5/30/24 – Here’s some more updates I haven’t been able to keep up on all lumped into this brief happenings: practicing the Double Bell has been going well! The Lafayette Band read through the piece at their rehearsal on May 16..and it was wonderful to hear the work being played by real, human musicians! We’ve solidified some performance dates this summer (3 so far). I’ve solidified a performance date and a rain-out date with the Mankato Area Community Band. I’m working on an adult recital date to perform the work with piano accompanist! Three of my original pieces and three of my arrangements were read at the Schell’s Hobo Band’s yearly spring practice…and all seem to be nice, easy to play tunes that will be added into the music rotation for concert programming! These pieces are: Bier Trinken, The Peacock Polka, On the Green, Red Raven Polka, Didl Didl Dari Polka, and Ring of Fire. I have found a willing photographer who will help with taking some publicity pictures and a nice cover photo for the band score set. There have been some really great and helpful individuals that I am so grateful for, namely, some of the leadership of the Lafayette Band, the Schell’s Hobo Band, and the Mankato Area Community Band…and my Houligans band friends, too, for being willing to embark on an interesting adult recital adventure! Things are happening! I am so grateful to be surrounded by so many friends who all seem to revel in the each others’ successes.
4/26/24 – I’ve been up to a bit this past week or so…and not always logging what I do. But that’s ok! I finished my packed week of rehearsals, concerts, and other obligations, but also managed to update my Arrangers page with some more music available for purchase! And one more exciting thing: on a whim, I decided to make another arrangement of a popular piece for solo unaccompanied euphonium. Soon, “Classical Gas” will be available for purchase. This solo piece won’t be quite as difficult as some of the medleys I have done (Super Mario Fantasy, Star Wars Epic Euphonium Fantasy, and Final (Euphonium) Fantasy 7), but this one is going to dance and be fun to play. I think it’s on par with my arrangement of Canon in D, Stairway to Heaven, and Hallelujah. All are great and fun solo works to play!
4/17/24 – Well, this past week or so has been a rush. It has finally been nice enough out to complete some yard work, so my music has taken a bit of a back seat. Our Zappa band, Joe’s Garage, also debuted at a big shindig on Saturday and it was a smash hit. Everyone in the band got into it and what a production it was! We’ll for sure be doing more! This week is pretty busy, too. I’ve got two concerts and two or three rehearsals and two board meetings. It’s a packed week. But…today, I put in the final notes of the Peacock Polka for the Schell’s Hobo Band and soon, I’ll have all the parts prepared so that this delightful number can be played. I am trying to get a couple things ready for their rehearsal coming up in May. It would be very cool to have them play some of my stuff throughout their summer parade season.
4/9/24 – This morning, I spent a bit of time orchestrating “The Peacock Polka” for the circus band. It is also something I had started a while ago and never finished. I have been on a kick to get things done that I haven’t – you know…those unfinished projects that litter my laptop, buried in folders here and there. I want to finish things. They need to be finished, otherwise they make me kind of sad…sitting there, useless and unappreciated…unheard. I suppose, most composers will have unfinished work the same as any creator. I got quite far on this polka this morning and am so far pleased with the arrangement/orchestration. It is progress!
4/8/24 – I did hear back from my brass band friend today. He sent me the general instrumentation for the group and the transpositions required for each part. If I decide to produce arrangements for this ensemble, it will likely be 6 parts, with some divisi splits. However, each part will have at least one transposition and some will have 3. I guess it’s to be as flexible as possible so the parts can be covered adequately. On another note, I also accomplished fixing the piccolo and flute parts for “The Double-Bell Polka”. With all parts and score completed, I uploaded everything into a Google Drive folder and shared the parts with the appropriate people. Now, I just have to send some emails to figure out logistics this summer and beyond. I am trying to get in some music stuff every day now. Though I may not log every little thing I do here, I am trying to do accomplish some tasks every day. I have even created a list of thing I want to accomplish with composition, arranging, social media management, and some other music related things. I intend to keep that list on my computer desktop so that it is there, reminding me, every time I open my laptop. That is the only way to get anywhere with anything!
4/7/24 – Today, I have uploaded the “Red Raven Polka” to Youtube and to my site here. There will be information connecting it to all the others. I’ll probably also send at least the sound file off to one of my other friends. He has a brass polka band…and I think he would very much like to use this arrangement, too, though I may have to adjust it to his group’s instrumentation. We shall see!
4/6/24 – Over the last few days after having had completed parts for “The Double-Bell Polka”, I have spent some time enlisting the help of band friends who were willing to help me review the completed parts. My friends have been extremely helpful in editing the parts and catching some mistakes. I am about ready to send the parts out to each band! On another note, last night, I watched Jess curl and completed my arrangement of “The Red Raven Polka” for the Schell’s Hobo Band. It was an arrangement I had started some time ago, and tonight, finished it. I will be uploading a sound file tomorrow morning and sending off the completed parts to the Hobo Band. Hopefully, this will be one of the things they play at their May rehearsal. I am excited to hear it played by actual instruments.
3/29/24 – Over the course of March, I had cranked out an orchestration of the Double-Bell Polka. I am extremely happy with how the band accompaniment sounds in Finale and am nearing the end of editing each separate band part. I will meet my goal of having these parts ready and complete by April. Today, I uploaded a sound file of the orchestration and will post it soon. My next steps involve sending these parts out to band friends, to review and check for errors and funny things in the formatting, and to get these out to the bands that will perform this with me during the summer. I am so happy to have this major work near completion. Then…it will be practice, practice, practice for me as I learn to play the solo part on my double-bell euphonium. In other news, I have taken on a few more interesting projects at this time. I have been asked (or commissioned) to orchestrate/arrange some polka tunes for a casual brass polka group. I have also jumped on the Frank Zappa bandwagon, taking a crash course in this music and learning it well enough to perform. And finally, I have started a ‘live recording’ project with a bunch of friends and colleagues that I have met over the years as a musician. This is a recording project with some of the area’s top players, but the nature of the recording process is desired to be much less polished. It’s quite the different and unique experience compared with some other recording projects I have been a part of where scratch tracks are put down and each individual part will record separately to the scratch track to achieve a polished final product.
2/25/24 – I finished the first draft of the Euphonium BC Duet part and now have that ready and edited/formatted into PDF.
2/24/24 – I was able to finish editing the PDFs for all the solo/piano accompaniment parts today. They are finally done! But, another nice accomplishment this morning was finalizing the first draft of the Euphonium BC Duet and Piano Accompaniment score and putting that into PDF. I almost finished the Duet part, but…alas…on vacation and had to set it aside! Tomorrow!
2/22/24 – This morning, I was able to complete the first of the Duet parts in Finale: Euphonium BC Duet. Over the past two days, I worked at splitting the original solo part into two parts, which was an interesting task. I decided to make the parts play harmonies at times, flip flopping the melody. In the cadenzas, I sometimes had the parts play off of one another, trading progressively complex short passages. It was interesting working on the variations, though. I decided Variation 1 would showcase the parts playing together rhythmically. Variation 2 was turned into a cute, complex little duet that featured the parts passing the melody around very quickly. I decided to use lots of specific articulations here to add to the interest. Where parts do not have melodic material, they supply accompaniment lines. But it all alternates very quickly, so it will be challenging and hopefully, fun. Variation 3 continues passing the lines, but with triple tonguing. The parts eventually end up playing in rhythmic unison together for the Finale. From here, I will be producing Duet parts for Euphonium TC/Cornet, Trombone, and Tuba with Piano Accompaniment.
2/19/24 – I heard back from a trombonist friend (who also does a bit of accompanying, too) and he suggested a couple things in the accompaniment could be made easier to play. In addition, I also decided to create a separate trombone part, adding in some trombonisms and making a few things a little more manageable for the slide. I revised the few spots in the accompaniment and I sent that off and the new trombone part for review. Soon…I will be on to the next phase of the project, which will be to create duet parts for like-instruments: Euphonium BC, Trombone, Euphonium TC or Cornet, and Tuba. These will essentially make the solo part into a duet for ‘two bells’.
2/18/24 – I was able to create other individual parts for “The Double Bell Polka” today. These included parts for Double-Bell Euphonium TC or Echo-Bell Cornet, Euphonium TC or Cornet, Euphonium BC or Trombone, and Tuba and all their respective piano accompaniments. Eventually, I will post these for sale. I also sent off some of the parts to a few of my friends to review. I wanted a second set of eyes on each part to help catch any errors. Ultimately, I want these parts to be really nice and professional quality because I hope they will be purchased and played.
2/17/24 – I finished the sound file video last night and the internet was so crappy, it took until early this morning to finally upload. I was able to get it on to Youtube and I posted a link for my Facebook page. Hopefully, it will be well-received when it posts later!
2/16/24 – This morning, I decided to get together a sound file of “The Double Bell Polka”, but ran into some software issues with the new computer and Finale. The extraction process kept resulting in either corrupted files or something else. And our internet was behaving poorly, making it very challenging and frustrating. Eventually, I got a good enough start on the sound file video before I had to get to work.
2/15/24 – I had quite the horrible night of sleep last night, so was unable to work on my project this morning. Acid reflux, headache and otherwise just not feeling too well, kept me waking up about every hour through the night until about 6am. I eventually made it to work and brought a copy of my piano score to show my pianist friend who teaches lessons at the music store. It’s an 18 page score…and wow! She was able to mostly sightread what I had down. She suggested a couple things to make it easier to play and to read, but over all, she thought it was a decent accompaniment part that is totally playable. That was just awesome to hear. After work, I went straight home to relax a bit and do chores before fixing the few things in the piano score. I found a few things in the euphonium score that I needed to change: mostly bell change articulations weren’t lining up correctly and a few fermatas needed to be added in the part. When I am done with these little minor things, I’ll probably play through the solo and see if it needs any changes.
2/14/24 – Since I had a tuba class yesterday in Faribault, I wasn’t able to work on my project. This morning, however, has been a great morning. I was able to finish the solo and the piano accompaniment, extract a sound file, and format both the piano and euphonium parts for printing. I decided to print the parts off so I can take the next step with this. I am going to show the euphonium solo to a few friends to see if they can catch any typos or notation weirdness. Then, I am going to show the piano score to a pianist friend of mine to see if the accompaniment is good, since I am not a piano player. Jess was the first one to listen to my piece in its entirety, and she approves. I am so happy! Also…Happy Valentine’s Day to her, to me, and to celebrating this huge first step in the completion of this labor of love!
2/12/24 – I worked again on my double bell euphonium solo project this early morning …and am getting so very close! I’ve got just a bit of cadenza left and some minor tweaking in the piano accompaniment. Soon, the solo part with piano accompaniment will be complete!
2/10/24 – Last night went very, very well! Our band, Sarah and the Houligans, played so well and we just rolled with whatever and however it went. This group is really the most fun to play with, but I need to be better at doing this. Jess pointed out last night, that probably the reason I get so anxious and tensed up over our gigs is that it’s my name. The band name is my name and it weighs on me heavily. I don’t mind it and I think it’s a clever name…but it does weigh on me. I wish I could get over this as it would make booking and getting gigs for our band much less stressful. The band members seem to want to play more and I want to make that happen, but I just find it stressful. Also, we are a 6 piece band with no real recordings or albums, so it’s difficult to get into venues with so many other bands and so much other music and always happening in this area. Maybe recording an album is the answer.
2/9/24 – I wasn’t able to sleep too well last night due to a number of things. It was mostly due to the anticipation and accompanying anxiety of the events of today looming in the near future. I did get up early enough to sit at my computer to hammer out some more of the middle cadenza in my double-bell euphonium solo. But soon, we’ll have to get going. It’s going to be a long, long day. I have to work, attend a virtual meeting, get to a sound check and get set up/ready, and Sarah and the Houligans will be playing a big Mardi Gras event at the Kato Ballroom. I think it will be fun…but I also can’t wait for it to be over!
2/8/24 – I really should give an update about my latest Prairie Lakes Grant project. I am extremely pleased with how this is going. The month of January was very productive and I am feeling great about the project. I have managed to chart out the form almost entirely for euphonium and piano accompaniment. I have chords for the accompaniment as well, which will help me when I get ready to orchestrate the band parts. It has been quite an interesting thing. The original melody for my double-bell euphonium solo (which I coincidentally heard in my dreams the early hours of 1/6/24), was a polka-type melody. It is largely in AAB(A) form but includes a few cadenzas and a Trio section. The only thing that is left unfinished with the euphonium/piano accompaniment chart is the middle cadenza that bridges the 2nd technical variation with the 3rd. When I was working on the polka medley, I thought how lovely it would be to somehow twist that into a 3-beat, lilting Laendler. After studying the polka melody and the the chord structure and fussing with some patterns…it totally works!! It will be absolutely lovely! The Laendler is the hidden variation in my project piece…though, it will be presented first in the sequence as it is the most melody and expressive. So, here is the answer to the question: Which came first? The Polka or the Laendler?
1/23/24 – Well, again, I was bad at keeping track of updates and such for a few weeks. Today, I finished Lesson 2: “New Orleans Joys” of my NOLA Tuba Method and it is a staggering 20 pages. Ultimately, these “lessons” are sections organized by the study of a particular tune. There are tons of theory and playing exercises within the pages designed to help the student gain confidence in music performance through methodical practice. I try to really break it down with each exercise, focusing on one thing at a time that ‘could’ be done in improvising over chord changes. Since “New Orleans Joys” is a 12-Bar Blues tune, there is SO much that could potentially be done in improvising over the changes. It’s perfect for in-depth study. I had lots of fun with the section filled with exercises on constructing a walking bass line…and then incorporating that into something covered in Lesson 1, rhythmic patterns. Thinking ahead, I think the next Lesson will cover St. James Infirmary, a traditional tune in minor key that can be played slow or fast.
1/9/24 – Today, I remembered something cool by finding the envelope buried on my kitchen island. In mid-December, while shit was hitting the fan, I had received a check in the mail. It was from Hal Leonard Publishing. I remembered opening it then and feeling some happiness in that moment…during all of the unhappy moments of that time. It was a tiny ray of hope that what I was doing here was enjoyable to someone other than myself. Today, I am reminded again that what I am doing is enjoyable to others. Of course, I enjoy doing it, too!
1/8/24 – My guinea pig accepted the first Lesson of my NOLA Tuba Method today. Later this evening, I started the first page of Lesson 2: “New Orleans Joys”. I wanted to include a bit of history and background for each tune being studied, so of course, I looked up some stuff on Jelly Roll Morton and began Lesson 2 with that.
1/7/24 – On and off today, I worked on a newer project, my NOLA Tuba Method, making additions and considering everything I should be covering in Lesson 1. I decided, since “Iko Iko” includes a couple of easy transitions (Walk-Up and Walk-Down) to move in a musical way from one section to another, that I would include a basic form of these in Lesson 1. I also decided to briefly explain phrasing and how to use rhythmic patterns. I did end up finishing Lesson 1. It has a whopping 13 pages of exercises, examples, and explanations. Now, to send it off to my guinea pig!
1/6/24 – I woke up quite early this morning because I had been dreaming about music. I rushed downstairs to my computer to put the melody into Finale. Sometimes, it’s just like that!
1/5/24 – I am proud to say that I coerced my co-worker into being my guinea pig. He’s a tuba and trombone player, and loves playing marches and old-time music. He has always wanted to get better at playing from chords, so I thought the Tuba Method might be useful to him.
1/4/24 – Tonight, I added a few more pages to the NOLA Tuba Method.
1/2/24 – I spent a little time tonight starting a new project. It’s something that came to me within the last month and I have kept it in the back of my mind as a potential project. I was able to start a couple pages of the NOLA Tuba Method, Lesson 1: Iko Iko.
12/31/23 – This is the day that I had a breakdown, and it was ugly…really, really ugly. I am actually only writing about it now (1/8/24), because I am feeling better and more hopeful. I left off in November before shit hit the fan and everything went wrong and crazy for awhile. First, December is usually crazy with music events. This year was worse. There were more things to play at, more commitments, more rehearsals…more everything. Piled on top of that, were all the family, friend, and work gatherings. And then, Jess’s grandma got sick…and went on hospice…and passed away within a week. Christmas was horrible because it included a wake and funeral on top of running around to family gatherings and to holiday music commitments. Did I mention we also had to buy and replace our water heater the week before Christmas, too? Jess had some pretty mentally difficult days. She also got sick over Christmas. And then, I got sick the week after Christmas and missed some work. And then the cat got sick. We hadn’t been home for a few days around the Christmas holiday and had both been inattentive due to illness and with so many thing going on. We only noticed that she wasn’t behaving normally on the eve of December 28th. We frantically got her in to a vet visit the Friday before New Years’ weekend. She ended up having to have a large abscess drained and removed. This was just two days before we were supposed to go to a company employee party and a 2-night cabin stay. Since it was too late to cancel our reservation…we decided to take the cat with so we could monitor her gaping open sore. The wound was very weepy and our other cat was extremely interested in it. There was no way we could have left them alone and unsupervised while we went to the cabin two hours from home. Too much more could have gone south. Thankfully, Freddie the cat was *mostly* well behaved during the cabin trip and the weather wasn’t too cold. We were able to cart her pretty much wherever we went (hiking, breweries, shopping, etc…) and she did very well at the cabin, spending much of the time cuddling with us as much as she could with her big neck balloon collar. I had also purchased a new laptop in early December…and hadn’t had a chance to set it up and mess with it until about a month later. Music writing obviously wasn’t happening and that was a huge factor in my breakdown. So, as of 1/8/24, I’m doing much better and am now catching up with things…including music writing and this site.
11/12/23 – These past few weeks have been pretty busy, so music writing has taken a bit of a rest. I’ll be performing in a few fun things coming up in the next few months as the holidays ramp up. There is always a need for brass players this time of year. One of the most interesting things I’ll be doing is performing with a horn section in a country type Opry show. I’ve been working hard to meet some deadlines creating decent horn charts for a few of those tunes and making some of the other tunes that already have horn charts more legible for some of the other players. It was actually a fun experience putting together these new charts as I got to work with (and essentially) teach a crash course on using Finale, to another person. I know the program so well I could tell them what to do while I made dinner…lol. To be fair, they weren’t asking how to do anything too difficult. We ended up preparing At the Hop, Ring of Fire, a Supremes Medley, House of Blue Lights, and last, Elvira…which I cannot get out of my head. We’ll practice that today, and book it to a band concert after! Giddyup!
10/24/23 – I was up again early and began revisiting another composition that was left unfinished. “The White Plain” for Euphonium and Narrator. I revisited the section where I left it off and started to tie it into a return to the beginning themes. It is an interesting piece, almost completely based on small motives to tell a story. Key parts of the text keep returning with a musical motive to reinforce the story. It’s totally an art piece and completely unlike anything I have written before. I’d like to finish it sometime!
10/23/23 – This morning, I woke up too early because I couldn’t sleep well. My body is so sore from all the physical labor of yesterday’s yard work. It felt good to sit on the couch, wrapped in warm blankets while I finished up the brass quartet arrangement of “On the Green”. This version will be a little more tricky with the parts as I had to whittle it down from the original. The four instruments will have to cover some additional things to make the tune sound the same. But, it’s done! And the parts are all edited and in PDF form now…so now I can move on to the next thing!
10/22/23 – Only a small amount of work was done today on the Brass Quartet arrangment of “On the Green”. The outdoors was calling (yard work) and it was a beautiful fall day to prep some yard and house things for winter.
10/21/23 – I started my day by doing a tiny bit of work on the version of “On the Green” for Brass Quartet (Trumpet, Trombone, Euphonium, and Tuba). I can be a fairly easily distracted person sometimes. Sometimes, while I am working on one piece, something will pop into my head about another piece I have that may or may not be finished and I just have the urge to go to the next thing. I’d like to be better at resisting that…unless it’s actually important. I have piles of unfinished work cluttering up my Finale program…and it would be so good to FINISH things. As you can imagine, now that I know I have this big project coming up, I want to work on it!! But I keep having to pull back and work on the task at hand: On the Green, Brass Quartet. I need to finish that so it is finished. Technically, my project isn’t supposed to start until November 1.
10/20/23 – Today, I learned that I have been awarded a Prairie Lakes Regional Arts Council Mid-Career Artist Grant. I am beyond excited to begin the process of bringing my project to life: composing and performing a double bell euphonium solo with concert band! Words cannot express how happy I am!
10/19/2023 – Today, I finished up parts for “On the Green” for German band instrumentation. I ended up sending off both this version and the version for the circus band today. Hopefully, I’ll get to hear these played by live musicians some time.
10/18/23 – I did it!! I finished “On the Green” for circus band and am extremely happy with it! Also. I figured out how to make Finale play back all the weird repeats properly so I can have a great sound file! There was a First Ending, Fine Ending, Second Ending deal with a whole bunch of repeats and a Da Capo…and I got it all to work when it plays back. Now, I just have to figure out how to get the snare drum to play back the correct sound on the snare rolls…
10/17/23 – Another double day, I guess. This morning, I got quite far with “On the Green”, a lovely little laendler and this evening, I added a fun euphonium line to Red Raven Polka (haven’t looked at that for awhile) and I have aaaalmost finished the end of the B section of “On the Green”, but I am getting too tired to finish, I think. Perhaps, tomorrow morning will see this completed. This tune is already mostly done up for larger ensemble, but I am thinking that once I complete it, I just might whittle it down for brass quartet, too. Nothing like working backwards on something. Lol.
10/16/23 – This morning, I finished The Peacock Polka! And this evening, I extracted and edited the parts for the brass quartet version. I also prepared a piano/chords/lead sheet/score to accompany this. Soon, I will start the version or arrangement for the Schell’s Hobo
9/29/23 – Over the past couple months, and more so over the past week or so, I have been preparing a music grant application. It has finally been submitted last evening. This has taken a great deal of time to prepare, leaving non much time for actual art making. Considering the amount of time put into this stuff…sometimes, I wonder if it is worth it. There have been times I have been awarded a grant, and times I have not. I am considering applying for one or two more other grants, but it is becoming apparent to me that my complete lack of organization regarding cataloguing my work is detrimental. Some of the grants require chronological order of work production, which I decided to start organizing today. I have…a long, long, long way to go. So much of my work is in Finale, especially in the older versions. It is going to be time consuming digging these older works out and ‘bringing them back’ and to current. And all I want to do is make new stuff. We will see what the future brings!
9/18/23 – This morning, I finalized (hopefully!) the form for “On the Green”, messing around in Finale to get all the repeats and endings to behave how I wanted them to. There is a first and second ending, plus a Final ending…and making playback skip to the 2nd ending over the Final ending took some trial and error. But…I think I have it and can now proceed further with the piece.
9/17/23 – I was able to do a small amount of work to “On the Green”, the laendler, before Jess’s dad arrived this morning, too. I was trying to fill out the accompaniment part and modulate the key into a new section. I think it will be effective and interesting, but I’ll need to make sure that the form is still ok.
9/16/23 – I did a little more work on the form of the Peacock Polka this early morning, while I waited for Jess’s dad to arrive for a construction project. I think the form is finally good! It’s really only finishing out the parts now. But it may have to wait a bit while we get the new front steps installed and the yard prepared for winter.
9/13/23 – This morning, I spent a bit of time with the Peacock Polka, putting in chords and doing a bit of orchestration while our furnace was serviced.
9/10/23 – Yesterday was BUSY. We had a long rehearsal for an orchestra concert last night. Between the rehearsal and concert, we had a small amount of down time and decided to hang out at one of our local breweries before heading to the concert. Today, or this morning, I decided to do a little more with the Peacock Polka, mainly just orchestrating the parts a bit more. And then, I hopped on over to Red Raven and did a little more orchestration there. Unfortunately, a yard project is calling me since the weather is cloudy and cool.
9/8/23 – This morning, I was trying to finish up a couple of sewing projects and a pervasive little melody kept flying around in my brain. Naturally, I put the sewing down and picked up my computer to quickly get the melody out. And then the bridge. And then some chords and orchestration and viola! I now have the start of the Peacock Polka! And then, you know what? I thought, peacocks…what are the calls of the peacock? A quick internet search on bird calls reveals that the clarinets might provide perfect little peacock interjections in the music. Lol! I can’t wait to finish this one!
9/6/23 – I was relaxing a little tonight and decided to start an arrangement of a cool polka tune I had running through my mind all day at work: The Red Raven Polka. As I got the basic chart form out, I was thinking…lol…how fun would it be to make the arrangement break out into hot traditional jazz for the ending with lots of trombone smears and jazzy rhythms. It would be like the Just Because Polka, which is sometimes played this way. I have it charted and partially orchestrated…now I’ll have to take some time to mull over the transition to hot jazz!
8/11/23 – I did a little more work with the laendler from yesterday (I decided that it would be a laendler and not a waltz). I also decided to expand the arrangement for more instruments, thinking the music would fit the Hobo band. Unfortunately, I was only able to get into a bit of the orchestration. This coming week is going to be very busy as well as the following weeks. I help teach a beginning band camp for the new tuba students in a few days…and then the beginning of school season will be upon us at the music store. Also…gigs, gigs, gigs and now, a quick trip to visit family over Labor Day weekend…sandwiched between two gigs, of course. I’ll probably have to put in some OT and writing music will have to take a break.
8/10/23 – It’s interesting how I’ve felt like completing the little things lately – old arrangements I’ve started, originals I’ve never completed, etc… My computer is littered with piles of incomplete work. Today, after having completed 3 charts over the last week or so, I found another I had started. A waltz or perhaps a laendler. This morning, I listened to it…and could hear where it should go after apparently running into a roadblock the last time I was working on it. It just flowed…so…we’ll see how it goes!
8/9/23 – This morning, I finished up editing parts for Ring of Fire, by Merle Kilgore and June Carter, and arranged for the Schell’s Hobo Band by Sarah Houle – 2 Clarinets, 3 Trumpets, 2 Trombones, Baritone TC and BC, Tuba, Drums, 2023. This is an old, old…OLD…possibly, one of the first things I ever had arranged for a larger group…arrangement. The arrangement never really worked when I first did it up, and, by special request, it was revamped a bit. I am really pleased with how this turned out. The parts are easier (I think) to read, the instruction is clearer (repeats and section lettering), the one-beat measures seem clearer and simpler, the accompaniment parts are more predictable and clear, and instruments have been grouped as sections to help with playability and consistency. It sounds good on the sound file…hopefully, it will work for the band!
8/8/23 – This morning, I was able to finish revamping a very old arrangement of Ring of Fire for the Schell’s Hobo Band (they had requested it be reworked and brought back). Reworking this one was interesting. I clearly had taken the parts straight from a piano/vocal/guitar chart and hadn’t really added any fine touches. I completely re-did most of the accompaniment parts so that they made sense for the instruments and were a bit more predictable. I wouldn’t say I watered it down, but instead, made it better for band instruments. I expanded the trumpet harmonies and treated instruments as groups. Ad the ending…well…I guess I went all out with fancy runs in most of the parts! I will soon have the parts all edited and formatted to send off.
8/7/23 – I finished up an arrangement of one of my own tunes, Bier Trinken, for the Schell’s Hobo Band this morning and spent part of my evening formatting and editing the parts. I’ll send off the chart to the band tomorrow and hopefully, they will play it some time! It was interesting doing an arrangement of my own composition, trying to freshen it up and do different things with the other instruments. I think it turned out well and am very pleased with the new additions of the trumpet three-part harmony and the clarinet countermelodies.
8/2/23 – My site here has been sorely neglected. I have been just too busy with life and gigs, work and stuff in general. I played a fun gig with the Schell’s Hobo Band last evening and some of the Hobos asked me if I would bring back an old arrangement I did for them of Ring of Fire a very long time ago. They would like it in the repertoire since it’s an Oktoberfest number. LOL I do remember there being issues with the recurring one beat measures throughout the whole tune. If you know the song, you can play it if you just listen to the melody in the trumpets. But if you don’t know the tune, those one beat measures are messy to look at on the page. The asked if I could just take out those funny measures, but I just don’t think I can fix it the way they are hoping. Taking them out ruins the integrity of the tune. It wouldn’t be the same and the entrances would all be off. Anyway. I did, tonight, just finish up a fun arrangement of an Austrian Traditional Polka, Didl Didl, Dari Polka, that I had started a few months ago for the band with the intention of it being a nice Oktoberfest selection. Tonight, I finished editing the parts and sent it off to the band leader. I’ll soon make a little page/blurb about it here! It’s fun, short and sweet, and complete with lovely trumpet bell tones in the Trio!
2/26/23 – Our band, Sarah and the Houligans, just finished off our MinneSnowta Mardi Gras Tour, which included a fundraiser event for the Good Council Learning Center (Shrimpin’ Mardi Gras Style – 2023), Bob Fest at Foremost Brewing Cooperative, a collaborative concert with another band (Machiko), and Fat Tuesday at Patrick’s…which unfortunately, had to be cancelled last minute due to horrible weather conditions (or, Snowmageddon as we like to call it). We had a great stint and are very much looking forward to some more upcoming events. We decided to apply to a few festivals and events near here, so today, I have decided to put together a section on this website that will be devoted to Sarah and the Houligans. It will mostly showcase some of our live performances, our repertoire list, some contact info and links to our Facebook page. Eventually, we’ll have to figure out our own website, I’m sure, but for now, this will have to do!
11/21/22 – A new holiday arrangement of two traditional carols is complete. This one is called “Wassail the Winter Away” and intertwines two unfamiliar carols: “Drive the Cold Winter Away” and “Here We Come A-Wassailing”. This is for my favorite brass quartet instrumentation of Trumpet, Trombone, Euphonium and Tuba. Enjoy the new chart! It should be live on Sheet Music Plus in a few days.
7/10/22 – New arrangement ready to wail: When You’re Smiling for Traditional Jazz Band. This fun take on a standard features most instruments at some point. It’s going to be a favorite!
5/26/22 – A week or so ago, on our way to the Forestville area, we were chatting about some more spirituals for our traditional jazz group and came across “Roll, Jordan, Roll”, an African American spiritual. Really, this all came up because we had recorded “Down by the Riverside” for a church service and we decided it might be good to get a couple more great spirituals in our books. Maybe, things that are less common, but still good pieces. Anyway, today, I finished this one for the group. Now, to format and send off to the band!
5/6/22 – It’s really funny. I really should update this more because I really am working…a lot…at it, but it’s the last thing I think to do as I crunch out some stuff. Summer is shaping up to be busy with performances for several groups. What a turnaround it has been from the last two summers (Covid). Though it’s still not over (people are still contracting it – just found out our pianist has to miss two gigs on Saturday!), it has gotten better and we now know how to better manage it should one contract it. But the performances are upon us. So, in that spirit, I have cranked out a few more tunes for the traditional jazz band: an arrangement of my own “Hop House Hop” and a kick ass arrangement of “St. James Infirmary”. And there are more coming through the pipeline: Basin Street Blues, Tin Roof Blues, In the Pines… I am extremely proud of this one – actually both of them – and how they sounded after the first reading last night. St. James Infirmary, bookended with the Marche Funebre, becomes a real story about seeing a dead lover and musing on one’s own funeral. It begins typically for St. James Infirmary: slow, dirgy, dirty. Then it gets hot: with a double time feel, belted out solos, snappier lyrics and a catchy rhythmic beat. Makes me want to put a jazz band on my hearse wagon to raise hell as I roll along.
4/20/22 – Started orchestrating a couple of the Nudelmesse “Pirate Songs” for brass ensemble. Dang, they sound fun to play!
4/19/22 – Finished up editing two more traditional jazz chart clarinet parts. It has been interesting writing for clarinet. I feel that the instrument can be fairly versatile at fancy noodling licks in the music and it has been fun to come up with some ‘suggested’ lines for the part. Can’t wait to hear the new stuff in a week or so!
4/17/22 – Weirdly, on an Easter, a new pirate song came to me…. I charted out the melody and chord structure. I’m thinking that it should be a part of the Nudelmesse that I have every intention of putting together, but just haven’t had the time, process, or organization to do so. The Nudelmesse would be organized similarly to a musical ‘mass’, much like the Mozart Requiem. Maybe it wouldn’t be so long or involved, but I’d like the organization to be similar: a collection of individual pieces, each with it’s own purpose or place within the mass. I figured the Nudelmesse really should feature sea chanty and pirate – style music. And weirdly, on another note, I was sent a rough recording of one of the arrangements I did up for a local old time band, Kris and the Riverbend Dutchmen…and dang! It sounds so good! I really should try to catch them when they are in town next time.
3/31/22 – Today, I linked up a few of the quartet pieces to Sheet Music Plus for purchase. It takes a few days for them to be approved. I’ll have to keep on adding more.
3/29/22 – I have finished editing the parts for “Just a Closer Walk with Thee”. Lately, as I have been doing these traditional jazz charts, I have been trying to format the music with the consideration that most of our band is going digital – uploading their parts to a tablet. Page flipping is best done ‘forward’ so any repeats need to be tablet friendly. I never thought I would have to consider this when writing out parts! And…tonight, I have started to address and actually update the website with some of the materials I have put together lately, namely, the Traditional Jazz Band stuff.
3/27/22 – “The Lumpy S. March” for drum corps is finished and the parts have been edited. Tonight, I was also able to complete the arrangement of “Just Closer Walk with Thee” for traditional jazz band. Those parts will soon be ready and edited.
3/23/22 – I have started to update some long overdue things on this site. There now is a separate page that will be devoted to New Orleans Traditional Jazz Band Charts as well as a Drum and Bugle Corps Works page. No materials are ready for upload yet, but I do intend on adding some of these things to Sheet Music Plus and will make them available for purchase there. I have also recently started The Lumpy S. March for the Govenaires Drum and Bugle Corps. Arranging this from nothing more than one of the Corp’s well-known bus tunes brought back some fun memories of playing in the Govenaires in the early 2000s. I personally know the person for which the original tune was named. The Lumpy S. March will be a short and sweet instrumental parade tune with a built in repeat option for concert settings. I cannot wait to hear them play it this summer!
2/1/22 – Sadly, this site has been neglected even though I have been quite busy. Projects, projects, projects have abounded and eaten into my time for things such as this site. I have been asked to arrange horn charts for a local polka/old time band…and that has been going very well! I have also been working hard at arranging several charts for a trad jazz quintet. We have some performances scheduled in winter and summer. It has felt good to get back into NOLA music again. It’s been greatly missed. There is an original Music Festival being organized for this summer and I have been asked to compose some music for a local drum and bugle corps…to be performed by them at the festival. That will be exciting! And I have a piece, a concert march coming along for the 100 year celebration of out community band! Among other things, a few months ago, I decided that my tuba needs a Facebook page and Instagram account…because why not? Tubert has some very interesting adventures and people seem amused by them. So check out The Adventures of Tubert, if you feel like being amused once in a while.
9/24/21 – Working on into the wee hours, I guess. I have finished “‘Twas in the Moon of Wintertime” not only for Euphonium Quartet, but I have also done up a quick arrangement from that to Tuba Quartet (2 Euphoniums, 2 Tubas). I am in the process of preparing parts now (both BC and TC)…as well as sound files and click tracks to record to. This one is another nice one! Perhaps, I should compile a few euphonium and/or tuba quartet collections? Might be a good idea for the future! Aaaaaand….later this morning……got those popular pieces back up and connected to Sheet Music Plus, YouTube and EuphoniousMusic.com…so they can now be purchased as a digital download! Yay! I should really do a couple of posts to drive traffic to the pieces… I will get on that soon.
9/23/21 – So here we are! I have been extremely busy…too busy to really attend to this page…too busy to write music…to busy to do little more than work the day job and work the side gigs. I have decided, after some self-debate, to re-add “Canon in D” and “Nocturne No. 9, Op. 2” (both Unaccompanied Solos for Euphonium) back to Sheet Music Plus. I have been receiving messages from folks looking obtain a copy of this piece. In addition, I have noticed one of my pieces as being listed for sale on another website…obviously pirated… So, I have decided to list these again, and I am sure Sheet Music Plus will go after these other listings. In any case, anyone that wants these pieces can now purchase them on the internet! I will probably add more!
9/13/21 – The new carol arrangment is almost done: “‘Twas in the Moon of Wintertime”. So far, I have it almost done for four euphoniums, but I also have plans to tweak it a bit for tuba quartet.
9/11/21 – Started a new arrangement for euphonium quartet and/or tuba quartet today. I will probably do it up for four euphoniums (euphonium quartet) and also two euphoniums and two tubas (tuba quartet). I think it will turn out well. It’s based on an old French carol and, rather than arrange it as the straight up hymn that it is, I want to make it a little more interesting instead of just chunky block chord progressions. It embodies the cold and stillness of winter. The melodic line is very much like “O Come Emmanuel” in that it can float over a pedal note drone. With this one, there won’t be a static pedal drone note, but instead, the parts will enter on harmonic tones that sometimes linger just long enough to create a crystalline dissonance in the music. The sound of bitter cold and dark nights. The text for the lyrics was written by a French missionary in the 1600s and has many Native American references. The purpose of this text was no doubt to aid in converting the Huron to Christianity as a part of the cultural genocide enacted by Europeans during colonization. The melody, however, is lovely.
9/9/21 – Well, that new piece is just flowing. Sometimes, music just comes and you have to either write it down or risk forgetting it. That happened yesterday. This idea just came on and I was mulling it for a bit of the day during an extremely hectic and busy day at work. Then I had an evening rehearsal and came home late and had to make dinner. I actually ended up staying up until the wee hours of the morning putting some of this idea down. This morning, I added more to it and the tune is just going to pop. It is such an earworm! Lol. It will be racing through my mind at work today, that’s for sure! And I can’t decide which lyric I like best…probably won’t ever decided because either lyric could work, but in certain situations. “E’vry one in the band has become a bone player!” or “E’vry one in the band wants to be a bone player!” It’s weird out of context…but it really does make sense!
9/8/21 – Inadvertently started another weird piece today…what will become of it?
9/5/21 – Uploaded sample pages for “Bass Shopping on a Saturday” and completed the description. I also uploaded and mp3 of the sound file to Sound Cloud and Reverbnation. Also…someone purchased my arrangement of “Ja Ja Ding Dong” for Tuba Quartet! I wish I could use emojis here, because I sure would use them. Lol!
9/2/21 – I uploaded some sample pages to “Bonny Portmore” and “Hop House Hop” today. Also, got in a brief description of “Hop House Hop” and fixed the sound file for “Bass Shopping on a Saturday” so that some of the midi sounds would behave more accurately in playback/exporting. I will soon be uploading this content!
9/1/21 – I finished editing parts for “Bass Shopping on a Saturday”. …I also realized I still have “Bonny Portmore” sample parts to do as well…. Like I said…it’s been busy. Lol
8/31/21 – Again….another incredibly busy couple of weeks. Yesterday, I finished up “Bass Shopping on a Saturday”. Really, it was just tidying up the score and sending the score off to the band. Today, I have started to edit the individual parts. Excited to *hopefully* hear this one on real instruments some time!
8/19/21 – It’s been a busy few weeks, with beginner band camp, a short vacation, and lots of performances to start wrapping up the summer… I have not had much time to tend to this site and/or focus on any new music. While adding a few things to “The Confluence March” this morning, I was thinking about descriptors for the piece. Blue plays a part in the piece and that color, to me, and within the piece, is like the backdrop for clouds on a sunny day. Their reflections float along with the quiet, slow -moving river as in a dream. The word ‘blue’ is in one of these names, but it is an English translation of a Dakota word, Makhatho. The color of the reflected sky in the river doesn’t have anything to do with its name, but it helps visualize the character of this river. “Makhatho” refers to the color of the clay that was once found here. Additionally, (and this may seem strange), but the key of Eb Major has always been a bit blue for me…though, more of a darker, royal blue. The first melody of this piece is in Eb, but I feel the melody and the high, sparkling lines of various instruments create a lighter blue sound. The second melodic line feels more turbulent. The key flits between F Minor, Eb Major, Ab Major. The waters become muddy, the river picks up speed as the waters collide. If you have ever been amid the colliding waters at a confluence, you may understand that this is where the smaller river becomes a part of the larger river. The waters mix and become quite turbulent due to different temperatures and water flowing at different cubic feet per second. Sometimes, you can even see in the water where the two waters meet because of the different color of sediment and temperature. Imagine the quiet blue reflection mixing with clouds of brownish sediment. F Minor is like yellow mustard. Ab Major is more of a deep, burnt orange. These colors mixing all together create a brownish mix.
8/6/21 – This morning, I worked a bit more on the march, adding some more percussion and trying to get Finale to play some sounds correctly. It is kind of irritating when the program randomly changes the midi sound when you try to put articulations on certain notes. In any case, I think I have decided against most of the sax section stuff I put in yesterday…it has become too much and has lost the light, easily flowing feel I want in the opening melodic part. I do like the oboe part I just came up with, though…it’s really pretty and complements the clarinet melody.
8/5/21 – It felt good to take a few days off for camping and relaxing over the weekend. We stayed at remote and beautiful Scenic State Park and visited a few interesting areas, one of which was The Lost Forty. It was an interesting place…and only still there due to a mistake. I did a little more work on my new march this morning, including figuring out how I want the beginning (or intro) to sound like. I also tried a couple things with the sax section in this, but am not sure I am happy with how it sounds. I’ll keep tweaking it!
7/27/21 – Here we go! Being naughty again this morning! But “Bass Shopping on a Saturday” is pretty much done…just gotta do some touch ups to the score and make sure the chord changes are in each part, then it’s on to editing each part and creating a sound file so the band members can hear the tune.
7/26/21 – This evening, I spent a large amount of time finishing up my final report on the last Artist project through Prairie Lakes Regional Arts Council. It isn’t complete yet as I still need to finalize the budget form and narrative…but everything else is in. Earlier this morning, I was a bit naughty and chose to spend my morning hours working on “Bass Shopping on a Saturday”, a new piece for Cabaret La Ruse… Lately, I have been feeling really creative in the mornings while I have my coffee.
7/23/21 – Tied up some more loose ends on the site this morning: mostly, I found a couple flash drives with some of my old brass band music…and they have the dates I wrote this stuff, or at least, I can make an educated guess when I wrote the pieces. I’ll be adding the composed dates to the titles.
7/22/21 – Like I have said before…sometimes, when you SHOULD be using your time to finish up something that has a deadline, instead, you have a great creative spurt…and all you want to do is to keep that going for as long as you can. But the thing that needs the most attention keeps getting put off. Not good. I need to finish that report. But…I was able to largely hash out a second theme to “The Confluence March”…and I have started to orchestrate it. It is going to be a really fun march!
7/21/21 – This morning, I was able to make some very good progress on “Bass Shopping on a Sunday” and, for the most part, hashed out one theme to “The Confluence March”. “The Confluence March” will be a Sousa-style concert march. Traditionally, this type of march will have a short introduction, a first strain, possibly a second strain, a transition, and trio.
7/20/21 – Last night, was one of our yearly Community Band board meetings. This past year was terrible for many musicians and many large musical groups were not able to meet to make music. This summer has seen a huge upsurge in live, local music in my area. Last night, our board decided to push on, as usual, and begin planning for our 100th year as an ensemble: 1922-2022. There will be a number of projects over the next year that we will try to accomplish to commemorate the anniversary. One project will be putting together a book on the history of our band – pictures, stories, memorabilia and such. We will also have a concert that recognizes one of our late members by playing some of the jazz standards that his old jazz orchestra played. One of my personal projects will be to compose a Sousa-style march for the group. I want to somehow tie the band to the local area and the best way I can think of doing that is to write a piece reflecting the two rivers and confluence here. This morning, I began toying with some ideas for this piece. Later, this evening, I began work finishing out a grant project – which I had been procrastinating on. Of course it always happens…when you need to spend the time on something non-creative to complete it, you often experience a surge in creativity…which can sometimes make me irritable. All I want to do now is work on the two or three pieces I have recently started…lol! They are so fresh and full of promise….and so, so tempting to just sit and work on when I need to be working on finishing this grant project out… I also decided it would probably be good to list my older work on the website (with composition dates) even if I don’t yet have content for it. Maybe doing this will help me to see that I *could* create content and pages for each of these individual pieces.
7/19/21 – I worked a bit more on the new tune, filling in a mall muzack-ey percussion part and figuring out some chords changes to put in the parts. By the way, this is for Cabaret La Ruse – Banjo, Guitar, Trombone/Accordion, Tuba, possibly Percussion. I *hope* I am getting better at providing decent changes. For too long, I have largely written linear parts for brass instruments. It has been interesting learning to figure out cool chord changes. Additonally…this is very exciting!…my site received its first, very kind donation today! This really made my day and made it feel like what I am doing here is of value. This isn’t about the money, but donations no matter how small are viewed as tokens of appreciation to keep up the work and to keep going!
7/18/21 – After a morning of German music at a festival, I had nearly the rest of the day to do as I pleased. So, I sat and figured out a rough sketch of a new tune, “Bass Shoppin’ On a Saturday.” This will have a Mall Muzack-ey feel for the A section. I essentially want it to sound vampy and a little annoying. The B section will break out into a blues progression with fun bass lines. This will pretty much be a jam. I do think I want it to return to the A section – which has lyrics that open a window to an accurate depiction of a small town music store. “Bass Shoppin’ on a Saturday.”
7/17/21 – Had a busy weekend of playing music…but as we were packing up, a tune came to me! I’ll be trying to get it down soon…
7/15/21 – Website organization time…yay…. Editing some menus and rethinking how some things here are organized. Editing some links, etc. I drew out a physical site map today…and also realized I had forgotten to add some things. ….Also…did you know: YouTube flags ‘hop house’ because it ‘violates their violent criminal organizations policy’ and took down my sound file video of “Hop House Hop”. I’ve filed an appeal…because this instrumental piece is not violent.
7/14/21 – I spent some time this morning linking some things around my website to YouTube and Sheet Music Plus. Lots of links and such that need to work so things can be easily found. I’ll also be creating a separate page and/or collection on this site for Cabaret La Ruse charts that I have written. Went on to a couple of other online sites and connected materials. Finally finished editing the parts to “Bonny Portmore” and have sent those off to be watermarked. I also managed to get some sound files up for “Bonny Portmore” and “Ja Ja Ding Dong”….because the arrangements need to be heard!
7/13/21 – Today, I uploaded materials to “Ja Ja Ding Dong”, so that piece is now available for purchase. Currently, deciding if I want to do some things different with the menu for the website. I may need to physically draw it all out so I can see the way it is laid out on paper.
7/12/21 – Recently finished a fourth euphonium quartet arrangement of a Traditional Irish tune: “Bonny Portmore”. This one is particularly interesting as I have tried to create some imagery with the music. Will be editing the parts and getting some other materials ready to post on the site. Also, recently finished a new arrangement of a tune called “Ja Ja Ding Dong” for tuba quartet (2 euphoniums, 2 tubas). Since this one is not in the public domain, I might be uploading this one to one of the sheet music sites that takes care of all the copyright stuff.
7/10/21 – Sorry for the lack of updates lately! I have been quite busy this summer since everything started opening up and live music became a thing again. I have neglected this site, but have not stopped creating. I’ll be posting some new works as I get them prepared! One in particular I am very excited about: “Hop House Hop” is an upbeat, Balkan style piece written for Cabaret La Ruse. It is for Banjo, Guitar, Accordion and Tuba…some instruments that are out of my comfort zone of brass. I also decided to create a “Donation” page for this website today as well as connect a live performance of Cabaret La Ruse to the “Projects and Collaborations” page. Over the last few months, several folks have messaged through this site to inquire about some of my euphonium solo and quartet arrangements in particular. Please, feel free to ask about my music! Also…almost every downloadable document on this site is not the complete work. They are meant to only be samples. If you would like the full piece, please contact me.
3/22/21 – I have finished editing parts for “Come to the Mardi Gras”, my latest NOLA Trio, and have prepared and uploaded both the sound file and the click track. Can’t wait to get this recorded! It will be a fun one to play, I’m sure!
3/19/21 – Finished a NOLA Trio arrangement of an awesome tune that absolutely love: “Come to the Mardi Gras.” I’ll be editing parts and uploading sound files soon!
3/16/21 – Did some linking up on my lunch break…connecting some links to/from/within the website…so pieces can be browsed and found!
3/15/21 – Today, I finished “High Could Cat”, another Traditional Irish Euphonium Quartet arrangement. I really like this lively tune that is often played as a hornpipe in Irish music. Sometimes, it is also played in a swinging style, which I have chosen for the entirety of the arrangement. I’ll be uploading some sound and music files shortly! ….also…I think I’m going to need to make a new page for organizational purposes: Euphonium Quartets. I’ll get that going this week some time!
3/14/21 – Finished editing the collage of “In the Upper Garden” and uploaded it to various channels. This turned out really well! Also, compiled and edited the videos/audio for “The Star of the County Down”. This one is going up…as a scheduled post…as I update this little blurb. It has actually been kind of fun figuring out how to edit both audio and video and create a whole other product from basic cell phone recordings…lol! ALSO…I will be redoing “The Parting Glass”,but this will be a collaboration with at least one other player…so, that is something else exciting to look forward to! “The Star of the County Down” will likely be a part of this collaboration, too!
3/13/21 – PHEW. The process of learning the software to create video collages…is a lot of learning. Recently, with some of these previous collage videos, I had figured out how to edit the audio…and to really nitpick some things. One of my most recent videos, “The Parting Glass”, had such horrible video…and today, I figured out how to fix that. The program had an automatic setting when exporting the video and yes, indeed, that can be changed. So! Now, I know how to export a higher quality video for any examples I create. Now, just having finished up a new collage of “Crocodile Isle”, I’ll be uploading videos and mp3s to various platforms today!
3/12/21 – Scheduled some posts today, but also started work on putting together a collage of one of the NOLA Trios, “Crocodile Isle”.
3/11/21 – Uploaded sound files and sample pages for “Star of the County Down” and connected this piece to various social/online/music channels.
3/10/21 – It’s been awhile since I have been here to update and work on my site… I had finished “Star of the County Down” euphonium quartet a few weeks back, but finally got around to editing all the parts tonight and turning them into PDF files. I also spent some time creating a click track and a sound file for this piece, which I will shortly upload to YouTube and other channels. I have been quite busy lately with other musical endeavors. The pandemic has had a bright side in that two interesting side projects (both trios!) have come out of only being able to practice/rehearse with a limited number of other musicians. I have been preparing horn charts for one of these trios (Machiko – Piano/Vocals, Trumpet and Trombone) for some upcoming outdoor performances. In addition, I have been preparing parts for a most eclectic jazz/blues/original music/covers trio consisting of Banjo/Vocals, Guitar, and Tuba….weird combination, but very unique…and it really works! So, much of my free time has been spent on these two projects, preparing music and practicing the tuba (not my main instrument, but it’s going to work out just fine).
2/10/21 – Uploaded this selection to YouTube as an example and also extracted the audio only for posting on Sound Cloud and Reverbnation.
2/9/21 – Compiled a test collage of “The Parting Glass” for Euphonium Quartet…it sounds really good and I am excited to record and compile parts with at least one other player! Also, did some work on another euphonium quartet, “The Star of the County Down”. I am also excited to complete this arrangement! Perhaps, I’ll compile a small collection of Irish-themed quartets for euphonium…
2/8/21 – Finished uploading watermarked sample pages for “The Waves of Wintertide” and “The Parting Glass”. I have also dug out some old images for the educational materials that I had used in the YouTube videos for the Rubank series books. I’ll be editing these images to use on each page in the educational materials. Eventually, I would like to create separate pages for each set of exercises I have YouTube videos for.
2/7/21 – Tonight was spent recording individual parts for a few of the original tunes and editing parts for “The Parting Glass”, which will have parts for both Bass Clef and Bb Treble Clef euphoniums. I also made sure that mp3 of the sound sample for this one was uploaded across multiple channels (Sound Cloud, Reverbnation, etc…). I might even create a separate post for the Euphonious Music Facebook page.
2/6/21 – Edited and uploaded several more “Eclipse” examples and linked each video to the website. It should be noted that all of these “Eclipse” videos are on a schedule, so if the link doesn’t work, it is because the videos will remain ‘private’ until their scheduled release. Also, kind of on a whim, I arranged a short and bittersweet version of “The Parting Glass”, a traditional Irish tune, for Euphonium Quartet. I have finished the score (only in bass clef so far) and have uploaded a sound file to a new page for that piece. I am very excited for this one as I have recently agreed to recording some duets with another player! Perhaps, we can each take two of the parts and record it! Could be fun!
1/31/21 – Edited and uploaded “Blessed is the Fruit” on multiple channels. Also, edited and uploaded a couple more “Eclipse” examples.
1/30/21 – Edited several “Eclipse” examples that are on my YouTube channel and finalized them for release.
1/28/21 – I decided to start revamping some organizational aspects on this site today. Since I figured out how to implement a table as a catalog, I decided that eventually I would like to post individual catalogs for some of the educational materials I have on my YouTube channel. By the way, I have two YouTube channels: Euphonious Music is dedicated to my original work and Sarah Houle is dedicated to euphonium and trombone education and performance.
1/27/21 – First, I have been forgetting to update…or just neglecting in. Second, I have been recording several examples from “The Eclipse” on double bell euphonium and working on streamlining the process of creating individual videos. I also put together a collage of “Blessed are the Pasta Makers” and will be uploading that shortly. Among other things, I revised parts for “Crocodile Isle” and will soon do the same for “In the Garden”. I wanted to better reflect the chords/form of the original piece. AND…I figured out how to do a table…so now I can easily link all of my YouTube channel examples of book exercises into an easy to navigate format on my website!
1/23/21 – Uploaded a cool vintage band method book, “The Eclipse Self Instructor for Baritone Bass Clef”, as an educational material. I will be uploading some videos of some of the exercises being played on a vintage double bell euphonium! Both the book and the euphonium are at least 100 years old. I figure having some cool materials as freebies and cross posting to/from my educational YouTube channel could potentially drive in some traffic.
1/20/21 – Fingers crossed, “Bier Trinken” is hopefully approved in my Facebook shop, lol! Also fixed some menu navigation issues on the website…for some reason, the links for two pieces weren’t in the main menu that should have been.
1/19/21 – It’s been a bit since I have done much of signifigance here: created some images for listings in my Facebook shop that will be tied to this site. Currently, battling a bit with Facebook to allow me to upload some of this sheet music to the site (ex. they don’t like the title, “Bier Trinken”, because they think it promotes alcohol distribution and sales….lol). Anyway, I am getting some of this stuff up to just try it and see! I’ve done a tiny bit of work on “Come to the Mardi Gras”, another NOLA trio, but I have also been working on getting some parts recorded…so that has consumed my time rather than the website and preparing sheet music. I’ll get back at it soon!
1/5/21 – Edited parts for “Waves of Wintertide”. Uploaded and linked some MP3 files of “The Waves of Wintertide” and one of the new NOLA Trios, “In the Upper Garden” to both Soundcloud and Reverbnation. I would like to start uploading some more content there and linking everything back to here!
1/4/21 – Had a few days away (vacationing at Whitewater State Park…which was absolutely beautiful in the winter) and took some time to recharge. I am adding several things tonight to the site: uploaded a sound file for “The Waves of Wintertide”, created a couple pages for some new works and a new composition category, Brass Trios, and uploaded some watermarked sample page files. I am going to start adding some cool new arrangements in the form of NOLA Trios (Trumpet, Trombone, Tuba) and am very excited about this. If I can get several of these going, it will be a nice little collection!
12/29/20 – A fairly quiet evening resulted in the completion of another tune: “The Waves of Wintertide”, which is a Sea Song. I really enjoyed the color and feel the piccolo and djembe brought to my typical trumpet, trombone, euphonium, and tuba brass quartet…so I made sure they were added into this piece as well. This tune has a very bold introduction that doubles as an instrumental interlude between verses. I am pleased with the form of this one because it’s not as typical as the 8 measure phrase form of many songs, but it does have that feel at times in the verses and refrain. I’ll be editing these parts in the next few days and creating a page!
12/28/20 – Had sheet music samples of “Holy Friday” and “Rum in the Galley” watermarked for their respective pages. Also, updated the sound file link for “Holy Friday” to reflect the more current version of the piece that includes piccolo and djembe.
12/26/20 – Dug out and edited an old virtuosic arrangement that I had completed in 2015, “Final (Euphonium) Fantasy VII, based on…you guessed it! The music of Nobuo Uematsu for the iconic Playstation game, Final Fantasy VII. This piece was one of those that I started a very long time ago (probably close to when the game had come out) and took forever to bring it to completion…mostly because there was so much good music in that game it was difficult to tie everything together and to give each melody enough of a chance to shine within the arrangement. This one is going up on Sheet Music Plus. Enjoy!
12/23/20 – Posted the collage of “Veni Emmanuel Bell Carol” to the Euphonious Music Facebook page and shared it around. I also updated the SoundCloud and Reverbnation listings to reflect Euphonious Music and uploaded the three newest audio tracks from the collages from “Bier Trinken”, “Holiday” and “Veni Emmanuel Bell Carol”. Slowly, and surely, I’ll keep plugging on with this. I think just setting up these sources and then, plugging in audio, video, descriptions, etc. to them all at once will help to maintain the consistency. Fixed one of the links to the “Daily Warm Ups” studies so that it actually linked to the correct part. Also, teeheeee….I may have added a piccolo/tinwhistle part to “Holy Friday” and it sounds killer!! So, I finished editing all of those parts, made a click track and a sound sample, and now, just gotta wait to hear from someone about possibly playing that part for the collage. I cannot wait to put this one together…with the djembe and piccolo/tinwhistle….it’s going to sound very pirate-y. I am excited!
12/22/20 – Finished a musical collage of “Veni Emmanuel Bell Carol” (just in time for the holidays to be over…lol!).
12/20/20 – So far today, I have updated many of my Sheet Music Press listings to include a YouTube link for audio/video of my arrangements. I hope they help display the pieces somewhat to potential buyers. I am also considering posting these YouTube links directly to my Arrangements page, but I am wondering how to do it so the page doesn’t become cluttered. I may have to reorganize the menu structure so it is more manageable. Some links were also fixed on various pages and I added another page for a public domain quartet arrangement, “Entry of the Gladiators”. Parts for this have been edited and just need watermarking. I also finished (and will hopefully finish editing) the parts for “Holy Friday”! This one is very exciting because I decided it needed a deep, pirate-y drum beat to it. This piece also has some nice symbolism within, which is often typical of worship-like or celebratory pieces. It has three verses and three “cheers” sections, plus a total of three “cheers” to close out the piece. The sound file and description of the piece have been uploaded to the page as well as YouTube. I will also be recording some parts for “Veni Emmanuel Bell Carol”, a really beautiful arrangement of two seasonal tunes that I completed a few years back for the Mostly Conical Brass Quartet. I gotta get my butt moving on this musical collage before it’s obsolete for the next year, lol!
12/19/20 – Made some great progress on the new piece, “Holy Friday”, this morning and am hoping tomorrow will be finishing day! I’ve got a lot going on today and tonight (surprisingly) music-related, so tomorrow will be a better day to accomplish some things.
12/17/20 – Edited and uploaded a few more brass quartet arrangements to Sheet Music Plus. When these become available, I will link them up to that site. Also, put a bit more work into two new tunes “Waves of Wintertide” and “Holy Friday”. I am also debating on recording or finding some recordings of these arrangements to post so that potential buyers can hear the arrangement.
12/15/20 – For the last few months now, I have been under suspicion that my newer computer may not be capable of handling larger musical collages. It seems to max out around 6-7 videos. Before, when I had only been handling 4-5 videos at a time, it was ok…but it’s very glitchy. I’ll taking it in tomorrow to see if anything can be done. When I purchased it, it was not cheap, nor a baseline model…but technology advances so fast now. It’s 5 years old and considered old. Despite this, I did manage to finish a cute video submission of one piece that will air next month through NUCAT out of New Ulm for their “Something Artsy” segment. And I corrected the issues with the “Veni Emmanuel Bell Carol” midi/click track so that we can begin recording…just in time for the holidays!
12/14/20 – Finished the second collage of “Bier Trinken” with a new tuba player! Will be uploading the video to YouTube and connecting it to the page here. Also, got the first photo from Jessica Landsteiner for the site. Now I just have to play around with where to put it. In addition, I did some work to The “Waves of Wintertide” and started “Holy Friday” (another hymn tune).
12/12/20 – Didn’t have too much time today since I am technically on vacation, but I did manage to figure out the first collage of “Bier Trinken”. I will eventually get a better tuba player on that part, but for now, plugging my ok-ish playing in will have to do. It’s fun hearing it when it all comes together!
12/7/20 – Finished “Rum in the Galley”, created a basic page and uploaded some sound files. I’ve put together the individual recordings of “Holiday”, minus the tuba part (I’m waiting for his file to come in)….but haha…I might try recording it myself because I am anxious to hear it! I also started another pirate-y song, but this will be winter-themed: “The Waves of Wintertide”.
12/6/20 – Didn’t quite finish “Rum in the Galley” today, but it’s so close! I was able to upload sample pages to “Blessed is the Fruit”, though.
12/5/20 – Started to better connect links from this page to the new designated Euphonious Music YouTube brand channel. Updated the channel with some of the same sound files I had on my regular YouTube channel. Also, began writing (and just finished before 10pm!) another Pastafarian hymn entitled, “Blessed is the Fruit”. This one’s going to be great because it’s about tomatoes. Lol. In the works is a pirate-y drinking-type song that will be called, “Rum in the Galley”. This one will be special because it will have some cool hornpipe type instrumental interludes. Being inspired to write all these new tunes has had its downside, though. I feel like I have been neglecting other parts of what I wanted this project to be: to go through more of my old music and edit it so this can be catalogued on the website. It is such tedious work and not nearly as enjoyable as creating new work and learning some new techniques. By the way, in the process of writing these new tunes, I have been trying to use a different writing method…and it has been working out really well! So, it’s not like I’m not being productive…I’m just going in a slightly different direction. Normally, when I compose, I hear an idea, write it down, and elaborate on it or add to it, etc… For these short tunes, I have been coming up with either a text (lyrics) or a melody first. (Also, I have not really explored writing tunes with lyrics before…this is very new for me as an instrumental composer.) And then, after the text/melody, I plug in chords, then bass line/harmony lines, and then I work out the arrangement part to make each piece more unique with variations and such for each restatement of the melody (verse). It has been very enjoyable! I hope someone else gets enjoyment out of this work other than just me and some of my closest friends!
12/4/20 – I decided to change the page entitled “Sheet Music Plus” to Arranged Works. I feel it just seemed better suited for what I want this website to be. A good arrangement is in itself an artwork even if the fundamental material is someone else’s intellectual property. Even though many of the arrangements I have done are not public domain, “posting” those in the form of a link to the external Sheet music Plus website is a way for me to attach this extended body of work to my original work. I feel it is valuable to include this work alongside, but secondary, to my own creations simply because of the time, effort and creativity invested in each arrangement. I learned much and honed my skills by arranging…it is as much a part of what I do as creating my own work!
12/3/20 – Today, I decided it might be best to create a separate YouTube channel for my original music and make that more of an ‘original work’ channel rather than use my personal YouTube creator channel for this purpose. By doing that, I can keep these aspects of what I do somewhat separate: Performing and Teaching on my personal channel and showcasing my original work through sound samples and recordings/collages on my ‘brand’ channel, Euphonious Music. I would also move the click tracks for video collages to this new channel in a separate playlist. It will also make branding easier if everything is the same!
12/2/20 – Not much today, but I did upload watermarked files for “Touched By the Noodle” as well as some really valuable PDF files I use with my students: Daily Warm Ups and High Note Exercises. These PDFs are available for Euphonium BC, TC and Tuba and contain fairly easy exercises to verging on insane (but fun!). Enjoy!
12/1/20 – Doing a little more tidying up on my lunch break today: connecting some of my YouTube channel videos that feature performances of my arrangements to this site as well as Sheet Music Press. Connecting, connecting, and more connecting….all so this page can be easier to find! Edited parts for “Touched By the Noodle” and will have those sample pages uploaded soon!
11/30/20 – I had started a Pastafarian Spiritual entitled “Touched By the Noodle” around the same time as “Holiday” was conceived and completed. I was having too much fun writing “Holiday” and learning about Pastafarianism that I wanted to also contribute a spiritual tune similar to something like, “When the Saints go Marching In”. “Touched By the Noodle” seems to fill that need. Finally, today, “Touched By the Noodle” has been completed, with sound files extracted, edited and uploaded to YouTube. I’ll soon have parts available for this neat hymn tune. It has a jazzy intro, three verses and a ‘lyrical interlude’. Soon, watermarked parts for “Thy Noodle Come, Thy Sauce Be Yum” will be uploaded as well. Even though these cute Pastafarian Hymnal tunes have occupied my time of late, I feel as though I needed to do something fun. Covid-19 really has crushed nearly all performance opportunities for most of the musicians I know. Writing these tunes really has lifted my spirits and hopefully, will lift the hearts of anyone that hears them. I can’t wait to start recording them!
11/29/20 – Felt completely inspired today and wrote another hymn for the Pastafarian Hymnal! Lol. This one is a Reflection piece entitled, “Thy Noodle Come, Thy Sauce Be Yum” and has an intro, two verses, and an R’Amen at the end. Not only did I complete that piece today, but I was able to finish editing the parts and created and uploaded a sound file and click track. My productivity is on a roll!!
11/28/20 – Fixed a couple of small things around the site and put more work into editing sheet music files for “Gardener’s Suite”….very time consuming…
11/27/20 – Created a page for “Gardener’s Suite” (Quintet No. 3) and uploaded sound files to YouTube. Finished linking some other pages and such around the website. Really, I’m just trying to tidy stuff up and make sure there is some ‘consistency’ around the website. Created a first “post” and linked that with the manifestation of euphoniousmusic.com on Facebook (though, that page is not up and going). We’re just experimenting with that right now!
11/25/20 – Finished editing parts for “Bier Trinken” and uploaded some sound files for the new piece to YouTube and euphoniousmusic.com! Also, edited parts for the brass quartet version (Trumpet, Trombone, Euphonium, Tuba) version of “Veni Emmanuel Bell Carol” and extracted a sound file and click track for that. There is still a tuba quartet version of that piece that I will need to edit separately.
11/24/20 – Uploaded sample sheet music pages for “Blessed are the Pasta Makers”. Also, FINALLY completed a tune I started in 2016 after returning from an awesome European concert band tour. We toured Hungary, Czech Republic and Austria and that was the inspiration for the tune, “Bier Trinken”. This one is also for brass quartet with vocals/piano/chords. I hope to have that one up shortly…though, I am debating on whether to include it in with the Pastafarian Hymnal collection. It is about beer, after all, and Pastafarians regard beer as a sacred drink (along with rum, of course!).
11/22/20 – Finished “Blessed are the Pasta Makers” (Brass Quartet) and edited all parts for upload. Set up two new pages for the website, one for this new work as well as a Pastafarian Hymnal Contributions page. I’ll soon have media to put up on that new page. And don’t worry, I’ve got one more tune coming down the pipeline…but this one will be a “spiritual”. Think along the lines of “When the Saints go Marching In”, but for Pastafarians.
11/11/20 – Uploaded materials for “Autumn Brass Off”, “Fork Me! Theme”, “Whiskey 7”, and another piece I found that I had forgotten about: “Tree Fort Podcast – Mall Muzac”! Lol. The Tree Fort Podcast never actually happened….but I wrote some ‘mall muzac’ for it. It’s a cute little ditty and a duet for trombone and tuba, so why not put that up, too? Also, worked on linking some more YouTube channel stuff and trying to make things more and more consistent across the platforms. It’s still not time to connect some of the other social media platforms, but the quicker I can get the basics settled, the sooner I can start those processes.
11/10/20 – Started working on media for the “Autumn Brass Off” page and connecting all permalinks to this as well as YouTube Links. Began work on “Whiskey 7”, one of my first New Orleans Brass Band tunes to be uploaded to this website!
11/9/20 – Uploaded some more sheet music samples and linked YouTube videos for “Nocturne Op. 9, No. 2”, “After You’ve Gone”, “Tidal Moonlight”, and “Fork Me! Theme”. Tried to also clean up some bad link issues between pages on this website. Slowly, things are coming together and soon, I’ll have a pretty comprehensive site that will be well-linked to my YouTube Channel. By the way, Jess Landsteiner has been pretty awesome in helping to create thenicely watermarked sheet music sample pages I have been putting up. I am very grateful for her help in this task!
11/1/20 – Uploaded and linked a few more Sheet Music Plus arrangements – “Cantina Band” for a ‘mostly conical brass quartet’, “Star Wars Epic Euphonium Fantasy” (for euphonium and tuba), and “Via Dolorosa” and “Rainbow Connection” for Solo Euphonium.
10/31/20 – Linked more Sheet Music Plus arrangements to this website, most of which were unaccompanied solo arrangements for trombone, euphonium, and tuba. It has been interesting revisiting some of these arrangements that were done a few years ago: particularly “Super Mario Fantasy” and “Star Wars Epic Euphonium Fantasy”. There is a lot of material to go through…but hopefully, in the end, putting it out there will bring enjoyment to some other musicians!
10/30/20 – Created a new page for my site that will link all of my non-original, non-public domain arrangements to Sheet Music Plus! This will enable any interested fans to check out the stuff I have arranged and allow them to purchase and download music! I am still debating whether or not to put my original works up on Sheet Music Plus due to the nominal commission composers receive there. Right now, I feel I would much rather fully own my music in every right.
10/28/20 – Worked on solidifying the look of individual work pages to implement a consistent form when entering/creating new pages: title, brief description, link to sound sample(s) linked from my YouTube Channel, embedded PDF file(s), and a contact form. Specifically, worked on pages for “Two Sides”, “Holiday”, “Fork Me! Theme”, “Be Thou My Vision” and “Low Jams”. Currently considering putting up a separate “Collections” page where I can post groups of works as a ‘collection’. For example: Pastafarian Hymnal Contributions. Will also be linking the new Facebook page for euphoniousmusic.com as I get that up an running.
10/25/20 – Prepared some more parts and sample pages for various works. Uploaded samples for “Low Jams”, “Be Thou My Vision”, “Prelude and Dance”, “Quartet No. 1”, and newly composed “Holiday”. I will be working on uploading some MIDI sound files to my YouTube channel and connecting these to the works and sample pages so that I have some form of audio to put up while I slowly put together multi-track ‘performances’ of each work. It’s slow going when you get called back to work and slammed with a backlog after being laid off from the COVID. Thanks for bearing with me! I can’t wait until I have a full on website where all the pages are finished. Lol!
10/5/20 – Revisited the page after a long while and published several of the content pages. I recently returned to my full time job after being temporarily laid off due to COVID-19 and we have been playing a lot of catch-up there. Please bear with me as I upload new content to fill all the menus adequately. This may take a while!
7/26/2020 – Uploaded some more sheet music sample pages and experimented with linking pages to each other as well as embedding some YouTube links. Formatted some of the list pages so they make more sense and will work on linking each individual work as I upload media to the website. Started to clean up some straggler items that happened as I was learning how to do things with the website. Super entertaining blog post…right?
7/25/2020 – Updated the site with a menu and links. Experimented with adding content (watermarked downloadable files, pictures, YouTube channel links). Added the Prairie Lakes Regional Arts Council credit for the McKnight Grant funds used to help create this website. It’s actually starting to look like something!
Euphonious Music 