrase theme.  The second section, composed (you guessed it!) on 25 February 2022, is in 4/4 time.  It’s an even more irregular five-phrase section, which shifts to 3/4 for the last two bars.

It ends with a little multimetered coda.  On the manuscript, I forgot to make the final note a dotted half note, so technically it’s an incomplete measure of 3/4 time.  D’oh!

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TBT^4: Beethoven’s Sixth Symphony

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I love it when I’ve been blogging long enough that some pieces get the coveted “TBT^4” designation (or higher!).  I don’t know if readers pick up on this delight, or that I’m even layering commentary upon commentary, but it’s one of those little things that I enjoy about the blog.

I particularly love it when I get to reblog a post about something I really like.  I know classical music isn’t exactly the hot new thing, but most of the hot new things stink, and this music has stood and will continue to stand the tests of time and fashion.

That’s probably no truer than for the music of Beethoven, a truly titanic, tumultuous, troubled figure, the man who bridged the gap between the symmetry and precision of classical music and the stormy, emotional grandiloquence of Romantic music.

Beethoven’s Sixth Symphony, the “Pastoral,” is my favorite of his symphonies.  I’m a sucker for programmatic music, and Beethoven takes us on a moving trip through the countryside.

With that, here is 20 January 2022’s “TBT^2: Beethoven’s Sixth Symphony“:

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