Budafulmusic

It’s been a busy start to the new year. Here are some of the things that I’ve been doing musically over the past month and a half of blog silence:

• Composed musical score for a short animated video
• Wrote out a half dozen choral pieces, more on this to come
• Orchestrating some choral music for a recording project, more on this also to come!
• Working on ideas for two commissions

My third collaboration with the Hamilton’s has yielded some more Budaful music. This time in the form of the annual Patch the Pirate adventure. I arranged 7 of the songs for the adventure.

I got in touch with my fun, kiddy sound for several arrangements but a few of the  sacred songs will probably end up as full church choir arrangements. Some of my favorites include Treasure of my Heart and God Said, “I Love You”. It can now be downloaded at Sacredaudio.com or purchased at Majesty Music’s website.

Btw, those who grew up with Patch before the popularity of CDs know just what the title of this post means!

I recently had the privilege to compose incidental music for an upcoming Graduate speech recital. Sounds really academic, huh? Well don’t take it too seriously. This program is not for the long of face. In short, the extremely talented Allisha Sperr will be performing a series of short, absolutely hysterical comedy routines. I cannot begin to describe how funny this recital is going to be. You just have to see it for yourself to believe it.

This program takes place in Stratton Hall on the campus of BJU this Saturday, December the 5th at 7 o’ clock pm. Here are some audio samples:

Pre-show2: waltz

Pre-show1

Break their hearts, All is ha!

This past weekend, I received my first acceptance letter for a choral work. Hinshaw, a music publisher, was delighted with my choral anthem It is not Death to Die and will feature it in an upcoming production season. I posted the recording from the recital before this but it can now be accessed here as well:

It Is Not Death

I’ll be posting about this again as details solidify.

As an engraving editor at SoundForth, one of my responsibilities is to get piano books ready for publishing. Just in time for the Christmas season, this new advanced Christmas piano collection, arranged by Amy Herbster from Herbster Evangelistic Ministries, was one of my first projects. It is exiting to see it come to print. It is a companion to the previously existing recording.

This second hymn tune in my short series of hymn tune postings is set to a common meter text by Isaac Watts. Based on Psalm 16, When God is Nigh is about God’s ever sure presence in our lives and the protection and comfort He provides us on our earthly journey and then talks of the glories and pleasures of heaven. This hymn tune is similar in style to the famous and gorgeous Passion Chorale. View and print the PDF here. Listen to a nice piano rendition of the harmonization here.

One of several projects I was given while in grad school was to write hymn tunes. Make them singable yet harmonically interesting and appropriate to the text; accessible to the average ear yet beautiful and compelling. Here is the first of three hymn tunes that I wrote. Of course, the first place I started was with the text. I discovered this Charles Wesley text on www.hymntime.com and renamed it: Eternal Praise. This text is about just that: the adoration and praise of Christ through all ages and for eternity in heaven. View and print the hymn here. Listen to me playing the hymn here. It is a cut above the cheap MIDI sounds on hymntime to be sure!

Over this past summer, I took on another project with Majesty Music. This time I helped edit and arrange about 30 songs written by Ron Hamilton. These songs, as the title suggests, are not just any of his songs but what could be considered to be classic Ron Hamilton. It is the first of at least 2 volumes, the second due some time early next year (something which here means: whenever we get to it) .

The songs are all arranged very simply by design and include a vocal line, piano accompaniment and guitar chords. A late beginning pianist could practice these songs up with relatively little difficulty and an intermediate pianist could play these pieces well. I sent a copy each to my parents and Aunt and they all loved the book and could both play through the whole thing. One thing I am grateful for is the page in the back that explains the inspiration for writing some of the songs that Ron Hamilton is best known for.

Songs range from his earliest compositions (Come to the Cross and Christ is Coming) to his most recent songs including Beautiful Hands. There need to be more collections like this from other publishers…hmmm, The best of SoundForth.

Sacredaudio.com now has all of the songs from ‘Shadow of the Cross’ available for purchase/download here.

Recently, I’ve been seeing a few top 10 favorites lists so I’m going to give it a go. OST stands for Original Soundtrack, that is, a soundtrack to a film. Parameters for this list are as foll0ws: 1 best score from 10 of the best film composers, no repeats of composers.

1. Signs by James Newton Howard, more about how one family copes with pain and trouble than about aliens, this OST is not for the faint of heart. It quite possible could be one of the most unnerving soundtracks I’ve heard but the final two tracks are worth the dissonance (aka set theory). Read the rest of this entry »