It’s official! Jake Polancich at the Arrowhead Union High School in Wisconsin has commissioned me to write a piece. I have a short two months to finish the piece, parts and all, before they begin rehearsing it for the December 3rd premiere. I actually met Jake last summer during the National Band Association’s Young Composer/Conductor Mentorship program. The program chose three composers to team up with three conductors and, oddly enough, he and I weren’t paired up. Either way, he and I got to talking a little bit more in December at Midwest and ended up throwing some ideas around. Sure enough, here I am working hard on this piece.

Tentatively, I have about five minutes of potential material right now, albeit sketches. I’m sort of at the critical part of the process where I try to figure out how all these ideas connect and form something of a solid, musical identity. It’s hard, but at least I have a premise:

“It is interesting to contemplate an entangled bank, clothed with many plants of many kinds, with birds singing on the bushes, with various insects flitting about, and with worms crawling through the damp earth, and to reflect that these elaborately constructed forms, so different from each other, and dependent on each other in so complex a manner, have all been produced by laws acting around us. These laws, taken in the largest sense, being Growth with Reproduction; inheritance which is almost implied by reproduction; Variability from the indirect and direct action of the external conditions of life, and from use and disuse; a Ratio of Increase so high as to lead to a Struggle for Life, and as a consequence to Natural Selection, entailing Divergence of famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of the higher animals, directly follows. There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.”

I’ve decided to use Darwin quote as the theme for the piece. Basically, the piece follows the musical “evolution” of a melody and all the different composition variants that can derive from it (I know… deep, right?). However, I have a history of things not turning out exactly as I preplanned — but that just keeps things exciting.

The piece is also supposed to include some kind of electronics. So, on another level, it’s sort of the “evolution” of sound, too. But, the electronic-part is basically an analog synthesizer so the piece is overall primitive in a 70s rock kind of way. Like I said, it’s still trying to discover itself — and it’s only got about 6 weeks to do so — or else! Matter of fact, Arrowhead Union is already promoting the concert. *gulp*

Time for coffee!

Last year, a good friend of mine got me in contact with one of the Phoenix Suns personel responsible for programming the player introduction videos. You know, like this one:

So last year, I kind of made it a personal goal of mine to submit a minute of music to them every year in the hopes that one year, they might say, “Hey! That’s pretty good!” Because why not?? Last year wasn’t so good, but I’m pretty proud of what I was able to sequence this year.

What do you think?

I’m really happy to hear that my humble turkey pot pie is being received a lot better than I ever thought it would. According to several people at last year’s Midwest and TMEA conventions who stopped by the Manhattan Beach booth and listened to it, the general consensus was that of pleasant, humorous surprise. The piece isn’t meant to be “novelty” exactly, but I did catch a number of listeners chuckling to themselves while sitting down with a score.

I’ve already been sent a number of recordings of the piece (keep ‘em coming, please!) and can’t help but share them. This morning I was greeted with what I think was the first high school to perform the piece, performed by Grand Ledge High School Wind Symphony under the direction of Christopher Blackmer. If I remember correctly, I believe Chris mentioned he had programed this piece along-side with the Hindemith Symphony. Talk about contrast.

TURKEY IN THE STRAW
Grand Ledge High School Wind Symphony
Christopher Blackmer, director
Listen/Download MP3

If you like what you hear, you can find Turkey in the Straw on Manhattan Beach Music’s website for purchase.

Yes, two new songs have been added to the Your Basic Tune & Lube music podcast: The Revolution Ruined My Weekend and Underhand. There are certainly more quirks in the works.

If you haven’t yet subscribed (and yes, it is free, as are most podcasts), then simply click this link (clicking will launch iTunes) or go to the iTunes store and search for “Your Basic Tune & Lube” and surely Ryan in panda-face holding a guitar in front of an old floral sheet that Brandon brought here with him from Iowa will pop up. You can listen to random songs there or you can subscribe and download new “episodes” automatically.