The second of my pieces that Alfred Publishing selected for their 2012-2013 catalog is Harrowland. It's a fast, minor-key piece for beginners in the same "sturm und drang" style as Gauntlet, Avatar, Agincourt, and Elementals. And those are some of my best-sellers.
As always, I write string orchestra music as instructive etudes, so directors can reinforce important skills with their concert music. With wide leaps between notes, Harrowland is designed to give young musicians practice with string crossings.
This one was actually a re-submission. About two weeks after I finished Harrowland, I brought it along with me when I was invited to guest-conduct at the 2007 String Day concert in Philadelphia, where the piece was premiered. Each year, string students of Bucks County, PA volunteer a Saturday to sightread a few selections in the morning, rehearse them for a few hours, and put on a show that same evening. I was asked to conduct the advanced group, made of middle school students and a few ringers. We opened with Gauntlet, played a few other pieces, and closed with the world premiere of Harrowland (which, at the time, was called "Voyage of the Queen Anne's Revenge"). It was a great time and an exciting day of music-making! We had a great turnout of participants and it's great to see a school district where students are given opportunities to shine.
Thursday, July 14, 2011
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
New Music Selected: Beale Street Strut
I recently heard from my editor and I'm thrilled to announce that Alfred Publishing will release three of my new pieces in their 2012-2013 String Orchestra catalog! They're ahead of schedule this year, as I usually hear from them in late July or early August.
The first new piece to look forward to is Beale Street Strut, a major-key, intermediate-level piece. For those of you outside the United States (which, I understand to my delight, is a growing number), Beale Street is a stretch of road in the city of Memphis, Tennessee, famous for having a lot of jazz and blues clubs and it is considered the epicenter of Southern jazz.
As you might expect, the piece has a jazzy style and features some "blue" notes. Specifically, F-F# and C-C# chromatics. The basses and 'cellos get to play some classic bass lines as well as some broad-shouldered melodies. As usual, there's lots for the violas to do as well.
I think this is one that students will be humming in the hallways of their schools and that audiences will remember after the curtain goes down.
The first new piece to look forward to is Beale Street Strut, a major-key, intermediate-level piece. For those of you outside the United States (which, I understand to my delight, is a growing number), Beale Street is a stretch of road in the city of Memphis, Tennessee, famous for having a lot of jazz and blues clubs and it is considered the epicenter of Southern jazz.
As you might expect, the piece has a jazzy style and features some "blue" notes. Specifically, F-F# and C-C# chromatics. The basses and 'cellos get to play some classic bass lines as well as some broad-shouldered melodies. As usual, there's lots for the violas to do as well.
I think this is one that students will be humming in the hallways of their schools and that audiences will remember after the curtain goes down.
Thursday, June 30, 2011
Doug' New Opera
I keep mentioning that I'm working on a new opera, but I never get a chance to mention any specifics. To catch you up: I wrote my first opera, showed it around, and nobody had the interest or resources to produce my little epic. I was just too ambitious and, even though I consider it to be one of the best things I've ever written, it will probably never be heard. Such is life.
So for my second opera, I decided to make everything as different as possible. It will be short (75 to 90 minutes, no intermission), it will be economical (four singers, an orchestra of three), and it will be portable (no set). My goal is college productions, the Cincy Fringe Festival, and/or a tour of local schools.
My manner of writing this opera is also completely different. For opera #1, I wrote a play and set it to music. It's a continuous score with recurring motifs in the tradition of Debussy. Opera #2 is a number opera – a series of individual songs connected by talking and melodrama, more like "The Magic Flute." "Postcards From Morocco" is a big structural influence as well, since it features the characters singing a series of songs to the audience. So instead of working out all the text first, I'm taking it one song at a time. Here's my process:
1. After doing all my research, I figured out what needs to be said and who needs to say it. Then I wrote out a paragraph or two in their voice, outlining what I want each character to say and what I want each song to accomplish.
2. Next, I'll write a piece of music that captures the emotion of what the character is saying.
3. Finally, I'll rephrase the paragraph into verse to fit the rhythms of the music. Often, I'll need to adjust the music a little to fit the words. It's a tailoring process.
So there's a lot of back-and forth. I've also been careful with the tone of each piece, making sure that it leads into the next piece without an abrupt jump in style. After years of composing, I've come to realize that my best energy comes at the beginning of a project. So I've decided to write this opera backwards. I wrote the introduction music first and then the finale and have been working my way backwards, song by song, with very little skipping.
I'm about two-thirds done and I have three arias and two choruses to complete. Then I can focus on the book (the talking parts), adjust the lyrics and music, and finish by writing the underscores that connect many of the songs.
So for my second opera, I decided to make everything as different as possible. It will be short (75 to 90 minutes, no intermission), it will be economical (four singers, an orchestra of three), and it will be portable (no set). My goal is college productions, the Cincy Fringe Festival, and/or a tour of local schools.
My manner of writing this opera is also completely different. For opera #1, I wrote a play and set it to music. It's a continuous score with recurring motifs in the tradition of Debussy. Opera #2 is a number opera – a series of individual songs connected by talking and melodrama, more like "The Magic Flute." "Postcards From Morocco" is a big structural influence as well, since it features the characters singing a series of songs to the audience. So instead of working out all the text first, I'm taking it one song at a time. Here's my process:
1. After doing all my research, I figured out what needs to be said and who needs to say it. Then I wrote out a paragraph or two in their voice, outlining what I want each character to say and what I want each song to accomplish.
2. Next, I'll write a piece of music that captures the emotion of what the character is saying.
3. Finally, I'll rephrase the paragraph into verse to fit the rhythms of the music. Often, I'll need to adjust the music a little to fit the words. It's a tailoring process.
So there's a lot of back-and forth. I've also been careful with the tone of each piece, making sure that it leads into the next piece without an abrupt jump in style. After years of composing, I've come to realize that my best energy comes at the beginning of a project. So I've decided to write this opera backwards. I wrote the introduction music first and then the finale and have been working my way backwards, song by song, with very little skipping.
I'm about two-thirds done and I have three arias and two choruses to complete. Then I can focus on the book (the talking parts), adjust the lyrics and music, and finish by writing the underscores that connect many of the songs.
Friday, June 17, 2011
Fan Mail
One of the best perks of being a published composer is getting fan mail. I absolutely love getting feedback from people who have played, conducted, or heard something I wrote. (Funny story: A friend of mine, who is an orchestra teacher, tells me that kids get confused when he says they can contact me because they think all composers are dead.) My e-mail address is readily available with only a little online searching, so I get most of my fan mail online but, occasionally, someone asks for my mailing address and writes out a letter. Some orchestra teachers have even made it an end-of-the year cross-curriculum assignment to write to the composer of a piece they enjoyed playing that year.
Such was the case when I recently received a packet of letters recently. An orchestra in the Chicago area played Westward Motion and seven of the students wrote to tell me about it in some of the most charming hand-written letters. In my favorite of the bunch, a young violist writes:
Thanks for being a composer! I love music and I hope you write another piece.
Do you hear that? That's the sound of my heart breaking.
Such was the case when I recently received a packet of letters recently. An orchestra in the Chicago area played Westward Motion and seven of the students wrote to tell me about it in some of the most charming hand-written letters. In my favorite of the bunch, a young violist writes:
Thanks for being a composer! I love music and I hope you write another piece.
Do you hear that? That's the sound of my heart breaking.
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
New Submission Time
I'm a little late in posting this, but about two weeks ago I sent off a packet of new music to my editor at Alfred Publishing. It's always a challenging process, but here's what leads up to my trip to the post office:
1. Write a ton of music. I write about ten pieces of music each year for student string orchestras. On top of that, I've been working on a new opera and some other minor projects, but my main focus is on string orchestra music. The goal is to produce a wide variety of music in different styles and at different ability levels, to give the selection committee as much choice as possible and to hopefully get more music selected.
2. Get organized. In mid-April I took all my newest scores and laid them out on my office floor, organized by grade level and tonality into nine categories. Sort of like this:
Usually, I have more than one piece in each category. This year I had two or sometimes three new pieces ready to fill each specific need.
3. Make some decisions. I selected what I thought was the best piece in each category and removed the others from the piles, leaving nine pieces. Then I looked again. This left me with two major-key pieces in a similar style and two Latin dances and two pieces that featured the same bowing technique. So I switched some things out and played around with the lineup. Again, the goal is to balance the portfolio as much as possible, to give the selection committee nine completely different and highly attractive options.
4. Look to the past. Finally, I decided which were the least-outstanding of the remaining pieces and replaced them with music from my back catalog – pieces that I'd previously submitted that weren't selected, but about which I still feel strongly. I tried to find two of those, but in order to maintain a good balance, I only entered one re-submission this year.
5. Pack it up. I decided on what order to present the final nine pieces, wrote out descriptions of each in a letter to my editor, burned a CD of Finale recordings, packed it all up, and mailed the letter, CD, and scores.
Now I wait. The selection committee meets sometime in June and I usually hear from them by late July, around my birthday. It's always a tense time, knowing that I've done my best and put a lot of work into the submissions, but realizing that there are a lot of factors that go into their final decision. I'm sure the folks at Alfred go through the same process, but with hundreds of submitted scores from dozens of composers, whereas I started the process with only about 20 pieces.
Until then, I can look forward to the roll-out of last year's selections. They're already available for sale at jwpepper.com and the recordings should be released soon!
1. Write a ton of music. I write about ten pieces of music each year for student string orchestras. On top of that, I've been working on a new opera and some other minor projects, but my main focus is on string orchestra music. The goal is to produce a wide variety of music in different styles and at different ability levels, to give the selection committee as much choice as possible and to hopefully get more music selected.
2. Get organized. In mid-April I took all my newest scores and laid them out on my office floor, organized by grade level and tonality into nine categories. Sort of like this:
Major Key/Beginner Minor Key/Beginner Novelty/Beginner
Major Key/Intermediate Minor Key/Intermediate Novelty/Intermediate
Major Key/Advanced Minor Key/Advanced Novelty/Advanced
Usually, I have more than one piece in each category. This year I had two or sometimes three new pieces ready to fill each specific need.
3. Make some decisions. I selected what I thought was the best piece in each category and removed the others from the piles, leaving nine pieces. Then I looked again. This left me with two major-key pieces in a similar style and two Latin dances and two pieces that featured the same bowing technique. So I switched some things out and played around with the lineup. Again, the goal is to balance the portfolio as much as possible, to give the selection committee nine completely different and highly attractive options.
4. Look to the past. Finally, I decided which were the least-outstanding of the remaining pieces and replaced them with music from my back catalog – pieces that I'd previously submitted that weren't selected, but about which I still feel strongly. I tried to find two of those, but in order to maintain a good balance, I only entered one re-submission this year.
5. Pack it up. I decided on what order to present the final nine pieces, wrote out descriptions of each in a letter to my editor, burned a CD of Finale recordings, packed it all up, and mailed the letter, CD, and scores.
Now I wait. The selection committee meets sometime in June and I usually hear from them by late July, around my birthday. It's always a tense time, knowing that I've done my best and put a lot of work into the submissions, but realizing that there are a lot of factors that go into their final decision. I'm sure the folks at Alfred go through the same process, but with hundreds of submitted scores from dozens of composers, whereas I started the process with only about 20 pieces.
Until then, I can look forward to the roll-out of last year's selections. They're already available for sale at jwpepper.com and the recordings should be released soon!
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