I’m continuing to plug away at some compositions for a planned release, Koi Dance. This week I’m featuring a solemn but hopeful duet.
Tag: media
New Music Tuesday VI: Rosy Reds
Yours portly is continuing to work on his collection of pond-based tunes, Koi Dance. I introduced some rosy red minnows to our koi pond about a month ago, which inspired today’s piece.
New Music Tuesday V: Pond Ball
I neglected to feature this week’s piece sooner, although it did show up in an addition of Phone it in Friday. Well, better late than never!
The structure of this piece is slightly unusual. It’s a string trio, but the violin doesn’t kick in until the second half of the piece, when it adds harmonies and a countermelody of sorts to the work.
New Music Tuesday IV: “Moonlight Shimmer”
I’m continuing to work on my pond-based pieces, and have a fourth piece completed. This duet incorporates whole tone scales, which possess a mystical, mysterious quality. The piece is broadly in Bb major, but the second and third sections feature some secondary dominants that, at times, push the key closer to D major. The whole tone scales also give a sense of atonality to sections of the piece, representing the mystery of moonlight.
New Music Tuesday III: “Snail Drop”
The koi pond at our new house has served as a source of immense inspiration for yours portly. I’ve spent many late nights researching various species of aquatic life that can thrive in our little pond ecosystem. I’m most excited about getting some Japanese Trapdoor Snails for our pond.
In the meantime, however, I’ve added some ramshorn snails to the pond already. They arrived in a bag from an eBay seller in Oklahoma, clinging to the walls of their watery shipping compartment. I drove them up one frosty night and gently plopped them into the pond, which inspired today’s new piece.
Lazy Sunday CCCXLXIV: Fire and Water
It’s a quick Lazy Sunday this week as Dr. Wife and I hunker down in the cold. I’m casting my gaze back to two posts from earlier this week, one based in the coolness of the watery depths, the other in the fiery crucible of the modern restaurant industry:
- “New Music Tuesday II: ‘Koi Dance’” – I am really, really proud of this piece. Please give it a listen.
- “Chilly on Chili’s” – My scathing critique of my local Chili’s.
Happy Sunday!
—TPP
New Music Tuesday II: “Koi Dance”
I’ve been working hard on this week’s piece, “Koi Dance,” for about two weeks now. It’s a chamber piece featuring two flutes, bassoon, and piano, and draws inspiration from Bedřich Smetana’s “The Moldau”; that piece also features a flowing theme that depicts the movement of water.
I plugged the finished piece into Audacity and applied some additional reverb and a master effect, both of which I think have allowed the sound to “pop.”
New Music Tuesday I: “Herald”
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Now that it’s 2026, it’s time to make a few changes to the blog. One of those overdue changes comes to the long-running weekly feature Open Mic Adventures.
According to a hasty review of my records, I ceased playing open mics—and, indeed, most live gigs outside of private bookings—in 2025. I simply lacked the time and energy—and interest. I much prefer rehearsing my students so they can play live.
That’s been one of the big changes in my life in recent years. I enjoy playing live, but as I get older, going to open mic nights and playing songs I wrote a decade (or more) ago lost its luster. It’s also amazing how once I got engaged (and now married), my desire to show off in coffee shops plummeted. If I’m going to play to impress anyone—always a dubious proposition—it’s going to be for Dr. Wife.
That’s all to say that I’m not ending Open Mic Adventures, per se—there’s always that chance I’ll get that itch to play and get some good video in the process—but that I’m shifting it into something more accurate: New Music Tuesday. The “Open Mic” appellation ceased to be accurate for most of 2025, as I featured more and more of my original electronic compositions.
Of course, good ol’ WordPress.com makes it easy to put together these weekly, multimedia posts. One thing I’ve come to love about WordPress.com is how intuitive it is to upload all sorts of media.
For example, here is today’s featured track, “Herald,” uploaded as a beautifully lossless WAV file using the “Audio” block:
I found this brief piece scribbled on a red tardy slip I had in my desk. I apparently wrote it down on 8 August 2023, and finally put it into my music composition software this morning. It’s a very simple, quick piece, indicative of the kinds of etudes I was composing at that time. As such, “Herald” is a brief piano fanfare, suitable for players at most levels.
Flashback Friday: Happy Halloween!
Woooooooot—it’s Halloween! At long last!
Halloween is particularly fun when it’s on a Friday. My little town “observed” trick-or-treating last night, but I’m going with Dr. Fiancée and my niece and nephews tonight (we’re not dressing up, but the kids are). I’m looking forward to some family time.
How are you celebrating tonight, readers?
With that, here is 31 October 2019’s “Happy Halloween!“:
Ponty’s Pen: The BBC’s Newfound Interest in the Gaming Industry
Video games used to be a bit of a niche—a large and popular niche, but a niche nonetheless. Sure, our mom loved playing Dr. Mario on our old Nintendo, but that was about the extent of it. Video games were largely for boys, who grew up into men. Those men rebought the classics when they became available digitally, and continued to fuel the development of new games with their hard-earned dollars.
Of course, video game companies sensibly sought to expand their market share. They developed more casual games to attract older gamers and more women. The Nintendo Wii marked a major shift, as the kinetic style of the console made it popular among many demographics, most notably the elderly. Nary a retirement home or assisted living facility lacked a Wii, with which geriatrics could play virtual tennis and bowling.
All of that is wonderful. More gamers means more games, and it means broader acceptance of video games as a fun, harmless pastime (in spite of the ludicrous stories that insist on linking video games to violence—malarkey!).
Lately, however, video game developers have followed in the footsteps of film and television, making a mad push towards increasing “representation” in games. This development is premised upon a number of false premises, such as “women are objectified damsels-in-distress in games,” which ignores Princess Peach, Princess Zelda/Sheikh, Lara Croft, and many other “strong female” protagonists or supporting characters in game.
That obsession is linked to another false premise: that in order to enjoy a video game (or movie, or book, or other work), we must see carbon-copies of ourselves in them. According to this reasoning, a black kid can’t enjoy a Mario game because Mario is an Italian-American plumber, not an African-American one.
As Ponty so eloquently points out, video games are frequently a form of escapism. We don’t want to be ourselves; we want to be a burly barbarian, or a sneaky thief. When I play roleplaying games, I don’t play a six-foot-one, two-hundred-fifty-plus pound nerd with bad eyesight; I typically play a short rogue or bard character, pilfering loot from NPCs’ homes. I’d never burgle a home in real life, and the game doesn’t make me want to do so; rather, it gives the thrill of being a second-story man without any of the terrible consequences for either myself or the victim.
Regardless, gaming, too, has been a major front in the Culture Wars, going back to Gamergate in 2014. Nearly ten years on, we’re still fighting similar battles.
With that, here is Ponty’s essay “The BBC’s Newfound Interest in the Gaming Industry”: