One fun thing about teaching lessons is that I often get ideas from my students. During a drum lesson, a student and I were working on playing in 6/8 time, and the student came up with an interesting rhythm: “1 2-Trip-Let 3-and 4 5 6.” That rhythm provided the basis for today’s piece, about one of my favorite marine animals.
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:
My new album, PRISM, released Friday, 7 February 2025. Use promo code “photon” to get 20% off this release, my biggest and longest to date! It’s also finally on Apple Music!
Yours portly is back to the grind today, and slowly getting back into my routine. I’ve been woefully negligent of the blog, but hope to get back into the groove soon. I’ve been writing that for what feels like a week, but maybe it will become true—finally!
As it is, this post is late, and I usually do Open Mic Adventures on Tuesdays. Well, you get what you pay for, I suppose. Thanks for bearing with me.
I recently finished working on a new album, which will be something of a cosmic zoological exploration. I’m calling it The Galactic Menagerie, and it releases on Friday, 7 March 2025, so mark your calendars.
This week, I’m featuring one of the two tuba duets from the album, and this one is particularly chunky.
My latest album, PRISM, released back on 7 February 2025. However, it somehow failed to deliver to Apple Music/iTunes. I had to submit a support ticket to my distributor, CD Baby, but that takes some time. I figured it would not release on Apple Music until my next album, The Galactic Menagerie, releases on 7 March.
I checked today and PRISM is now on Apple Music! Glad to see it on all platforms now.
I’m slowly making my way home, so, again, the blog is way behind schedule. Hope to get back in the regular groove again soon.
—TPP
My new album, PRISM, released Friday, 7 February 2025. Use promo code “photon” to get 20% off this release, my biggest and longest to date!
I’m working on a new album, which will be something of a cosmic zoological exploration. I thought I’d feature a particularly prickly track from that album this week.
My new album, PRISM, released Friday, 7 February 2025. Use promo code “photon” to get 20% off this release, my biggest and longest to date!
PRISM follows the journey of a single photon through the spectrum of light, flashing from darkness through the dazzling light and color of the rainbow.
The entire album clocks in at fifty minutes, and features my longest composition to date, the title track, “PRISM.” This week, I’m featuring that title track.
My new album, PRISM, is out today, Friday, 7 February 2025. Use promo code “photon” to get 20% off this release, my biggest and longest to date!
PRISM follows the journey of a single photon through the spectrum of light, flashing from darkness through the dazzling light and color of the rainbow.
The entire album clocks in at fifty minutes, and features my longest composition to date, the title track, “PRISM.” It also comes packed with bonus material, including the following:
PRISM is a conceptual musical journey that encourages deep, meditative listening. It also makes for good background music if that’s more your speed.
PRISM is available on the following platforms:
Remember, use promo code “photon” for 20% off!
Happy Listening!
My next album, PRISM, releases tomorrow, so I thought I’d look back at a post about the bit of online frivolity that, in many ways, kickstarted the massive amount of composing I’ve undertaken over the last year.
I never did get around to writing those flute pieces for that one guy (see below), but I’m not too worried about it. I imagine one day I’ll get some more requests to compose some pieces, and I have quite a back catalogue from which to pull and adapt ideas.
With that, here is 29 February 2024’s “TBT^2: Composing Humorous Miniatures“:
I’ve got a weird one this week. You see, yours portly sometimes walks around his house singing old songs. This week’s Open Mic Adventures is a glimpse into the scruffy insanity that sometimes takes hold.
The Sunday before the Inauguration I cheekily proposed to my pastor and our deacon that we should sing “From Greenland’s Icy Mountains” for our morning congregational hymn in honor of Trump’s then-upcoming Inauguration. I had practiced the piece a bit Saturday evening, but with a pretty gnarly bout of sinus drainage, I found the high notes hard to hit.
Instead of singing the piece—a very old missionary tune by composer Lowell Mason, with words by Reginald Heber—either on my own or in church, I played it a few times as a bit of instrumental prelude music.
The melody for the piece is interesting, with a few suspensions and some unusual timing, like the long half-note pickup at the beginning and midway through the piece.
The Portly Politico 