New Music: “A World With No Tears”

(UPDATE: This piece is now included on my album A World With No Tears)

In Greek mythology there were nine muses—the goddesses of the Arts—and Euterpe (“you-TER-pay”) was the muse of Music.

I’ve written an awful lot of music and worked hard at my craft for a long time–the music on this site is only the tip of the iceberg of the total amount of music I’ve written. Nevertheless, there are so many times in the process of writing music that it almost has a mind of its own—ideas come that seem too good for me to have thought of. I ascribe those moments to Euterpe, and then my years of experience can take those embryonic ideas and nurture them into something.

My last ‘new music’ was a piece for piano, so I had planned on this one being something for armonica. But apparently Euterpe had different ideas!

This piece came about from a recent experience with a dear friend. One of the archetypal stories in mythology is of the ‘hero’—an otherwise ordinary person who is one day dragged kicking and screaming down to Hades, and they manage to crawl and fight their way back to the ordinary world. Not everyone makes it out of Hades, but those that do emerge from the Subterranean Realm transformed, with gifts for their fellow humanity that they couldn’t have acquired any other way. (Joseph Campbell has a great book on this: The Hero with a Thousand Faces–a favorite of mine.)

Many people have had this experience in their lives, where they go through some personal Hell, refuse to be defeated by it, and do the incredible Inner Work required to recover. And they succeed! But there are always scars. And sometimes they just ache, and all that can really be offered is a Hug. Perhaps a Musical Hug. Such as this piece…

• Here's the the whole piece (6:17)
• Here's the the first 30 seconds
• Here's the the score

New Music: “A Heart Strangely Warmed”

I just finished a new piece for organ solo, composed for the First United Methodist Church of Redlands, CA. (They have a very fine Beckerath pipe organ.)

The Methodist church was founded by John Wesley (1703–1791). In 1735 Wesley had sailed from England to Savannah, Georgia. During that voyage a storm came up and broke the mast off the ship. While the English aboard all panicked, the Moravians calmly sang hymns and prayed, all of which had a profound impact on Wesley. His ministry in Georgia was a failure, and in 1738 he returned to England depressed and beaten. Still impressed by the Moravians, he attended one of their meetings. About that meeting he later penned the now famous lines “my heart was strangely warmed”. It was the turning point in his career.

• Here's the the whole piece (6:00)
• Here's the the first 30 seconds
• Here's the the score