On July 3rd I had the amazing experience of playing 4 of my Name Music compositions solo on violin (with one duet with my niece Emily), for two outdoor memorial services for two uncles, and aunt, and a cousin, all of whom passed away during the pandemic.

It was a magical day in the Catskills of connections from the past strengthened, new connections forged, a new future envisioned. One service was in the middle of the day, held in a wooded glade above the pond my uncle Guido created, by the side of the house he designed. Three were gone from that family -- Gi's wife Liz, and their son Mike, had passed away as well as Guido. In The compositions "Guido" and "Liz" I was evoking their very different characters, and even the way Guido walked in his later years. Liz was full of a Russian folk passion, and featured the oodles of kindness and gentleness that was her hallmark. For Mike I wrote a funky vocal line and a pizzicato, imitation guitar line for the violin, and luckily my niece Emily joined me singing the vocal line. I was trying to evoke the light-heartedness that I remember in Mike from when he was a child.

The second service was at the end of the day, on a terrace patio beside the glowing Neversink River next to the wonderfully rustic cabin where my uncle Tony came to take in the glory of the setting sun playing on the trout stream, and the deep quietness of the woods. We partook of that grace also. I had written "Patoto" for him, as that was the nickname he was called by his grandchildren, and tried to express the love he had for music, family, the beauty of nature, and his generosity of spirit.

The quality of focused attention, the acoustics and intimacy of the outdoors, the community of relatives all connected to this Catskills place -- all conspired to give the experience of creating and listening to the music that extra special meaning and significance that is the wave of magic emerging from within us into the world. Long moments of beauty, the inhale and exhale of connection between worlds.

And also for me personally, the incredible magic and affirmation of being seen, heard, and understood by so many close relatives who had never heard me play, perhaps never even heard any of these Name Music pieces I've been creating. This was so lovely to experience -- it came close to a recurring dream I've had where the role I had in my village community involved going each morning to a wooded glade situated above my village and play improvised/created on the spot music on my violin/harp instrument in order to tune the events of the day and the people of the village. 

My deep thanks to everyone for this opportunity to share my music at the memorial services!

 Okay, so this is a little woo-woo. Or maybe a lot. But here’s what happened.

I sat with hubby Bear on the couch while we listened to a mostly-done version of my  Otherworld piece — and he was hearing it for the first time. Of course I had heard it many many times! But for me the experience was as if I had never heard this piece before either! It started easily enough, but then there were shocking sounds, dissonant sounds, and it was somewhat upsetting and troubling, like watching a violent YouTube video. What?!

I took a look at Bear’s face, and yes he looked a bit troubled. Then the music got to the part where the french horns are playing a beautifully consonant, uplifting melody & harmony, and I felt this huge sense of relief and comfort, the stress was gone. But I could feel it ended too quickly! Having arrived at such gentle power, I wanted to stay there. And suddenly I got an image of listening to this piece from within an orchestra, embedded near the french horns. 

The piece got a little loud again with swirls of fast-moving notes in almost every instrument, cascading and then gradually falling away, leading into the final peaceful motif. The swirling part was okay to hear, not as dissonant, and the motion was exciting and felt unusual, and like it was taking me for a ride. And the peaceful part was a long elegy to our life in these bodies. Then silence.

The first thing Bear said after the piece ended was: “It would be great to be seated in an orchestra hearing this piece!”!

I took this comment as evidence that yes indeedy I was experiencing the music from his perspective. What do you think? Kinda cool! This experience also made me realize that yes I should repeat that glorious french horn section, perhaps with some changes, so that we get to hear it twice. So I made that change. And just so you know, the next time Bear heard the piece he was not upset by it, perhaps because now he knew what to expect, had become acclimated to the dissonance a bit, and knew there would be sections of music providing respite. 

The idea that expectation is key to enjoying music was one of my father’s theories. Hewitt Pantaleoni, who was an ethnomusicologist, believed that the music of an unfamiliar genre or culture could be enjoyed by learning what to expect, so that the experience of listening becomes essentially a play between familiar sounds arriving in expected ways, and unexpected or new sounds that can initially be alarming, but once the surprise is expected, it can elicit delight. I’ve used this method to learn to enjoy many different types of music from other countries as well as from the different cultures in America. It can work well. Try it yourself and see what you think!

I'm very happy to be composing on this piece again -- I started it in 2010, soon after getting back from an October weekend spent in the live-in adventure that is Otherworld. Sleeping in a cabin in just above freezing temperature, out in the sun (it warmed up!) all day long, traipsing around looking for treasure, looking for clues, solving puzzles, as the story came to life around us. I attended with my sister Lucy. It was immersive, totally engaging and captivating, and the challenges were amazing to face. Truly life-transforming. And I can't say more because maybe YOU would like to attend, so I don't want to spoil the experience in any way! Otherworld.org is the URL — check it out.

The piece languished for over 10 years because I envisioned a pretty large orchestra, with percussion instruments including a music box and a marimba, and a mixed choir too. When was I ever going to have a chance to hear the composition come to life played by real people? I just got discouraged.

But now the sample sound library that comes with Sibelius Ultimate has improved enough that I can imagine just creating an audio version that I can share with people. For one thing, I can tolerate the violin sound up high now. So, starting with the notation, I'll have my computer record the play-back. And if I find another sample library that sounds better and isn't too expensive maybe I'll spring for it. I am looking at NotePerformer.

The upside of this "going for computer audio" approach is that instead of thinking I have two flutes, two clarinets, etc., I can have a whole flute choir suddenly if I want! Sorta like how in a jazz band all the sax players double on flutes and/or clarinets, so there can be music written for bunches of flutes.  Well I can do the same thing! Empowering. And I'm making great progress.

By the way, this was my sister Lucy's idea. Need to give her credit. Because she listened to the piece during a visit and was enjoying it so much and saying I needed to finish it, and she was just hearing the digitally sampled instrument sounds. Thank you Lu for the encouragement! 

So here is the sound file for Otherworld on SoundCloud! You'll hear I’m trying to capture all the moods of the weekend, spend long enough with each idea, etc. But still it will probably feel more like a trailer, just expressing bits and pieces of the story, the drama, the heroic and inspiring action, the solace of quiet moments, the grace under pressure, the beauty of the setting. 

Amazingly enough, I found the DVD that contained the video for Water Bear’s Light in Winter performance, and Tim Reppert, my hero, was able to edit it and mix the sound, and now it is up on our YouTube channel. This is the only significant footage that exists of any Water Bear line-up, and it pleases me no end to have it resurrected.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLSrdkE0TZt_O_Id2r8wcY5vSt9xD9-Uoo

We collaborated with the evolutionary biologist David Sloan Wilson, whose book “Evolution for Everyone: “ I read and absorbed. Then I developed Name Music pieces that could bring to life three concepts from the book: Individual differences, social control, and expanding the circle of cooperation. In between our pieces, David gave two talks on the state of evolution and its application to daily life. David says in the talkback section at the end, that the dress rehearsal where he got to hear what we had prepared was a revelation to him, and led to him adjusting his talk to complement the music to some extent. A true collaboration, you see.

To illustrate individual differences, I wrote a piece based on our names: MerChrisNateBill, and had two of these themes be played “Bold” and two be “Shy”, at least initially. And we improvised with one of us taking the lead at a time, the others supporting. To illustrate social control, I wrote a Latin-infused piece: Community, in which one of us goes all out in soloing, beyond what is usually done, so extreme and socially overwhelming that then another one of us tries to bring back order to the group. You’ll need to watch to see who does what on this piece!

Then to illustrate expanding the circle of cooperation I wrote a piece that incorporates some audience singing participation: Planetary We. The audience singing the pitches for “We”, of course.

Two of the pieces turned out very classical, in a somewhat atonal but still pleasing way, but the Water Bear musicians were of course more than equal to the task of bringing out the best in the pieces. These guys: Bill Cowdery on piano, Chris White on cello, and Nate Richardson on electric fretless bass, are excellent professional musicians! I played violin of course, and also sang at times, including leading audience singing in Planetary We. What fun! And beautiful music, even if I do say so myself.

At the time I also remember that preparing all the comments and instructions I would need to talk about was terrifying to me! I had to practice the talking sections many times, and wrote them out in large type so that I could essentially read them if I needed to. Very odd, because playing violin and singing does not terrify me — apparently it is public speaking that terrifies me! But in the end, watching the video, I can see that I did pretty well — that I was able to look at the audience fairly often, and there are parts where I am not glued to my notes as much as I feared I would be. And I make jokes! I seem comfortable! How great to see this version of myself, and have a chance to re-frame my relationship with public speaking.

 Back in January of 2009, Crucial Music started accepting my Water Bear trio and quartet recordings for pitching to TV & film placements. It took 4 years before my pieces were placed anywhere, but in the years since, these wonderful performances have appeared in TV shows like Touch (Fox), Agents Of Shield (ABC), streaming shows like Mozart in the Jungle (Amazon), cable TV (The Magicians on SyFy), and an indie film (In Search of Fellini). 

It's sporadic, but not only do I receive the initial placement fee (I’ve received anywhere from $75 to $2000), but also royalties ongoing from ASCAP domestically and internationally. These royalties often surpass the initial placement fee amount but take far longer to trickle down to me after the shows air.

Recently I’ve been on a kick to supply Crucial Music with fresh material — they haven’t placed any of my pieces since 2019, and I suspect there’s been lots of changes in their business model. There seems to be so much music created by synthesized performances that sound almost as good as real instruments, show runners being able to hire composers more easily, and perhaps changes in perception around using music without permission is fine. All of this leads to Crucial Music needing to re-define how they operate. Probably fees have gotten lower, the value of what I’ve been able to supply them with has diminished.

And I’ve also noticed that shorter pieces are more suitable now, as if everyone’s attention spans are getting shorter and shorter, and there is no point to a piece longer than about 1-2 minutes, because the uses for that music are going to be much shorter. And Crucial Music has accepted pieces from me that are 15-30 seconds!

So I’ve been going back over my catalog (as we like to call it in the business!) and re-listening to pieces that are close to 1 minute long to get my next batch of submissions ready. Crucial Music only accepts 3 pieces at a time, and since they’ve had to trim down personnel, the process which used to take only a couple of weeks has now stretched out to 4 months or more.

Over this weekend I’ve selected three pieces, and now I’ll get them ready for submission. Mostly I need to get in the mood for describing them attractively, putting into words the qualities each has so that they will be findable on the database that Crucial Music maintains for anyone looking to license tracks. I try to be objective in picking the keywords, but does anyone else hear what I hear in my own compositions? I can get into a crisis of a lack of confidence, that is what I need to overcome in order to proceed! Wish me luck!

 Every now and then I play through older pieces that I never finished for one reason or another, and Ginny is one of these pieces. It was written to honor a close friend of Jerome, the financial client and friend I took care of in 2017 in what turned out to be his final illness. When I met Ginny I was very struck by her strength and determination, her stubbornness and out-front character, as well as her inner kindness and fortitude in taking care of her husband with his health issues. So I wanted her piece to capture all of this! Perhaps I set the bar too high? 

The A section I wrote in 2017 came out beautifully, but while I had a basic germ of an idea for the B section, I couldn’t get it to come out right, and basically wore a groove in my brain with that part, such that I couldn’t hear a different part emerging from the A section. Oh no! I was in a composing rut!

Over the years since 2017, I’ve continued to tug at this puzzle in Ginny: what was wrong, and how to fix? I would sometimes be able to hear a new part in my head, a sort of direct download from the universe. I would play it successfully, but then when I went to go capture it on paper, perhaps trying to change the notation on the older version, that older version would re-assert itself in my brain, and I’d lose the new version! So I realized I needed to record myself playing the new idea. But then my iPhone would not be nearby, and I would try to keep the new version alive in my head while I went to get the phone, and lose it by the time I found my phone. Heavens.

But today, I had success! By chance, my phone was nearby when I tried playing Ginny, and I decided to record before I knew whether I would have success coming up with a new part or not. And it worked! What emerged was a way of having the form be AABA, with the B section leading back into the A section harmonically. I wasn’t set on using this structure; I was open to having the structure be AABB, but so far I am pleased with this structure, although satisfied is a better word perhaps, as I sense it in my belly.

I won’t know for sure until I play my new version a few more times, over the weeks ahead, and see if my belly still likes the piece, or if there are other changes to be made, but for now it makes me happy, like how I feel after ingesting the right nutrient for my body.

So I’ve been working on a piece to honor Grant McFarlane, the wonderful accordion player and composer in Paisley, Scotland that I’ve been emailing with and exchanging compositions. 

Using the pitches that spell out “Grant”, I found myself writing in Am. I was struck by the similarity to another Name Music piece — yes, Anthony! They share some of the same beginning letters! So I tried out rhythms for the pitches that were DIFFERENT from what I had done with Anthony. The melody seemed to flow out of me easily, with an A section in Am, a B section in Dm, a natural-sounding structure of AABB, a waltz rhythmic feel, and all was well. I entered my hand-written notation into Sibelius right away, because I had arrows all over the place with the ideas for each section, it was not in very good linear order and I didn’t want to have to work too hard to re-create the order!

Then, I worked on the chords right away. To do this I usually have my computer play the notation while I pluck the chords on the violin. I’m mostly concerned about what the root of the chord would be, and since 5ths are so easy to double stop on the violin, I’ll often play open 5ths for the chords.

This is how I ended up with a piece that was in Am, with a B section in Dm. Lovely! Here it is:

But then!

I decided to write a harmony line right away, which I don’t usually do. Sometimes because I’ve run out of time, sometimes because I’ve run out of composing steam. But today I was still energized, so I gave it a whirl. The way I approach composing the harmony is usually some combination of singing it silently, or out loud, while playing the chords and holding the melody in my head. 

The idea that emerged for very first measure was striking, because it involved a downward motion involving a C#. Okay, this is over a supposedly Am chord, with a C natural. However, since I was playing only the root and fifth of the Am, I had no third dictating to me. Decision time! In the past, I’ve rebuked myself and started over if I make a “mistake” like that. This time I decided to go with it, make the A section in A major somehow — and that lead to it having more of a modal character, A major to G major chords. Here is the A section:

Quite a delight! Key signature of A major. And you'll see that the only melody notes of C natural that ended up adjusted to C# are in measures 8 and 10. Interesting. The B part I kept in D minor, with a simple harmony line.

After a few days I played through both versions again, and lo and behold, I really like both! I like the plain and appealing A minor solo version, and I like the more harmonically elaborate A major version as well. It strikes me as being a Water Bear type piece, with many possibilities for improvising. So — I think I’ll send him both pieces, and we’ll see what he says!

 One of the side effects of releasing an album a couple of weeks ago from our 2002 Live At Annabel Taylor Chapel concert, is the resurgence of my memories of the early Water Bear experience — both in how we recorded in the studio, what our rehearsals were like, our gigs, and the magical things that happened.

Even though the early Name Music pieces I wrote were in fiddle tune form — AABB, and most often in 6/8 or 3/4 time, I wanted the pieces to be like jazz also, and like the Mahavishnu Orchestra as well, if possible!  So I liked the idea of trying to create the conditions for all possible magic to occur, without specifying exactly WHAT magic, WHEN. How about if we were to improvise the arrangement, and have the “rule” that for any of the sections each of us to could choose whether to play or not, and if playing, whether we played the chords, the melody, the harmony, or improvised over the chords? And what if we agreed that we would stay with our choice through that section, and could only change it up when the next section started? Even if 3 of us ended up all playing the melody in unison? Or any other combination? And what if the ending was also improvised, meaning we would need to listen well to each other to create a satisfying ending to the piece, when it felt like it was complete? 

Well this indeed is the “structure” we followed for our performances and recording sessions for the early Name Music pieces — perhaps at least the first 20-30 of them. Certainly for Ann, Barbara, Bill, Bob, Carla, David, Peter, and John.

And it is about performing John at the Fall Creek Elementary schoolyard that I’ve recently remembered. It was the full quartet: me & Ruth Roland on violins, Hank Roberts on cello, and Tim Reppert on bass, and we set up in front of the brick wall of the school, so that we would be able to hear each other with our sound bouncing off the wall behind us. We had played many pieces, were perhaps close to the end of the gig. It was a benefit, people were milling around, children playing on the playground equipment.

I started the piece off, playing the melody. I may have said “I’ll bow the melody” in an aside to Ruth before I started playing. And it had a lovely sound, solo violin, I was playing with as much feeling as that piece always evokes in me. But in any case, what happened next was … nothing! No one else came in, no one else played anything — I was playing solo, for what seemed like forever, in fact was for the whole of the piece. Nobody ever DID come in. I tried giving them each the hairy eyeball, they just eyeballed back at me. As I remember, when it seemed to me that it was time to wrap the piece up, they all entered on the last chord, as my bow drew out the long last high note. And That Was It. That was the “improvised” arrangement of John at that gig.

Well it was sorta lovely, and it made me laugh partly from the joy of it, and also from a sort of embarrassment that it ended up being me playing solo (and hoping I had done the piece justice!), and then I asked why they didn’t join me. Ruth said it was beautiful just the way it was, a nice contrast to so many other pieces with all of us playing all the time, together. A restful break to just hear solo violin. And Hank and Tim agreed, thought it sounded so lovely just the way it was, they didn’t want to ruin it! They could hear the magic was present, so why mess with it? 

Isn’t that a lovely memory to have? 

Sadly, Tim Reppert lost his father Nelson in September, after a period of declining health. Nelson was an amazing man who led a very full life of service and fun in his many roles — as a pastor, as a musician, as a husband, father, grandfather, and friend. He reminded quite a lot of my own father, who died in 1988 in his open-mindedness and curiosity, in the twinkle in his eye, in the firm place music, laughter, and silly fun had in his life. 

So I was very consoled by being able to write him a Name Music piece — I recorded both parts (overdubbing myself!) and sent it to Tim. And then I also offered to contribute my violin-playing to the memorial event at Stewart Park in October. Tim put together a jazz band with trombone (Nelson’s instrument), Nate Richardson on guitar, Doug Robinson on upright bass, John White on electric piano, and me.  Nelson loved jazz apparently. However, MY jazz chops are SO rusty! I was in the vocal jazz program at City College back in the early 1980s, and played violin and sang in several bands after that in the Oneonta NY area (and I did a gig or two in Ithaca!), but it has been YEARS since I engaged with any of that repertoire! So I practiced like a maniac, especially on the couple of pieces I was assigned to “lead”, one of which I had never even heard before.

But this is the second decade of the 21st century, and guess what? Now everything is online! I was able to practice against music minus one tracks, hear the original recordings of the pieces, listen to several different versions, and really go deep so much more easily than was possible in the 80s. I listened and played so much I had these pieces running in my mind 24x7, which was a mostly pleasurable experience.

Well it was such a treat to play out in public, for such a lovely event, with such talented musicians! I was definitely the weakest link, but I tried to do my best not to let the side down. I stood right next to Doug, so at least I could really hear the bass, so I would stay grounded in the chord changes. Plus I did have a familiarity with many of the tunes on the set list. The acoustics are very strange in that space, as John White reminded us — subtlety was not going to be possible. And it was very very hot as well, oddly for the middle of October in was up in the high 90s, with high humidity. We had a large fan blowing on us constantly — a saving grace but also a noise contributor! 

Despite all the challenges there were lots of magical moments in the music-making, times of ESP among us, leading Doug at one point to be amazed that Nate and I could play a melody line in unison and I could match his phrasing just about perfectly. He asked if we had played together before, which made me laugh. I thought he was joking, but he was serious. I told him about Water Bear. I imagine he is so busy as a professional musician that he doesn’t have the band-width required to know anything about a little-known group from so long ago.

And Doug sang What a Wonderful World beautifully twice, the second time a request towards the end of the event. So lovely! And what a fitting tribute to Nelson. A fine man. A big loss.

 In 2020-2021 I composed Name Music pieces for many of the loved ones we’ve lost — aunts and uncles, cousins, friends, parents of friends, nephews and nieces of friends. This has helped me to grieve for them, this focusing in on the qualities they brought to life, and translating those qualities to musical expression. 

Yes I’m still using the letters-to-pitches mapping system I devised back in 2000 to inspire the beginning of the melody, but I’ve also been modifying the “rules” as often as I feel drawn to doing, in order to make a melody flow better and be easier to play. Mostly this means using the pitch in a different octave so that it is closer to the other pitches, so I can some of the string crossings (big leaps in melody) and have more step-wise, easy melody.

In “Abra” for example, the R is the pitch of E, in the second octave above middle C, (the open E string), but the other pitches are on the low G string, below middle C! So I moved the E down an octave so it is on the D string. Here’s what that change looks like -- pay attention to the first full measure.

Before:

After:

And it is much easier to play, without the big leap.

I decided to do the same thing but in the opposite direction with “Paul”, this time for the “a”, which would map as the A pitch below middle C (on the G string), but I put it up the octave — the other pitches would be played on the A and D strings, so it makes for less radical string crossings.

Before:

 After:

Sometimes though, the big leap is a key feature of one of the qualities of the person that I want to express — so for example in the piece “Guido”, in the first measure I kept the low G pitch of the first letter, and kept the Bb pitch of the second letter “u” in the higher octave (played on the A string), so the string crossing gives a sort of lumbering effect, which reminded me of how my uncle Guido walked. The way I “broke the rules” for the “Guido” piece instead was to wait on playing the “o” pitch (a B natural) until later in the piece (measure 5), and then yes I play the B in the lower octave, on the G string.

Guido:

Okay so I guess I’m all over the map on how I let the pitch system inspire me. But isn’t that what creativity and restrictions are all about? Letting the guardrails guide and inspire until they are too restrictive, at which point, let yourself burst out of the confines!

Very satisfying to me, composing is.