A Lost Spirit

[rbowser-]

...We need to continually encourage new compositions from members of all levels of accomplishment...

Absolutely, Tom.

And the vast majority of us agreed with the guidelines when they were posted. I'm sure that everyone also still agrees with the intention of those guidelines. But we can all see that the traffic is extremely slower than when the guidelines were written. 1/10 the number of posts go up per month than back then. That's why following the guidelines precisely doesn't make sense anymore.

If everyone keeps waiting for their current things to be on page two, all it's doing is slowing the Forum down unnaturally.

But since new guidlines aren't officially posted, all we can do is interpret the guidelines as we see fit. I just hope people lighten up a bit, post more often without crowding others - that's all the guidelines were asking for - to share the space fairly.

Randy

[rpearl]

Tom,

A beautiful piece - so much so that the issue of quartal-vs-non quartal doesn't even come to mind. It is very moving just for what it is; that it also follows a certain linguistic path is icing on the cake. In other worlds, the music is first, the method second. It may have been the other way around when writing it, but it sounds so natural. Any time an approach such as this can transcend the laws that govern it, you have created something special. And, indeed, that is what you have done here.

Great job!

All the best,

[qccowboy]

Ah. My last post has finally passed on to the second page. This selection is based on a piece I wrote two years ago.

I love it.

Your idols may have been Strawinski and Hindemith (he has always been one of my idols as well), but I also hear an "American" sound to it (pardon me if you actually aren't American), in the vein of someone like Copland in his more serious works.

Very beautiful.

[Tom_Davis]

Ron and qccowboy,
Thank you for your kind words. This music, as with all of mine, is entered by point and click. But in this case I wrote each line at a time. I was frankly surprised at times where the music headed. As for sounding American (yes, I was born in Columbus, Ohio) I arranged it for woodwinds to get that specific sound. Remember too, Virgil Thomson’s answer to, “How do you write American music?” He replied, “All you have to do is be an American and write any kind of music you wish.” The escape tones also lend to the feel of Copeland. As much as my college professors hated my use of the tones, I really quite like them – and will undoubtedly continue to use them.

[jdsnyderii]

Well that was the first piece in that style that I liked So by any measure that is an accomplishment. This piece definitely broadens my thinking.

Thanks for posting.

Jim

[Tom_Davis]

That’s wonderful, Jim. Thank you for letting me know.