I am trying to teach myself how to compose music. I'm hoping that next year, after I retire, I will be able to take some music theory classes at the local community college, but until then I'm relying on my "instincts". The vast majority of my compositions so far have been garbage, but these few included here seem to work. I'm also playing around with film score music at This Site.

These two are works in progress, meant eventually to be part of a complete set "illustrating" the book Alice in Wonderland.

• Down the Rabbit Hole
• The Jabberwocky

Based on the Geothe poem Der Erlkönig, this tells the story of a man's desparate rush by horesback through the forest to save his sick child. The child, on the other hand, in his fever sees the Erlkönig, or "elf king" calling for him to come dance and play. The man tells his son to ignore the calls, but in the end the boy succumbs to the invitation to go live with the elf king. The ryhtmn of the piece closely follows the verbal rythmns of the poem in the original German, and the point of view changes back and forth form the father, to the child's view of the elf king inviting to join in the games.

• The Elf King

Here's a little piece I wrote after watching a Woody Woodpecker cartoon with my grand daughter. It's one of my very first orchestrations, so don't judge it too harshly. :)

• Woody Woodpecker

Here's a brief 2:14 "chase scene" written for a forum challenge at the Harmony Central Forum. The challenge was to write a soundtrack for a movie chase scene. Don't try to tap your feet to this one, it's written in a mixture of 2/4, 3/4, 4/4, and 5/4 time signatures. I wrote this piece in two evenings Aug 26 and 27, 2007.

The key events in the scene are:

• 0:28 Lead car pulls ahead
• 0:44 The camera show a washed out gap in the road ahead. (strings say "UH-OH")
• 0:49 The lead car forges ahead then spots the signs
• 0:58 Lead car stops with screeching brakes
• 1:00 The viola trill plays the car engine at idle while they decide what to do
• 1:03 They decide to go ahead, looks like clear sailing for a while
• 1:37 camera cuts from gap to driver's face to gap to driver's face as they go faster and faster...
• 1:53 They make the leap in slow motion
• 1:59 Land safely and speed off into the distance
• 2:14 fade to black

• Chase Scene

This next piece was nothing more than an exercise in fitting a piece of music to a specific time limit. In this case, the 54 second opening title sequence of a short independent film called "House Pest". It was meant to convey "light comedy" with a slightly sinister undercurrent at the end. You may view the film with its actual soundtrack on YouTube. If you start the mp3 playback as the first title fades in the piece should end just as the man puts down his drink and goes back to typing.

• House Pest

Here's a little spanish dance I wrote just for fun. Added Aug. 30, 2007.

• Spanish Dance

For Alysia

My grand daughter Alysia wanted an arrangement of her favorite Anime tune "Rain" from Cowboy Beebop, so instead of just writing an arrangement for her, I sat her down at the keyboard and helped her write her own arrangement. So here, with a little help from "Boompa" is Alysia's arrangement of "Rain".

• Rain. Arranged by Alysia

A Note on Software and Hardware

For writing the scores I use Noteworthy Composer 1.75a. I also use Noteworthy for editing performance dynamics. In some cases I use a very old Cakewalk Pro version 7. Midi to wave rendering is done with my old Korg N5 keyboard through Audacity, a freeware open source sound recording and editing program. I also use Audacity for mp3 conversion.

List last updated Aug. 27, 2007