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:
Happy Sunday!
—TPP
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.”
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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.
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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.
It’s Christmastime, and I own an out-of-tune piano and a candelabra. Naturally, I had to film myself playing “Silent Night” by candlelight.
As such, here is my short rendition of that sweet, timeless carol, played on a piano with a few dead keys and lots of character:
Spooky Season IV is coming at some point this month (hopefully the Monday of Halloween week). Here’s another tasty tune for your spooky satisfaction.
Spooky Season IV is coming out later this month, and I finally finished it last week. The first track I wrote for the album, “Blue Ghost,” is the feature of today’s Open Mic Adventures.
This piece is the companion piece to “Red Ghost,” which I featured last week. I like the contrasts between them.
Following the assassination of Charlie Kirk, I was not sure how to process the tragedy. I sat down at piano and decided to play some hymns.
As I flipped through my Cokesbury Worship Hymnal, I came upon “All Hail the Power of Jesus’ Name” and decided to play it. The horrible assassination had already awoken thousands to Christ, and social media was abuzz with posts noting that individuals and/or their family members had a.) planned to attend to church on Sunday; b.) had purchased or planned to purchase and read Bibles; and c.) accepted Christ. It was clear that a powerful national revival was breaking out.
It was also a powerful reminder of how Christ Uses even the most wicked events to His Good. There is power in Jesus’ Name!
As such, I decided to add my voice to the outpouring of prayers for peace and salvation, and shared this brief piano performance of the piece.
Yours portly hasn’t uploaded any original compositions to YouTube lately, nor have I actually been to an open mic night in many, many months. But I have been enjoying playing covers of tunes on my grandmother’s old Kimbrell console piano, which I had moved to my house this summer.
My High School Music Ensemble is working on Loverboy’s “Working for the Weekend,” so I decided to take some time to attempt my own, abbreviated piano cover of the classic ode to the weekend.
Yours portly is back into the swing of things at school, and therefore have not had much time to write. I meant to hammer out a post last night after work, but the siren song of Civilization VII, coupled with post-teaching relaxation, was too strong to resist. As such, here’s a quick update:
The Portly Politico 