Sonata One in E Minor for Solo Guitar: II - Sonata

You can download the PDF scores and MIDI to MP3 conversions of all four movements of Sonata One here.

*****

Most classical guitarists today still follow the tradition started by Andres Segovia and continued by Christopher Parkening, John Williams, and Julian Bream. Pedagocially, that means most of them would not be willing - or able with the very high actions and non-cutaway lower bouts on modern acoustic concert classical guitars - to perform pieces containing tap technique such as the Tocatta in E Minor I opened Sonata One with. Even technical pioneers like Kazuhito Yamashita and Eliot Fisk have never embraced tap. Nevertheless, I wanted as much of this work as possible to be accessible to traditionalists, should they wish to perform it, so I designed it so that the first movement is optional: Sonata One works perfectly well as Sonata, Scherzo, and Fugue, leaving out the Tocatta.



How I achieved this was to begin the Sonata in A Minor out on its dominant of E at the beginning of the introduction: On the top system is the V(sus4) in the upcoming key of A minor, but the listener does not know that at this point.

In the second system, the bass begins to rise chromatically under the unchanging figuration above creating first a bVI(M7addA11) (The Lydian sonority that usually resides there in minor), but then a vi(m7/add11) when the bass rises to f-sharp. It really is a mystery as to where we actually are.

The third system does not help matters, as it progresses from a bVII(6/9) chord to a dominant seventh on that degree, suggesting a coming resolution to C major. I just love messing with listeners this way. ;^)

Note that the time signature changes from 3/4 to 2/4 into measure... nine: This prefigures the settup of the exposition, which has the first theme/key in 3/4 and the second theme/key in 2/4. At nine we actually get the real V(6/3) of the upcoming key, but then the g-sharp is thwarted. This g-sharp is never allowed to resolve into an A minor chord until the very end of the codetta that concludes the movement.

Measure ten is a vii(d) in relation to A minor, but what foloows implies a bII(6/3) (That darned Neapolitan chord again) to vii(d4/3) belonging to the key of D minor (!). We even get that D minor tonic in first inversion at the beginning of the bottom system, which then becomes a bIII relating to that key, but another bVI relating to A minor. Finally, the mystery is solved in the final two measures of the intro with a very clear i(6/4) to V(m7), and we're good to go.



The exposition proper begins at measure seventeen, and it is just a simple neo-Romantic tune in 3/4 time, or so it would appear. I ought to note that the progression starts out as a i, iv, V(m7), i, which is where I got the idea for the progression for the sections of the Tocatta.

After the second appearance of the tonic, I begin to introduce the colorful sonorities which will end up giving the piece its character: measure twenty-one has a bVI(M7/A11) - like we heard in the intro - and then in the third system the tension builds to an actual destruction of the simple little tune starting with a V(4/3/b)/bVI (Traditionally a French Augmented Sixth chord) into a bII(6/4) (Traditionally the Neapolitan Sixth chord, but in second inversion here), then a subV(9)/V (Which would traditionally be a German Augmented Sixth sonority), and finally, in measure twenty-five, all of this dissonance piled upon dissonance resolves to the V(m9) chord, and I accent the minor second between the minor ninth and the root at the top.

Now that I've destroyed the tune, I add a measure of 2/4 to re-launch it on the fourth system, and it's almost as if all that unpleasantness never happened. This is a very important point in the piece, as will be revealed later.

When the tune resumes, we get a V(m7)/iv to iv, and then at the end of measure twenty-eight the vii(d)/V into the V(m9) (again) that begins the bottom system.

Here I change time signatures again: We get a measure of 4/4 followed by a measure of 5/4. One of the things I was striving for here was a very elastic phraseology. I bring back the sounding second figure in measures thirty and thirty-one, and at measure thirty-one we thet the V(9) for the new key of C major.



We've now dovetailed smoothly into the second theme/key area of C major that is in 2/4 time. This tune too is interrupted by episodes involving the sounding second figure: Measure thirty-six it is on a IV(M7/addA11) chord, and in measure thirtyseven it is on a V(9) chord.

The new tune then resumes, and in measure forty I introduce another V(4/3/b) chord, and then the tune dissolves through measure forty-two into the V(m9) belonging, seemingly, to the key of C minor. This hint of things to come is brushed aside at the fifth beat of the measure, where the V(6/3) of the original key of A minor is introduced. Notice that we're at measure forty-three, and the introduction was sixteen measures: Forty three minus sixteen is... wait for it... here it comes... twenty-seven: Yes, the exposition is twenty-seven measures in length.



The most traditional sonata process pieces repeat the exposition - most of them by Haydn and Mozart, for example - but later sonata process pieces by Beethoven and Brahms often had varied repeats, or counter-expositions, in which new elements were introduced and some development took place. That's what I wanted to do - figuring why learn from the earliest and simplest examples instead of the later and more highly sophisticated ones - so the counter-exposition begins at measure forty-four.

Solo guitar - as an idiom - is highly restrictive compared to keyboard instruments. On a keyboard, you can take any theme and play it in any key just by altering the fingerings. With the guitarist's reliance on open strings, some themes can only be played in a single key, or at a single octave level. That's the problem with this piece right here.

I composed the exposition to this piece in 1996, but couldn't figure out how to proceed until 2005, which is the year I completed the movement. In terms of gestation period, this movement took longer than all of the others combined. I found fugue as a process relatively straight forward compared to sonata.

I came up with the idea of having the themes in the counter-exposition in the parallel opposing modes as far back as 1999, but I could never figure out how to resolve the second theme into the original key: It was just not possible to play in A minor.

Cluelessness abounded as to what to do about a development section as well.

Finally, I realized I could use the first interruption of the original tune to introduce the second theme an octave higher. That was a very good day.

So here we have the original tune, now in A major - and note that the g-sharp did not resolve into a minor tonic - and it progresses as expected until the interruption, where the second theme is introduced an octave higher and also in A major. This is really really cool, man.



At the end of the interruption of the second theme an octave higher, there is an extended dissolve, a return to 3/4 time, and a brief turn-around through a measure of 4/4. Afther which, the tune starts up again like nothing ever happened in measure seventy. Ain't it cool?

The tune then concludes as expected, setting up the second 2/4 theme in the lower octave and the parallel minor to the original relative C major.

Please note I didn't want to get bogged down with harmonic analysis here, they being what you'd expect for a major version of the theme. Besides, this is a huge post already.



And so here we are: The second theme in the original octave, but in the minor mode. Same deal: The harmonies differ as one would expect with a change from major to minor. In other words, we get different colors at the sounding second episodes.

In the final measure here, there is no g-sharp introduced, so the development will start out in C minor, as the key signature change indcates.



After finally figuring out the exposition and counter-exposition, I thought I knew what the recapitulation might look like, but there was still the question of what to do about the development. What to do, what to do? God only knows how many aborted experiments I went through to arrive at the solution, but it seemed to take for... ever.

As I mentioned previously, I couldn't just throw the thematic elements around willy-nilly because of the limitations inherent in the idiom of solo guitar. Not to mention the question of what to do with those elements, of course.

What I came up with was the idea of using not the earlier thematic elements, but the textural elements in a set of variations on a six measure progression. Starting at measure eighty-nine we get the progression with the texture and time signature of the original tune: i, iv, bVII, bIII, bVI, - with a V(4/3/b) thrown in before v. Does the resulting c, f, Bb, Eb, Ab sound or look familiar? It's the fourth/fifth progression I used employing the open strings back in the Tocatta!

The second variation starting at measure ninety-five has the progression embellished with the sounding second texture, and the added ninths required to achieve this. At the end of this variation it sounds like the second theme in the higher octave is going to appear (Remember this for later), but the dominant moves deceptively to return the piece to the home key of A minor for the third variation, which is in the texture of the beginning of the introduction, but in 4/4 time now.



The final two measures of the third variation sound again like they are going to lead to the second theme, but in an impossibly high register to play on the guitar, so I combine the texture of the second theme with the chord progression the development is based on.

The A at the beginning of measure one-hundred-seven is only a whole step below the highest note on a standard classical guitar, and this is the pitch climax of the piece. Note the open A, D, G in the bass, which I borrowed to bring unity with the preceeding Tocatta.

After this fourth variation, the texture of the second theme continues in a lower register back in C minor again, after which there is a dissolve back to the 5/4 measure which sets up the recap... but we can't let the g-sharp resolve to the A minor yet, so the second part of the introduction reappears to thwart it again.



Since we already heard the original theme in both A minor and A major, I decided to use the six measure progression from the development for the beginning of the recapitulation. This is so unusual that I laughed out loud when I thought of it, but i remembered that place at the end of the second variation from the development where it sounded like the second theme was going to enter, and so I used that to get the second theme in the higher octave and in A minor at last!

This gave me the oportunity to introduce the most colorful harmonies of the entire piece in measures one-hundred-forty and one-hundred-forty-one. In the first of the two measures is a IV(d5/m7) and in the second, V(m7/A9), which I call "the Jimi Hendrix chord" because he employed it so often.



After the second theme finally appears, there isn't much left to say... except for that g-sharp that never got to resolve into a minor tonic chord. So, where the tune resumed in the counter-exposition, the introduction reappears. Having the intro also function as the codetta is a nice touch, I think, and that g-sharp finally has its wishes fulfilled in the bottom system... where the final tonic is figured exactly like the first measure of the exposition.



That is just a whole lot of blond hair.

Read More

Sonata One in E Minor for Solo Guitar: I - Tocatta

And so begins a series of epic posts...

You can download the PDF scores and MIDI to MP3 conversions of all four movements of Sonata One here.

*****

This is the first multi-movement sonata I've ever written. I've worked up to it slowly and deliberately over the past twenty-seven years by composing first a series of jazz pieces in the primary styles: Bossa Nova, Samba, traditional Swing and Bebop, and then more modern Swing and Ballad forms. Beginning circa 1987, I started to compose pieces for solo guitar in the classic styles. I've written over fifty classical pieces total now, over forty of which I perform every week. These include over twenty pieces of traditional counterpoint, over twelve preludes in harmonic styles, and the two pieces that lead up to this specifically: Irreducible Sonata in A Minor and Sonata Zero in A Minor.

Of course, I'm basically a rock guitarist who loves jazz and classical music, and has studied those idioms intently for many years, so I've always been writing in rock-based styles as well.

The Irreducible Sonatina consists of a Sonatina in A minor, Menuetto in B minor (Basically a Scherzo sans Trio), Allegretto in C major (Another piece in the Sonatina form), and a set of six Trajectorial Variations in A minor (Experiments with melodic trajectories in two-part counterpoint). Sonata Zero is a strange beast, as the three main movements are in three-voice imitative - or fugal - texture, and these have two-voice pieces in between them, so there are five movements: An Extempore in A Minor (Basically, an imitative prelude), a Menuetto in B Major (Another Scherzo sans Trio), a Ricercare in C Major (A fugal form offering more modulatory freedom), a Scherzo in B minor, and finally a Fugue in A minor.

With all of the great composers of history who have written multi-movement sonatas looking over my shoulder - Bach, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms &c. - I didn't want to write anything I actually called a Sonata until I was confident I could actually make a statement and bring something new to the table. So, I consider the Sonatina and Sonata Zero to be warm-ups, though they do stand on their own as perfectly fine music.

Since I really consider music to be music - all of the stylistic boundaries are artificial constructs to me - I wanted the first sonata I wrote to include all of my past experiences in music. So, the first movement - the Tocatta in E Minor I'll be discussing today - is based on techniques I learned as a rock guitarist: Specifically, the tap techniques I copped from guys like Eddie Van Halen, Joe Satriani, and Steve Vai. The second movement, Sonata in A Minor is a kind of neo-Romantic thing, but it has all of the colorfully dissonant harmonies I learned from writing modern jazz in it, it's just that I combined them with classical and romantic harmonic devices and used more traditional voice leading. For the third movement Scherzo in G Major I used a thirty-two bar jazz standard I wrote in 1980, but I composed a bass line to it in counterpoint without breaking any of the three fundamental laws of counterpoint (1] Only imperfect consonances may move together in parallel stepwise motion; 2] Perfect consonances may not move together in parallel stepwise motion; and 3] Dissonances may not move together in parallel stepwise motion). This idea actually goes all the way back to J.S. Bach, who was writing Menuets, Bourrees, Allemandes, Courantes, and Sarabandes - dances: The popular forms of his day - but in a sophisticated style. The finale, Axial Fugue in E Minor, is the tour de force of the work, and it is in a very modern, streamlined, and mechanically efficient countrapuntal style of my own devising. Besides the aformentioned guitar pieces, I have also composed fugal works for solo organ, string trio, wind trio, string quartet, wind quartet, string choir, wind choir, and chamber orchestra to work up to this piece.

*****

If Blogspot gave me the option to add subtitles to posts, this one would be, "The Number Twenty-Seven." For some reason known only to God, the number twenty-seven has cropped up in my life in countless ways, often times humorous ones, and sometimes profound ones. I was born on December fifteenth: twelve plus fifteen equals twenty-seven. When I was a kid, my dad would always jokingly lie about his age whenever anyone woud ask, and at every birthday: He always said he was twenty-seven. The year he was twenty-seven, he married my mom.

There are twenty-seven books in the Protestant New Testament, of course, and the number twenty-seven is itself three to the third power: The perfection of the Holy Trinity to the power of the perfection of the Holy Trinity. And, twenty-seven is also nine times three: Nine is of course three times three; The Trinity multiplied by itself.

Multiples of nine have the interesting property that the terms always add up to nine or another multiple of nine: Two plus seven equals nine. The oldest music for this sonata (The Charlie Parker style swing tune for the Scherzo) I wrote in 1980: One plus nine plus eight equals eithteen, and one plus eight equals nine. I finished the sonata in 2007 - twenty-seven years after beginning it... you get the idea. I attribute this to God having the most devine sense of humor (And nothing more than that, really).

Every piece in this sonata is, in the numbers of measures, a multiple of twenty-seven:

The Tocatta is eighty-one measures long (3 x 27), the Sonata is one-hundred-sixty-two measures long (6x27), the Scherzo is eighty-one measures long (3 x 27), and the Fugue is four-hundred-five measures in length (15 x 27). So, if you add all of those together, the sonata is as a whole seven-hundred-twenty-nine measures: Seven-hundred-twenty-nine divided by twenty-seven equals... twenty-seven. The first three movements are designed to be played without interruption - one leads smoothly into another - while there is a break before the fugue starts. So, there are twelve twenty-sevens followed by fifteen twenty-sevens: 12/15 is my birthday (And as I said, twelve plus fifteen equals twenty-seven).

The fugal finale has twenty-seven thematic statements of the subject and answer, and there are also twenty-seven episodes in it.

Not all of this was intentional either: I just happened to notice that the Tocatta is eighty-one measures of music without counting the repeats and I also just happened to notice that the Scherzo is eighty-one measures if I did count the repeat.

I could go on like this all day: My favorite rifles are a .243 (27 x9), and a .270 (27 x 10). See what I mean? It's not just music!

*****

As I mentioned, this Tocatta is based on the tap techniques that I learned as a rock guitarist from guys like Eddie Van Halen and Joe Satriani. In fact, I learned Eddie's Spanish Fly and Joe's A Day at the Beach specifically so I could cop those techniques. Learning tap technique on a nylon string guitar is not easy - I've worked my butt off at it for a few years now and it's still not perfectly focused for me - but it does lead to some interesting developments: The right hand i and m fingers callous up with Joe's two-finger version of tap, and this leads to a smoother engagement of the right hand fingers when plucking. At first this is disconcerting because, 1] You can't feel the strings as well, and 2] The engagement is "slippery" feeling. Like anything else, one can adapt, and now I actually like the feel of it.

I have extended these tap techniques to provide classical versions, however, by playing a bass line under the Van Halen-esque section and by plucking the bass part with the thumb in Joe's version (A Day at the Beach is all tap).

I also took a more formal and less improvisatory approach to the piece, which was my main point here: I believed that these techniques would lend themselves to a traditionally-oriented composer's approach just fine, and so I wanted to demonstrate that.

The term "tocatta" comes from the Italian word tocare (Pronounced - as close as I can come for an English-speaker - "toe-charay"), which means "touch" (Obviously, with the same root as origin). So a tocatta is a "touch piece": What better vehicle for a work based on tap technique? Not only that, but the tocatta was originally a work for lute in the Renaissance - before organists like Frescobaldi appropriated the term - so with this piece I'm just returning the tocatta to its rightful place on the fretboard.



This first page is the introduction, and it is based on the timeless progression of tonic, subdominant, dominant, and tonic harmonies, as are all of the subsequent sections. In the top section, the motif - which leads into all of the subsequent sections as well - produces an e(add9) chord when it is echoed in the higher octave. I just love chords with added ninths, becuse the second between the ninth and the third (tenth, actually) is a beautiful color to my ears.

On the second system, for the subdominant harmony, I used a bII(6/5) chord, but with an added augmented eleventh to stress its role as a Lydian harmony (This chord is traditionally, and nonsensically, called a Neapolitan Sixth chord). Major seventh chords with added augmented elevenths are also favorites of mine, as they have a very spicy taste to them.

For the first dominant function harmony on the third system, I used a vii(A4/A2) (A diminished seventh chord in third inversion) so that I could get the perfect fifth at the end of measure ten (Yes, I'm aware this makes a parallel perfect fifth with the motif, which is exactly the effect I wanted since this is an homage to rock guitar).

Though the pace picks up in the fourth system - and the motif is traversing a higher octave - the harmonies there are exactly the same as before. In the first two measures of the fifth system, however, I replace the earlier diminished seventh with a root position dominant seventh chord to lead into the final statements of the motif in the third octave. Note how I modified the third statement of the motif to lead into this chromatically from measure fourteen to measure fifteen, and I use that modified form again to lead into the half-cadence from eighteen to nineteen.

The motif appears to be headed to a fourth octave at measure twenty, but instead of landing a minor third down at the root, it overshoots and goes down a diminished fourth to the leading tone. This surprise is magnified by the hilariously wide augmented sixth interval that is created against the f-natural in the bass (A augmented sixth plus two octaves). In order to play this interval, the guitarist must fret the f-natural with the left hand 1 finger, and the d-sharp with the right hand i finger: The bass note is plucked with the right hand p, and the lead note is plucked with the right hand m: This is not as easy or as difficult as it may sound, but it isn't overly difficult to achieve with some practice (A callous on the right hand i helps a lot to get the d-sharp to ring well). This hand position sets up the following tap tech section perfectly.



This section is, formally, basically a non-rounded binary form, as is the following section in G major. The section within the repeats is again a tonic, subdominant, dominant, to tonic progression, but the subdominant harmony is now a simple iv(m7) while the dominant is an augmented seventh chord (With the augmented fifth spelled enharmonically, of course). The tonic in the first ending is simply a root position E minor chord, while in the second ending the dominant moves in the traditional deceptive motion to the tonic substitute on bVI, which creates a major seventh chord with the original figuration.

At the beginning of each of these measures, the right hand frets with i and plucks the bass with p and the lead with m. Then, all of the descending notes are pull-offs, and the ascending notes are hammer-ons: The bottom note in every figure is an open string, and the top notes where there is not an attack in the bass are tapped. This is how I extended the Van Halen-esque tech to take advantage of right hand classical technique.

The second section, which begins at - wait for it - ... measure twenty-seven starts out on a subdominant harmony in third inversion (A 6/4 arrangement). The bass line continues in this section in a series of ascending perfect fourths - with one descending perfect fifth - from E all the way to f-natural: E, A, D, G, C, and F. The E, A, D, and G are open strings, of course, which makes this section much easier to play than I originally envisioned. After the F major-seventh chord, which is functioning as a secondary subdominant bVII(M7) in the coming key of G major (See how stupid that Neapolitan terminology is?), the F natural goes down a minor third to the open D string again, and then up a final perfect fourth to the open G string and the new tonic of G major... but with the open E string as a sixth. Technically, this makes an E minor-seventh chord in first inversion, but it doesn't sound like that: It sounds like what jazzers call a major sixth chord, which is a kind of blurry sound in itself. I use this nebulousness in the upcoming section, as you'll see.

While the bass is proceeding in a series of perfect fourth/perfect fifth motions - with the one descending third - the top note in each figure progress up by step diatonically, with the single exception of the E, F-natural, F-sharp chromatic progression that leads to G. The harmonies are "weird," but some of this is intentional, and some of it is unavoidable. After the subdominant chord in second inversion at measure twenty-seven, measure twenty-eight has what is called a hybrid structure: A tonic minor triad over the fourth degree in the bass. This colorful sound is analyzed as an E minor/A. Measure twenty-nine has another hybrid structure, which is a C major seventh chord in a 4/2 arrangement with the major ninth, D, in the bass. This is quite dissonant with the high C creating a minor ninth with the open B string. I love it. In measure thirty we get an E minor seventh with an added fourth over the G (Making it a kind of first inversion), and in measure thirty-one is an A minor triad with an added second over the C (Another first inversion). I really wanted a G instead of the A here, but that is simply not physically possible to play: Sometimes the idiom simply forces some unusual solutions. The F major seventh chord in thirty-two is in root position, but the F at the top again creates a minor ninth with the open E string, so it is quite dissonant. In measure thirty-three we get a real and true dominant major ninth chord, which leads to the unusual "G6" in thirty-four.

At thirty-five we arrive at G, which is then confirmed with the cadential figure I developed back in the introduction. Then the opening motif appears again, but this time instead of going back up to G at the sixteenth note, it goes down to the open low E string, which sets up the middle section "in" G major.



I use the rhythm of the motif in the bass throughout this section, as you can see. The sixteenth notes are all open E or A strings - which blurs the key of G and relates it back to E minor - and they are plucked with the right hand p finger. Then, the dotted-eighths are hammered-on with the left hand 1 finger, the opening sixteenths are hammered on with two of the three remaining fingers of the left hand, and the final sixteenths are tapped with the right hand i and m fingers. Again, this is an extension of Joe Satriani's tap tech that takes advantage of classical right hand technique.

This section is again a non-rounded binary form, and the section within the repeats is a simple I, IV, V, I with the second ending being again the deceptive motion to vi. One has to make compromises with traditional voice leading with this technique simply to accomodate what is physically possible to execute on the guitar, and this combined with the open E and A string pickup notes gives the section an exotic kind of a feel. I thought it sounded like kind of a "surfer dude" piece, but my manager thinks it sounds Oriental, and I can even see how someone might think it had a Native American vibe to it (With TV and film composers using fourths to evoke these cultures, I can see how this happens). This is why I hardly ever give my pieces descriptive titles: I'd rather give the listener carte blanche to go wherever the music happens to take them. And, this is also why I detest "program music" most of the time (There are a few notable exceptions).

At the beginning of the "B" section, we start with a iii(m7) chord at forty-eight, then progress to a ii(sus4) in forty-nine. In the fourth system we have a V chord and a ii(m7) type of deal, and in the fifth system are the I and IV sonorities again.

To achieve the return to E minor, I use a ii, V starting at sixty, but I use a perfect fifth in the ii chord to keep the "fourthy" feel. The half cadence at sixty-three sets up the Cadenza, or rather, what will become the cadenza: Measure sixty-four is basically just a place-holder for what will necome an Art Rock style solo using legatto technique (Lots of hammer-ons and pull-offs, a la Allan Holdsworth et al). This, of course, in keeping with the whole "touch piece" premise.

At the end of the cadenza, the half cadence is reiterated as in the intro, and the opening motif - now back in its original form - returns to introduce the final section.



This is just a repeat of the second section, obviusly, but I use a clever turn of phrase to bring the second part of it back to the tonic: in measure seventy-eight I replace the D-natural from the first time with a D-sharp, which changes the sonority from the previous D dominant ninth to a D-sharp diminished seventh chord (With the open E string being an added minor ninth, which isn't really weird at all, it being a much-used anticipation of the tonic degree). Now the previous F major seventh chord is the traditional Neapolitan chord, only in root position. This allows the resolution to the tonic in seventy-nine, which has a Picardy third.

Since the entire sonata is a battle between major and minor - with the major mode winning out only at the very end - I resisted giving any decisiveness to the Picardy third by using a fully diminished seventh chord in the final cadence. Oh, and the Picardy third is a necessity, as the stretch to the minor third would be impossible with the fretted E in the bass: I really didn't want to leap down to the low E here.

The final low E is there for the cases where this piece would be performed alone. When it is to lead into the sonata's second movement, it would be an octave higher so that the low E in the second movement's intro would be the pivot point.



Not the Falconress, but the same photographer. Where does he find these statuesque natural brunette models? I'm only wondering because - you know - I'd like to move there.

Read More

Interesting Critters in my Back Yard III: Mule Deer

This actually happened a couple of weeks back, right after the first real cool front of the year went through. Alpine is an interesting place: In the fall - almost always in mid-October - humidities suddenly drop from about 30-40% to less than 10% overnight. We call Alpine, "the chapped lips capitol of Texas" for this reason. My pickup starts to give me electrostatic shocks, front and back doors are always open at mid-day... and the does run off their yearling fawns in preparation for the autumn rut.

So, let me set the stage a bit. I'm an insomniac. What happens is, I'll lay down to bed, and music fills my head (Most of the time, this leads directly to sleep, but...). If something compelling happens to pop into the ol' noggin, I'll have to get up and noodle it out on the guitar. When I finally do get to sleep though, I sleep like a ton of bricks for up to seven hours (When most nights, four or five will do).

This particular morning, I had woken up from a nine hour sleep after being up for over thirty hours. When this happens, it is virtually like sleepwalking for the first hour or so. By the time the coffee is ready, I have already forgotten that I made it.

With that in mind, imagine me stumbling into the livingroom to see a mule deer doe admiring her reflection in my window. It must have been like a mirror to her - or one-way glass - because my freaking out diving for my iPhone didn't alert her in the least. It was hilarious to watch her, because as soon as she'd move, she'd catch her reflection in the window and stop to look again: Take a step, stop... take a step, stop... &c.

I had to clear the cobwebs enough to make my "whitetail deer to mule deer size conversion calculation": A yearling mule deer is almost the same size as a mature whitetail doe, so I soon realized I was dealing with a yearling apart from her mother for the first time ever. This explained a lot, but not how in God's green earth she got inside of the eight foot fence that surrounds my row of townhouses. There was only one possibility: The clueless youngster walked in the driveway!

I could only get a shot of her after she went past my patio, so the pic isn't any good, but it was an hilarious experience. The instant she saw me step out from behind my fence to snap the pic, she bolted. Fortunately, she was pointed back in the direction of the driveway.



What is it about redheads, anyway?

Read More

Tocatta Sketch (UPDATE: Completed!)

*****

UPDATE: 10/30, 10:30PM

Well, after posting this last night, I found a delicious idea for the middle section and finished the piece. I also re-wrote the first section after the second ending and came up with a very slick turn of phrase so that section now works to modulate to the relative and return to the tonic at the end. I'm not going to post on this piece again until I go through all four movements of Sonata One later, so if you want to see the PDF score (I cleaned that up a bit too) and listen to the MP3, it's now at the top of my .Mac Downloads page.

I've never written a piece of this magnitude so quickly before. It really has been like a bolt out of the blue.

*****

I have - out of the blue, as is usually the case - come up with the beginnings of a Tocatta for solo guitar that very well may end up as the first movement in my Sonata One for solo guitar. It's in the very earliest stages of its evolution, but I thought it had some details worth sharing, despite the formative nature of the thing at this stage. Before you comment, yes, I know I misspelled "tocatta" on the score. I learn something from every piece I write, and which letter to double in "tocatta" is part of it for this one.

I've had the idea to write a tocatta using a lot of tap techniques for a while now. The root word for tocatta (I'm going to type it a million times in this post so I get it down. lol.) is from the Italian word for "touch," so it is, literally, a "touch piece": What better vehicle for a tap technique work? Back in the renaissance, tocattas were lute pieces, but organists appropriated the term, so what I'm doing here is actually returning the tocatta to it's righful place on the fingerboard.

The idea for the motif in the intro came to me as I was drifting off to sleep a week or so ago, and as it played out in my head, it was originally going to be a sonata process piece with some similarities to the first movement of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony: You can see the similarity in the material, I'm sure. However, as I started noodling with it on the guitar, I came up with the intro after just a few minutes of work. Pardon the crudities of the notation here, but I don't bother cleaning up spacings, ties and the like until I'm much further along.



As you can see, the motif works it's way up three octaves during the introduction, and it is echoed in the harmonic arpeggiation at first. The chord on the first line is an e(Add9) to get this echo effect. In te second line I introduce an F major chord in first inversion, which is the secondary subdominant chord traditionally labelled as a Neapolitan Sixth. The dominant sonority on the third line is the vii(d7) in a 4/2 arrangement. I used this voicing so I could get the dominant root in the bass at the end of measure ten there (Again, sorry for the clashing stems and stuff).

As the motif traverses the second octave, the action speeds up, but the first two harmonies are the same as before. In measure fifteen, however, I introduce a root position dominant seventh in place of the earlier vii(d4/2).

In the third octave, things are quicker still, and the line ends with a half cadence to the V(6/5), which then uses an intermediary vii(d7) to accent itself (I should note that this would be very troublesome, if not impossible, on a non-cutaway classical guitar, which I why I don't play them anymore). In the final statement of the motif I go down to the leading tone instead of the root, and I make an augmented sixth out of it with the F-natural in the bass.

This augmented sixth started out as a joke, because the F-natural is at the first fret on the low E string, and the D-sharp is at the eleventh fret on the high E string: To play it, you must fret the higher note using the right hand "i" finger, meaning you have to also simultaneously pluck the bass with "p" and the treble with "m." I actually do this sort of thing quite a bit in the music I write when the bass and melody get far apart, so I've gotten fairly decent at it.

Remember, I thought I was writing a sonata process piece up to this point, so this joke - I laughed out loud when I did it - turned into the, "Heeeeeeey! Wait a minute!" moment. Once your hands are in position to make this interval, it's very easy to launch into the Van Halen-esque tap technique figures that begin at measure twenty-two. I'm taking this tech further, though, because I'm playing a bass part as well. Believe it or not, it's not that hard to play.

Keep in mind that each sextuplet figure is played on a single string, and the lowest note in each figure is an open string: You only have to pluck the first interval of each measure using the "p/m" deal, and then tap the top notes in the figures from then on. After that, all the descending arpeggiations are pull-offs, and the ascending ones are hammer-ons (Again, on a standard classical guitar with a punishingly high action, you can't do this at all, which is why I play electric nylon string guitars: Even Flamenco players can't get away with as low an action as I can).

Having to work around the open strings means the harmonies can get quite colorful: Measure twenty-two is just a tonic minor chord, but measure twenty-three is the minor subdominant with an added major ninth, and measure twenty-four is an augmented seventh. This sounds really, really cool. At measure twenty five, we're back to the tonic minor, and then the section repeats.

At the second ending I use a deceptive motion in the bass to make a major seventh chord on the minor sixth degree, and this launches the modulation to the relative major.



Measure twenty-seven has an A minor seventh, and I'm really not sure what to call the harmony in measure twenty-eight: It's really a F-sharp diminished-minor seventh with the fourth degree substituting for the diminished fifth, but it's more a result of the voice leading than anything else. It sounds quite exotic. Measure twenty-nine sounds rich too, as it is a C augmented-major seventh over D in the bass: I love brilliant colors like this, and with high velocity arpeggiation, they really shine. Brahms famously used a minor-major seventh arpeggio in his Fourth Symphony in like fashion.

Measure thirty is a tonic minor seventh with an added eleventh (Well, a fourth in this voicing, actually), but it is in third inversion, which gives it a kind of ghost-domanant sound. At thirty one we get a tonic minor triad in first inversion, but it already feels like we're leaving the key of E minor behind. Thirty-two has the old F-natural secondary subdominant in it, but this time as a major seventh chord in root position, and with the root in the lead (above the seventh), which is quite tense with the resulting minor ninth. This leads to the new dominant of D, but it's not a dominant seventh chord, rather the open E sting makes it a V(add9) chord. This same open E makes the new tonic actually the old tonic: Rather than being a triad on G, it's actually an E minor seventh in first inversion, but it does not sound like that at all: It sounds certain that we have modulated to G major. Us jazz guys know this as a "G sixth chord," and that's how I thought of it as I was writing this out.

Any remaining doubt is removed with the cadential figure in measures thirty-three and thirty-four: I, V(6/5), I in the new key.

This is as far as I've gotten: An intro and the "A" section. I composed a brief conclusion based on the intro, but the actual ending could end up miles away from here. One thing that probably won't change is the final cadential figure, and that is why I like to envision an ending ASAP when I'm writing. When you know the ultimate destination, it's easier to plot a course.

You can, as usual, download and listen to an MP3 of this at my .Mac Downloads Page It's right at the top (The PDF is there too).



More of the falconress. Regulars sure like her, and I must admit that she has a very wholesome naturalness going on.

Read More

CD Review: Peter Inglis, "Late Night Lovers"

I don't do a lot of this kind of thing, mainly because I despise most music critics - whether they are musicans or not - figuring anyone with a well enough developed sense of taste can decide for themselves what suits them. Seems to me music criticism is mostly vanity, and I often equate professional music critics with, "zits on the ass of art"... but that's just me.

With that in mind, let's just consider this a shout out to a friend and fellow guitarist.



I've never gotten mail from Australia before! It was such a unique event that I spent an inordinate amount of time opening the box with a very sharp knife so I could save it.



It's what's inside that counts, of course, and what I recieved was a free CD from my pal Peter Inglis of The Whole Guitarist fame (Take some time to absorb that bio: Peter is an amazingly accomplished musician).

The album, entitled Late Night Lovers, carries the subtitle "a jazz suite by the whole guitarist." Most of the time, subtitles don't mean much, but in this instance the subtitle is telling, as Peter has indeed constructed a suite of arrangements that work together to form a... well, a "whole."

I must admit that when I first looked at the suite's list of pieces, I let out a bit of a sigh, "Oh, these old standards again."

01] Blue Moon
02] Autumn Leaves
03] Misty
04] Night and Day
05] Black Orpheus
06] Body and Soul
07] Stella by Starlight
08] Have You Met Miss Jones?
09] Autumn in New York
10] Wave

See what I meant? One would be hard pressed to come up with a better top ten list of great pieces that have been "done to death" by legions of guitarists over the years.

Well, what greated my ears at first listen banished those concerns. I'll have to admit that if I don't find something positively riveting, I won't listen to the entire CD: Forty-plus minutes is a lot of time to suffer through music that doesn't take me somewhere I want to go. I listened to the entire CD on first listen.

What really impressed me was the fact that I absolutely, positively could not cite a list of Peter's influences. The arrangements are so eclectic and spontaneous sounding that such a thing would be impossible, even if my life depended on it. This is in direct opposition to most solo guitar jazz records I hear today, where I'll be listening along and thinking to myself, "Wes Montgomery... there's a bit of Joe Pass... ah, he's into Herb Ellis even," and so on. With Late Night Lovers I found myself just being transported to a place Peter devised out of his own imagination... which is how it ought to be.

Since I can't cite a list of Peter's influences, there is no way I could do a coherant track-by-track description of the arrangements either. I really wouldn't even know where to start, so I won't bother tying myself up in knots trying to describe the music. Just not possible. Or, at least, beyond my abilities.

So, if you like startlingly fresh renditions of timeless jazz standards - even if you have several other versions on hand - I'd suggest you acquire this CD. After listening to it once, it went into iTunes and my two iPods and iPhone en toto; and I even leave pieces out when I transfer Tommy Emmanuel and Kaki King to iTunes.



The ideal listening environment would include red wine, candlelight, and company like this.

Read More

My Namesake Website Has Launched

Peg, my manager, has done a fantastic job setting up a website for me under my real name. Just click on the picture above to visit (Nice Jimi Hendrix shirt, huh?).

Feel free to leave any site reactions or suggestions in the comments here. I do moderate the comments, but I publish all but the most infantile stuff.

Now that this is out of the way, I should be back to music blogging more frequently.

Just remember...



I had a black cat who looked just like that. He lived for twenty-one years!

Read More

Interesting Critters in my Back Yard II: Mantids

We have several species of these in West Texas. This one isn't particularly large, and you ought to be able to get a feeling of scale from the brickwork. When I was a kid we lived in Panama, however, and some of the mantid species down there were truly of epic proportions: They were large enough to snatch hummingbirds out of the air and eat them! They have always been one of my favorite insects, and I've read that they are very highly evolved among insects in general, as well as being some of the "smartest" insects. Imagine one of these large enough to confront a human and possessing a decent sized brain, and you can envision something truly fearsome. In fact, I remember some "soldiers in space" movie where the insectoid adversaries were obviously based on mantids, so I'm certainly not the first to think of it.

Remember this young lady from the first post in this series?



I was wondering what on earth she was doing out and about at circa 2:00 PM in the afternoon, and now I know: She was looking for someplace to call home.



The concrete at the bottom of the photo is the edge of my patio, and she has set up shop under the large rock in the lower right hand corner of the snapshot. Notice the amount of excavation! It's amazing how strong arachnids are for their size and how much work they can do.



The background here is actually a naked, cloudless sky. I like how the color gradation progresses from the lower left up to the top right. Subject matter is pretty impressive as well. Wish this critter lived in my back yard.

Posting will continue to be light for a while, as I have too many irons in the fire at the moment, but I have a backlog of musical posts I want to get to, so check back periodically. Right now I'm in the process of setting up a real, actual, professionally hosted site under my own name as the domain, and it's quite a bit of work I'm looking at.

Read More