While
a lot of my compositions are written through improvisation and spending time with certain ideas at the keyboard, some are written with a pad of paper. In both cases, I am usually in front of a computer engraving the notation for optimal readability.
The most recent work I wrote was in collaboration with The Oak Creek High School Percussion Ensemble and during the marching season in fall we opened up the season talking about The Great American Eclipse – then we joked about it until it wasn’t funny anymore! haha – ANY analogy we could draw to make an eclipse help us explain the musical situation, it was fun and in many cases it worked! “wow, this decrescendo is like the sun disappearing behind the moon… woah, like an eclipse…”
It is these types of stories and inside jokes that have potential to find themselves infused into a work of music that I write. 🙂 I can’t help but place these connections into music and play with them, letting a personal memory directly influence the inspiration of a piece!
Not to mention, I am now writing these works for specific students who were in many cases “in” on the joke or heard me use this eclipse analogy. This provides me with pedagogical goals and ways to make it fun to play for the students. I was and am seriously inspired by the eclipses as well, so I’d like to take you through how this work reflects that.
When the piece opens up it is very happy and life-giving with clusters of chords coming from the ensemble. This is like the atmosphere of the sun. This is only going to change, because the sun will only be evolving during an eclipse. The atmosphere of the sun, which we can only see during a solar eclipse, will be taken apart in a musical sense representing the visual unveiling of the atmosphere during the eclipse. There are different themes that come in during this piece that represent some effects that happen during an eclipse. I wonder if you’ve heard of The Diamond Ring, Bailey’s Beads, or Totality…
The Diamond Ring is a brilliant effect where the sun is very bright only at a tiny point at one edge of the moon right before the suns brilliance actually goes away and changes to a low glow. This visually creates a circle with a point of light, looking like a diamond ring! It is amazing and I’d love to share a video eventually so you can see these different effects.
Second effect that really blows my mind is Bailey’s Beads. These are separated points of light on the last tips of the fading crescent of the sun’s light. What causes this!? The mountaintops and craters on the moon are tall enough to block parts of the sunlight, while letting points of light through!!!! Oh, this is a great scientific observation that is very fun to watch 🙂
Finally, totality. The sun really goes away and it seems like it is night or dusk. Animals start to act differently, birds flying around because they are looking to nest for the night. The moon is blocking the sun! The moon is a big rock floating in the sky and it is actually in between us and this BIG sun! The more I researched it the more I became excited about eclipses in general.
Educational Video:
Telescope Footage:
Please check out this great YouTube video and listen to the first little computer version of Eclipse! (Oak Creek High School Percussion Ensemble is working on it to premiere later this year) 🙂 🙂 🙂
