Instrumentation: Solo Alto Saxophone, B Flat Clarinet, or Violin

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This piece is based on an melody originally from William Walker’s  Southern Harmony, What Wondrous Love Is This? The words used to set this text are as follows:

What wondrous love is this, O my soul, O my soul!
What wondrous love is this, O my soul!
What wondrous love is this that caused the Lord of bliss
To bear the dreadful curse for my soul, for my soul,
To bear the dreadful curse for my soul.

When I was sinking down, sinking down, sinking down,
When I was sinking down, sinking down,
When I was sinking down beneath God’s righteous frown,
Christ laid aside His crown for my soul, for my soul,
Christ laid aside His crown for my soul.

To God and to the Lamb, I will sing, I will sing;
To God and to the Lamb, I will sing.
To God and to the Lamb Who is the great “I Am”;
While millions join the theme, I will sing, I will sing;
While millions join the theme, I will sing.

And when from death I’m free, I’ll sing on, I’ll sing on;
And when from death I’m free, I’ll sing on.
And when from death I’m free, I’ll sing and joyful be;
And through eternity, I’ll sing on, I’ll sing on;
And through eternity, I’ll sing on.

My arrangement opens with a clear and unembellished statement of the melody and is followed by a short theme which I’ve designed to represent the overwhelming joy that Christians have in response to the wondrous love being depicted in the text. This theme is reiterated after every statement of the melodic material, and the arrangement culminates with the full version of the theme as high in pitch and volume of which each instrument is comfortably capable. The arrangement ends with another simple statement of the melody but with a repetitive and embellished ending that focuses on the text, “And through eternity, I’ll sing on.”

Although originally written for alto saxophone, I have done transcriptions for violin and clarinet as well. If you would like to see a transcription for another instrument, please contact me and I will see what I can do.

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Instrumentation: Alto Saxophone

Duration: 3:00

Have mercy on me, O God,
   according to your unfailing love;
according to your great compassion
   blot out my transgressions.
Wash away all my iniquity
   and cleanse me from my sin.

For I know my transgressions,
   and my sin is always before me.
Against you, you only, have I sinned
   and done what is evil in your sight;
so you are right in your verdict
   and justified when you judge.
Surely I was sinful at birth,
   sinful from the time my mother conceived me.
Yet you desired faithfulness even in the womb;
   you taught me wisdom in that secret place.

Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean;
   wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.
Let me hear joy and gladness;
   let the bones you have crushed rejoice.
Hide your face from my sins
   and blot out all my iniquity.

Create in me a pure heart, O God,
   and renew a steadfast spirit within me.
Do not cast me from your presence
   or take your Holy Spirit from me.
Restore to me the joy of your salvation
   and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.

Then I will teach transgressors your ways,
   so that sinners will turn back to you.
Deliver me from the guilt of bloodshed, O God,
   you who are God my Savior,
   and my tongue will sing of your righteousness.
Open my lips, Lord,
   and my mouth will declare your praise.
You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it;
   you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings.
My sacrifice, O God, is[b] a broken spirit;
   a broken and contrite heart
   you, God, will not despise.

May it please you to prosper Zion,
   to build up the walls of Jerusalem.
Then you will delight in the sacrifices of the righteous,
   in burnt offerings offered whole;
   then bulls will be offered on your altar.

-Psalm 51 (NIV)

Emotion, as defined by dictionary.com, is “an affective state of consciousness in which joy, sorrow, fear, hate, or the like, is experienced, as distinguished from cognitive and volitional states of consciousness.” After reading this I had to look up the word “volitional”. Since it is the most important word in the definition, volition means “a choice or decision made by the will.” Emotion, then, is not a matter of will but of involuntary reaction.  You cannot control your emotions any more than you can avoid feeling physical sensations; they are the nervous system of the soul. We can (to an extent) manipulate the world around us to avoid or experience certain emotions as well as ignore them when we know that they are not aiding our current situation. But we cannot (by force of will) alter them or make them disappear.

An emotion comes when a certain situation occurs; we can decide how to respond to it whether that be to ignore the sensation or to choose one of several possible responses. For example, let’s say that a woman makes flirtatious advances on a man who is emotionally drawn to her. The woman’s behavior excites sensations in the man which cause emotional pleasure and promise even more of that same pleasure if the man’s will chooses to follow a certain course of action. The man cannot control the fact that he is attracted to her, nor can he control the fact that her behavior is making him more drawn to her. His emotion is a reaction to a stimulus and he cannot change what he feels any more than he can change a cool breeze on his face during a hot summer day. Being offered a desirable flirtatious encounter causes unavoidable emotional pleasure just as the smell of food excites the olfactory system. Feeling emotion is about as subject to the will as feeling wet when thrown into water.

Unlike physical sensation, our emotional response is completely based on what we know. If you feel a cool breeze on a hot summer day, you will feel the same physical pleasure whether or not you are aware of it. Your body was too hot, and now it is cooler; your nerves will give you this information no matter what. On the other hand, if a man is not aware that the woman he is attracted to is attempting a flirtation then he is incapable of feeling the emotional pleasure of her interest. The knowledge of the woman’s intention changes the man’s sensation. Likewise, if the woman has no intention of showing interest but the man thinks she is interested, the man’s emotional sensation will be based on the inaccuracy. Take this a step further (the uninterested woman feigning interest) and you will see that outright lies can create fabricated (yet authentic) emotion. But emotions rooted in falsehood (when truth is discovered) will eventually lead to the opposition emotion of an equal or greater intensity. If the man was delighted he will be disappointed, but if he was annoyed then he will be relieved. I hope we all agree that it would be better for the man to not have been lied to.

So then, in order to enjoy our emotions consistently, we must believe in things that actually exist. This may seem obvious, yet I have repeatedly heard a distressing argument (mostly from non-believers) that people should be allowed to live in their fabricated emotions in peace so long as they are happy. But when you base your beliefs/emotions on lies, in reality you aren’t actually standing on anything. As soon as reality reveals that your source of joy does not exist, your worldview will collapse and you’ll be in despair. If you then fabricate a new system of belief that is not consistent with reality, you have started a pattern that can only lead to endless depression.

When our emotions become stimulated by studying the things of God (truth in its general sense), we can be confident in our positive emotions. However, we also must understand that our emotions are fickle and will not always deliver pleasant sensations when consuming truth. We must remain confident that the truth with which we are filling our heads will guide our impulses towards things that are authentic and thus good for our souls; it is always better to have something that exists than to have something that you imagined whether or not the real thing is pleasant. So then, if we base our relationship with God on the emotional sensation we get from it and then pursue our emotions to wherever they happen to go when the sensation dissipates, we can be confident that our relationship with God is not based on reality and cannot bring lasting joy. You can see the health of your walk with Christ based on the effort that you put into your relationship with him when you’re not emotionally drawn to him. This shows that you have affection for Christ and not for your feelings; affection for your feelings is narcissism and therefore satanic idolatry (Isaiah 14). Being happy for the sake of being happy is a logical fallacy that evaporates into death. It’s best to forget about the emotion completely and focus on the object, thus viewing sensation as the indicator that it is rather than the source of life.

The beauty of emotion is not in where it guides us. Letting emotion govern our lives would be a like a sailor only going where the wind took him. No, the beauty of emotion is that it powerfully reinforces what our hearts, minds, and souls already know to be beautiful, true, and good. Emotion does not tell us what is good, but it is the part of ourselves that enjoys what is good. Unfortunately it also enjoys what is bad so we must guard our emotions with our objective faculties so that our emotions do not lead us into sin. When emotion comes out of building our relationship with God, it is a gift from God which he uses in our hearts to draw us towards himself. But the best part of the gift is that it is not always there. If the only reason we go to God is to have pleasant emotions, we are worshiping the gift rather than the Giver. Instead, this temporal gift sticks in our memories even when we are not feeling it. If the gift was always available, then it would be useless. Therefore, surges of excitement as a response to learning about God is God’s way of giving us positive reinforcement as we study Him so that we can become more motivated to continue our walk even when we don’t feel like it.

Consistently positive emotion emanates out of on an ever-growing wealth of accurate information about God and his creation under the condition that we accept and respond to this truth obediently. Jesus is the bread of life (John 6). Worship bread, enjoy satiety; never the other way around.

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Movement I, Realization – 12:05

There comes a time in a our lives when we absolutely have to accept the fact that the universe is bigger than we are. We have to realize that we are suspended between the two infinities of complexity and immensity. This movement represents our struggle when we are beginning to see this but are reluctant to accept its implications; that we are very small. We as individuals are selfish beings that want to be declared significant in one way or another. When this attitude is taken to an extreme, we have difficulty accepting the fact that there is a world outside of ourselves. An incredible amount of stress results because we now have to overcome our context in order for the world around us to reflect our belief. If we as individuals are successful in ruling our immediate context, our surroundings simply become larger. We are never satisfied because we naturally seek to become more significant than we currently are. Eventually frustration results when we realize that our happiness cannot come from our own significance since no matter how much we accomplish for ourselves, we remain dissatisfied and unhappy. Therefore, our pursuit of contentment lies outside of ourselves, but so long as we are unwilling to admit that we are not bigger than the universe we will not be content.

Movement II, Rejection – 7:55

We as individuals often refuse to let ourselves believe that we are not the most important thing in the universe. Since we must be wrong (only one person can be the most important) anger and frustration surface while we attempt to make ourselves more important so that reality conforms to our belief. Since we are finite human beings that are attempting to overcome an infinite obstacle we eventually wear ourselves out due to the fact that our power has limits. This movement depicts the our constant attempts to be declared significant in our context. As we fight our way towards contentment and happiness, the world around us continues to become bigger. Finally we are completely spent and have lost the ability to go any further. We must seek a new direction or continue to suffer until we die.

Movement III, Submission – 12:45

In this movement, constant attempts to be declared significant has forced our perception of the universe to be so vast that we feel as though we have been swallowed up by its immensity. We have realized that the only way to survive is to stop trying to overcome our context, but this leaves us in complete despair. We slowly realize that the only way to find contentment is not to overcome our surroundings, but to become an irreplaceable component of them. We finally find contentment when we put ourselves in context with the universe. This gives us both infinite significance and infinite insignificance simultaneously.

Movement IV, Perseverance – 12:35

A compromise has been reached making it possible for us to be content. However it is very easy to fall back into the human tendency of selfishness. In fact, it is so easy that it seems as though we are not capable of maintaining or even truly developing a mentality of selflessness without outside help from a Being greater than ourselves. In order to truly find our place in the universe we must become dependent upon a being that is capable of complete humility. We soon realize that this being is throughout the entire universe, in every human component of the universe that is submissive, and that He is a relational being who wants us to know Him. Understanding this even at the most basic level gives us unspeakable joy and forces us to fall down in worship of this eternal and infinitely significant Being. We have found our context in our Creator and have become a part of His existence, and once we submit and become part of this context which envelopes us, we have infinite and eternal happiness that will never be compromised.

____________________________

Context truly is a symphony by definition due to the fact that it follows the classic form of the symphony quite closely. The term symphony is often used flippantly, but in this case I intend it to mean what it has always meant: a large work for a large ensemble that shows what the composer was capable of at that point in his life. Since this project fits into this category and was designed to do so, the listener must know a few things about how to listen to a work of such magnitude.

Usually when we listen to music we don’t expect one musical idea to last more than five to ten minutes. In popular culture three to four minutes is all a person’s attention span can take. This work on the other hand takes forty-five minutes to listen to and must be understood as a whole in order to get the most out of the listening experience. Throughout this work, there are two motives that are used excessively, which is why you may notice that even when the music seems chaotic you can still understand it. This tends to happen at the subconscious level, but when studied and analyzed you will find that it makes perfect sense for your mind to keep being drawn into music. Using this motivic material and developing it further makes it possible to unify even hours of music into one coherent idea without losing the interest of the listener. The listener should therefore not only listen to the sounds themselves as they come in and out of perception, but as they get to know the piece better should concentrate on perceiving the entire work on the massive level in which it exists. Only when the medium of time is eliminated completely can this piece or any piece for that matter be enjoyed up to its potential.

The sounds that I have developed is a topic that I hope musical critiques will deeply address someday. I have taken the new technology from Logic Pro 8′s Sculpture and have used it exclusively for this project. Outside of the percussion every sound has been engineered from scratch using Sculpture and done without previous outside training in sound engineering. This is to the credit of Logic’s developers at Apple. The software is so intuitive and straight forward that composers of electronic music no longer have to know anything about programing in order to successfully achieve good sounds. I hope that my use of this technology will inspire more musicians to create with this technology and to keep music moving forward into a new and unexplored frontier.

Thank you to my friends, family, and teachers for your continued love and support. Without all of you my work would not be possible.

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Instrumentation: Wind ensemble

Duration: 3:20

Note to the Performer

While being mostly half and whole notes, this work can be extremely challenging. Because of the wide spacing of perfect intervals at exposed moments between instruments of different families, the ensemble must have an acute sense of intonation in order to have a pleasing performance. Also, in order for this composition to be effective, it must be noted that the climax of the music is intended to be at mm. 21 and not at the very end. It cannot be stressed enough how massive the sound of the bass drums need to be at that moment. If a cannon were practical I would have notated for that to be used as well (if you’re able to use one, feel free). By climax, I mean to say what will be perceived as the loudest and most exciting moment for the average listener. After this happens, the rest of the work is to sound so other-worldly that the strangeness causes discomfort and awe. The end can be taken as a climax of emotion and the other a climax of power.

Program Notes

This is a programatic work based on the text of Exodus 33:18-21 in which Moses said to God “Now show me your glory.” God proceeded to hide Moses in the cleft of a rock, put His hand over Moses as He passed, and then allow Moses see His back. The sound in the beginning depicts a distant radiance as the Almighty approached. When the sound becomes as big and radiant as possible, the massive bass drum hit is the hand of God coming down to hide Moses in the rock. This is followed by the full radiance of God seeping through the cracks between God’s hand and the rock as He passes by. At last, the end of the piece depicts God lifting his hand from the rock and letting Moses see His back. It would be an other-worldly and terrifying experience to perceive the holiness of God in this way.

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Instrumentation: Bass Clarinet and Marimba

Duration: 11:00

The most unique feature of this piece is obviously the instrumentation. I partly regret my choice and may rewrite it for something more practical someday, but my reason for the choice is because of a phrase in Isaiah 55:12, “…all the trees of the field will clap their hands.” This personification stirred my creative curiosity on the brink of obsession, and I could not get the combination of a bass clarinet and a marimba out of my head. They are the perfect two instruments to depict the sound of living trees rejoicing over redeemed Israel and I couldn’t rest until I’d used them together for the purpose. However, a story is pointless if you only share the ending without saying how it came about. Using the perspective of the trees in the land I’ve written this work to tell the story of Israel’s fall into paganism, God’s judgement on them, and then finally their redemption. To listen to this work correctly, you must understand that you’re listening to a tree tell a story.

Throughout the major prophets in the Old Testament, the term “spreading tree” is used repeatedly in reference to the location in which the nation of Israel conducted their sinful pagan rituals. If one applies the personification of the trees in Isaiah 55 to these texts, it’s not hard to imagine what sorts of sounds God’s trees would make in response to detestable practices being performed underneath them. These practices included various ceremonies to honor false gods, ritualistic sexuality (mass orgies), and child sacrifice; clearly detestable practices in the eyes of God. The beginning of this tree’s story portrays these pagan ceremonies through primitive sounding harmonies and intricate rhythmic dancelike textures. At first these sounds seem innocent, but as the work progresses the harmonies are twisted to depict the darker components of pagan Israel’s worship.

The following are the texts I had in mind while writing this beginning section:

Jeremiah 2:20 (NIV), “Long ago you broke off your yoke and tore off your bonds; you said, ‘I will not serve you!’ Indeed, on every high hill and under every spreading tree you lay down as a prostitute.”

Isaiah 57:5, “You burn with lust among the oaks and under every spreading tree; you sacrifice your children in the ravines and under the overhanging crags.”

The second section is the tree’s telling of God’s response to Israel’s disobedience. This is depicted by energetic and ominous sounds followed by sounds of intense sorrow. It is the tree’s version of these texts:

Jeremiah 4:13-15, “Our enemy rushes down on us like storm clouds! His chariots are like whirlwinds. His horses are swifter than eagles. How terrible it will be, for we are doomed! O Jerusalem, cleanse your heart that you may be saved. How long will you harbor your evil thoughts? Your destruction has been announced from Dan and the hill country of Ephraim.”

Jeremiah 13:24-27, “‘I will scatter you like chaff that is blown away by the desert winds. This is your allotment, the portion I have assigned to you,’ says the Lord, ‘for you have forgotten me, putting your trust in false gods. I myself will strip you and expose you to shame. I have seen your adultery and lust, and your disgusting idol worship out in the fields and on the hills. What sorrow awaits you, Jerusalem! How long before you are pure?’”

The final section depicts the tree’s swelling joy at the thought of the future return of God’s people to the land, the original reason I set out to write this work:

Isaiah 55:12,
“You will go out in joy and be led forth in peace; the mountains and hills will burst into song before you, and all the trees of the field will clap their hands.”

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Download includes both versions of the piece; with euphonium or with tenor saxophone.

Duration 7:00

Movement I, Ambition

Movement II, Disappointment

Movement III, Moving Forward

Performance notes: This is a piece written both for children and about children. Any fun ideas to incorporate into your performance accordingly is perfectly appropriate and encouraged. For example, the premier of this work incorporated a painting demonstration. While this work is written for an unusual combination of instruments, the euphonium part can be easily played on cello. There is nothing particularly challenging about this work that I can see, although because of the precision in intonation that is required for a great performance, I would recommend this for at least first or second year collegiate musicians. However, this should not discourage a solid high school group from attempting it.

Background information: My friend Tiffany (violin) organized and premiered this work in the fall of 2009 for a recital she designed specifically for children. Despite it’s purpose, adults should of course feel free to enjoy the work just as much as children in the same way that adults tend to enjoy movies that are meant for children.

Musical Interpretation: Children are very curious human beings and sometimes are so to the point that they get themselves into trouble. This piece depicts the process that a child goes through when they decide to pursue something that they are really not supposed to for reasons that they are unaware of. It starts with Ambition driving them towards finding out what they want to know despite formal sanctions from their authorities. Then the time comes when they discover what they were looking for, and either discipline or physical discomfort comes from their ambition resulting in Disappointment. This emotion seems to always resolve in them well before it should taking into account the sorrow they seem to display, which is why I made the second movement as short as I possibly could. As the child is Moving Forward they seem to forget all about the entire incident of their lesson. They go on just as they always did, but through observation we can clearly see that their experience has somehow changed their behavior.

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Duration 5:00

When working with very low sounds, I enjoy keeping the same amount of tension in the texture that I’m accustom to using by implementing dissonant intervals that are more widely spaced. Insentience is a difficult work for this reason; keeping the various intervals in tune while using the entire range of the instrument is its primary challenge. Once learned, however, the various sounds can be executed without much physical difficulty so that the performer can focus on musical interpretation. In addition to this rewarding feature, there is also a variety of extended techniques including multiple idiomatic double stops, slow portamenti, left and right hand pizzicati, ricochet, natural harmonics, and lush combinations of all these techniques simultaneously. Advanced student performers interested in coming outside the box will be intrigued with the pleasing yet atypical sounds that come out of their bass.

Suffering is the indirect result of desire. We want something, we don’t get it, and then we’re unhappy. When a person has reasonable desires that aren’t being fulfilled, they are dissatisfied with life and have a difficult time being content. In order to become happy a person must either take steps to satisfy their desires, or stop desiring. There are times when a person has a lot of bad luck and cannot fulfill even their basic human needs despite how hard they’ve tried. Since they cannot fulfill their desire, one might think that the answer to all of their problems is to stop desiring.

The problem with this is that when one stops desiring, they die. Their heart is still beating, but it gives no life to their spirit. Hunger is good because it drives the worker forward. If he stops wanting food, his role as a human being is nullified because his hunger causes him to do things that are natural to human beings. An even better example is love. When I met Liz (my wife) and got to know her for a while, I developed a desire to start a romantic relationship with her. I’d never been the type of guy that enjoyed asking a girl to go on a date, but my desire for her overcame my fear of failure. Had I decided that it was too hard to win her and killed the desire instead of pursuing it, the life-giving and healthy relationship that has come out of those early efforts would never have come about. Killing desire instead of taking persistent steps to fulfill it is not the behavior of a healthy human being and a human being’s spirit will eventually die along with desire. Desire makes us alive.

Not all desires can coexist. Again, the heart cannot cease its longing, or it will die. Therefore, desire must be channeled into something or someone that can conquer our heart and leave nothing behind. Liz can’t do this for me. Money can’t do it. Fame can’t do it. The only thing in the universe that can is Christ. Therefore, we must set our desire solely on Him if we want to truly be happy. Then we will be filled.

Captivate your audience at your next performance with the rich melodic gestures and timbrel possibilities of Vagrant Contemplation, an unaccompanied solo for Alto Saxophone. Unlock the darkest colors of your instrument in the lush dance of human thought. Click here for purchase details.

This video is only a sample of the work.

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Instrumentation: Alto Saxophone

Duration: 5:00

Performance notes: This piece doesn’t have anything extraordinarily challenging and very much sticks to the saxophone’s traditional capabilities. Except for a few very soft notes in the lower range of the instrument, there is very little that an advanced high school level performer shouldn’t be able to do after a bit of practice. There are a few technical passages that can be considered difficult, but as a last resort the performer can easily change the tempo to make the piece easier to play. I would highly recommend this to students who are attempting to broaden their dynamic range and learning to play out of time.

Interpretation: The mind itself is one of my favorite topics of discussion in philosophy, theology, and science. Here I have attempted to capture the occurrence of a mind having a dark thought that is never resolved, but keeps feeding off of itself until the mind simply accepts its depressed state. In my thinking, this occurs when a person is distressed but refuses to let the source go. This work is what results when a person refuses to let God handle problems that are out of their control. Philippians 4:6, “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.”

Use the vibrant colors of your flute to dance on the elegant sands of loneliness. Break the hearts of your hearers with a tale of beauty and sorrow using the sweeping idiomatic gestures of Ivory Desert, an unaccompanied work for C flute. Click here for purchase details.

This video is only a sample of the work. A full recording will be on my next album: “Hope”. The performer is Joelle Willems.

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Instrumentation: C Flute

Duration: 5:00

This work was written for a composition seminar in which Dr. Ricardo Lorenz paired each participating composer with a participating performer in order to write a solo work for the performer’s instrument. Throughout the semester, Joelle Willems (the flute player whom I consider a co-composer of this work) and I met periodically to discuss the piece I was writing. She would play passages that I’d written and together we’d make detailed modifications to make the music more idiomatic for the flute while still keeping my creative intent intact. As I expected, these sessions not only changed the way I originally intended certain things to be played, but it changed the sort of piece that I wanted to write. As we went along, Joelle showed me certain aspects of the flute of which I was unaware, and I immediately took that knowledge and applied it to the piece. Working directly and as often as possible with a performer is the most effective compositional technique I have ever encountered.

This work is still extremely challenging. It uses the full range of the flute in dynamics and pitch as well as several extended techniques. Between slow lyrical sections, rapid and aggressive passages, sweeping melodic gestures, expressive grace notes, flutter tonguing, and guided improvisation this piece offers the advanced flutist everything they could want in a short unaccompanied solo.

The title refers to an object of beauty that is incapable of being observed because it destroys the life that is attracted to it with the very thing that makes it beautiful. Thus, the piece reflects radiant beauty, loneliness, and lifelessness.