…is my favorite part of Handel’s Messiah. I’m singing this weekend with Vox Humana and Victoria Symphony in two concerts. The photo is from one of the rehearsals with orchestra at UVic. Our first show was last night but you can still get tix for tomorrow (Sunday) at 2:30PM.

Click here for tickets

Come and sit in one of these seats!

Here’s a fresh piano recording made this week at The Magnolia Hotel. It’s Chopin’s Minute Waltz in D-flat Major, a lively waltz and a nice challenge for the right hand. Enjoy! There are more recordings to come…

Minute Waltz in Db – Piano at The Magnolia Hotel & Spa by SoundstoneMusic

Sometimes I feel like I could stand on the street corner with a sign marked “I’m a Tenor” until a desperate choir director tosses me in the back of a van. At Christmas time, I’d probably only wait 8-10 minutes.

Last night I got a last-minute email invite to join Vox Humana and others to sing Handel’s Messiah with the Victoria Symphony and I couldn’t say no! It’s been a few years since I’ve performed anything with a choir as a singer (I’m usually at the piano) so this will be a treat. We are 40 voices strong (although still looking for a couple more tenors) which should give the concert a more chamber choir sort of feel versus the massive Messiah choirs that are often three times as large. We had our first rehearsal today and are already sounding great. If you’re interested, concert info is here:

Victoria Symphony Concerts

I’m also involved with the Lambrick Park Church choir this season; we have two performances at the church on December 11. I’ll be playing piano for those.

This month I’ve been using my new portable microphone to record some piano music at The Magnolia Hotel. I’ve put a few tracks up on Soundcloud to share with you. Here they are:

Chopin Étude in Ab – Live at The Magnolia Hotel & Spa by SoundstoneMusic

The Swan – Piano at Magnolia Hotel & Spa by SoundstoneMusic

I hope to have more recordings soon.

Here’s a quick update on what’s happening at Soundstone Music. It’s been a quiet few months on this blog but music is still being made here! This fall I have decided to move on from most of my accompanying gigs (notably Viva Youth Choirs and the studio of Marnie Setka-Mooney) in order to become more focused on writing music and playing solo piano events. It was tough to leave those two places in particular after three years with each of them but I’m looking forward to this year.

Currently, I am playing piano every Saturday at the Magnolia Hotel & Spa in Victoria, BC. It’s a really relaxed environment and a gorgeous hotel, so check it out if you’re downtown. I usually play from 9-10:30 AM during breakfast. Feel free to stop in for a coffee.

Next week I’ll also be playing some jazz music at the Penny Farthing Pub in Oak Bay! September 8, 9, and 10 starting at 8PM. No cover charge. Invite your friends!

Until next time.

You could listen to music every second of the day for your whole life and still never hear it all.

I discovered this piece by American composer John Adams recently. I’m always looking for music to add to my running playlist and this one fits right in. I love the overlapping rhythms in the orchestra. This particular video is a bit weird, but it’s a decent recording.

Short Ride In A Fast Machine

Today marked a big event. My piece Prayer Without Words was read and recorded by the Victoria Symphony! As I said before, having my work played by a pro orchestra has been a long-lasting dream of mine. It was amazing to see the hours of preparation turn into something real (or surreal, which is how it felt being up on stage…). The players did an amazing job, despite only having 30 minutes total to rehearse and then record a 6 minute work. What a rush!

Prayer Without Words is a musical prayer for courage. I often find myself incapable of expressing what I truly feel in words when praying, so I wrote this work in response to that. To me it reflects inner turmoil in tough times. Sometimes this is an angst felt about disasters and wars abroad, and sometimes it’s about broken relationships. My faith in God helps me get through those times and prayer is an important part. But I often find it hard to pray!

A woman approached me after the performance. She said that her sister had recently passed away, and that she found my piece uplifting in the midst of her grief. Music is a powerful tool to help express what we cannot say, and I evidently wasn’t the only one who felt that today.

A big thank-you to Giuseppe Pietraroia and the Victoria Symphony for making this possible!

A pianist friend of mine once told me that she couldn’t imagine being a composer. She pictured herself spending long hours working alone writing and thinking in a dark room…with candle wax spilling over parchment amid stone busts of dead people. Well I made up that last part.

But composers do work alone, most of the time. We spend time thinking, working out ideas and exercising our imaginations. So it’s a good thing when we music writers can meet up to talk and share our knowledge and experience with colleagues. The Internet is making this easier all the time.

Not too long ago I had the chance to take part in a global event on Twitter called #askacomposer. Using that hashtag, musicians from around the world were able to chat, ask questions, and give answers. The conversation featured some established composers such as John Estacio, who I briefly met a few years ago, and some who are just starting out and wondering what people are up to. Even better, the event reconnected me with a composer friend of mine I haven’t seen in a while. We just happened to be hanging out in the same place on Twitter.

The event was hosted by #askthemusicians, who plan on hosting another music event soon. Sounds good to me! It’s nice to get out of the dreary basement every once in a while…

Follow me on Twitter.

or,
How To Use Surgical Tape Without Going To Med School
(it’s not for paper cuts)

Preparing parts for a professional orchestra is all about the details. After the mammoth task of editing (not to mention writing) the full score, we composers must then break our work into digestible pieces for performance by an orchestra. Scoring must be done according to standard formatting rules and notation practice. This can stave off frustration in rehearsal. A good score should allow the players to gracefully slide into their roles in the same way that a race car driver fits behind the wheel of a well-tuned Indy car. It is in a composer’s best interest to be helpful in this way as the quality of our own music is at stake.

While preparing parts for my latest piece, Prayer Without Words, my research led me to a treasure trove of information on score formatting. Composers, take note. MOLA, the Major Orchestra Librarians’ Association, is a clan devoted to the printed music of large ensembles. They provide “Music Preparation Guidelines for Orchestral Music”, a document which was very helpful!

Among the suggestions:

“The paper for parts should be of
substantial quality [...] to ensure
durability, and to stand up to on-stage wind
patterns caused by ventilation systems.”

They must have seen my earlier post on windsocks.

But the biggest lesson I learned from MOLA was that surgical tape really is an accepted way to bind pages together. London Drugs carries a product called 3M Micropore Paper Tape, which works beautifully!

This roll of tape is the most unlikely item in my composer’s toolbox, but at least I’ve learned something new. Now that the parts are finished, I can’t wait until the reading on March 23!

Here’s a tip for composers, revealed to me by a young person I recently worked with:

“You should be a composer, Dave. You know, most composers were musicians before they were composers.”
-Viva Youth Choirs chorister, age 9

And hopefully they remained musicians long afterward! Evidently, I meet the prerequisite for writing music: I have to make music first! I couldn’t agree more. Hearing new music and performing is essential to growth as a musician. It’s only natural that composing new music follows from that. The ability to dream up interesting music springs from a foundation of basic musical knowledge and exposure to many different types of music. So listen and play every day!

A great piece I’ve been listening to lately is Mendelssohn’s Octet for strings. Here’s part of the 1st movement:
YouTube
An even better recording is on iTunes:
Hausmusik London

What are you doing to hone your craft? The comments below are open.