Perenepsis XX: Beach Music

First of all, about the subtitle. This probably isn't what most people would think of as "beach music", but it is, in the sense that it could be played at a beach -- if you're willing to risk all that salt air ruining your piano. Otherwise, it probably doesn't make much sense, but it's mine, so I can call it whatever I want, and I'm getting tired of the "not a waltz" gag (by the way, this isn't one, either, despite being in 3/4).

There are two gaps here -- first, the almost eight month gap from my last posting. Again, it's not that I've been doing nothing, just that I didn't happen to finish anything during that time... well, except for this one, which has been finished for about a couple of months, which leads to the second gap.

My previous post was #18 in the Perenepsis series, and I'm skipping straight to 20 -- what's up with that? That's part of the reason for the time gap; I thought I'd be done with 19 before now, but there are still some things to be worked out in that one, and I now have three finished pieces that are being held up (#s 21 and 22 are also done). I remembered how long the gap between 3 and 4 was, and #5 (and maybe a couple others) ended up being done before #4, so this isn't just me posting out of order just because I can (which I've done before), I just happened to finish these and don't want to hold them up when I don't know how much longer #19 will take, especially considering that I might leave 19 alone and work on some other things for a while.

As for this piece itself. the three opening chords serve a specific purpose. The piece is based on a D7sus4 chord -- DACG (from bottom to top). It could be any of several modified chords of other keys, but in order to give it context, I followed the opening chord by Gm then A7, to make it clear that the key is D minor. The overall form is ABA, with the B section being kind of a development section and the second A a moderately ornamented repeat of the initial A section, except finishing back at Dm (without the 7th or 3rd, but with an added 4th) instead of Em as the first A section does . The A section itself is based on exploring the opening two-bar idea (after the intro chords) of quarter, dotted quarter, eighth, dotted half, a very simple little motif. I almost decided to go in another direction around the 3 minute mark at that Dm9 that resolves down to a plain Dm, but then realized that if I just went into a final cadence there I had something that was balanced nicely into thirds. Plus, by that point I had already started on #21, and wanted to finish this one. Also, although the piece is in 3/4 overall (but, as previously mentioned, not a waltz), each section, including the intro, is set off by ending in a bar of 5/4. Why? Because I liked the way it sounds that way.

Perenepsis XVIII: Oscillations

 Guess what? Yep, another piano piece. While working on some of the string quartet stuff, I got to thinking about the previous four pieces and how they were all either slow or at most andante, and that I should do something a little peppier, or maybe just peppery.

Also, in #17, I had done something in creating the beginning part of the secondary theme that I thought might have more  possibilities -- specifically, the use of increasing and decreasing intervals, which creates lines that are kind of like a cross between a scale run and an arpeggio; for example, C-D-F-Bb-F or C-G-C-Eb-F (the E needn't be flat). That's with them all going in the same direction; you can also alternate directions, getting something that turns in on itself: C-G-D-F#-E (and the F needn't be sharp). You can append one instance at the end of another, and so forth. And that's how I got this.

There are lots of fast runs in this, but along with the fireworks are the occasional slow passages, just to be able to catch your breath. A lot more chromaticism with this one, although it's more or less centered on A, but not really major or minor (the final chord contains 4 A's, a D and an E, just to avoid making it either). And, being as fast as it is, it's also rather short, just about two and a half minutes, in order to spare both the fingers and the ears. Needless to say, this one's even less like a waltz than #15 (the one that I explicitly declared to be not a waltz), so there's no need to mention it.

Perenepsis XVII: Chorale

Okay, so I said not to expect anything else soon, but I was digging around in the scraps of the abandoned original Perenepsis IV (which has no relation to the posted Perenepsis IV) yesterday and started playing around with parts of it, which led to this, although it contains none of what was already in that particular manuscript, so all of that is still there as a potential source for more material. This is very straightforward both structurally and harmonically, although like the preceding installment (which is not a waltz), it's also in 5/4 -- and coincidentally, is also not a waltz. I'm not sure it's really a chorale, either, but it's close enough for me to call it one. I could also call it a penguin, but that would just be goofy.

Now, I could promise a new piece next week, but if I did, chances are that I'd have nothing. Or, I could say again not to expect another any time soon and end up posting a new piece next week, so I think that instead what I'll do is say nothing and leave everyone guessing, including myself.

Perenepsis XVI: Cantus Tenebris

 This is getting ridiculous now -- nothing for over nine months, then two in two days, and another a couple days later. I'm not sure how this all came together so quickly, but this is the other main idea from the former Perenepsis XIV score. The old score contained two versions of the beginning of this idea, one in good old 4/4, and this one in a 7/7/9/7/7(/7) pattern (mostly), which I found more interesting. It's kind of a theme and variations, or more like 8 restatements of the same basic idea, based on a sort of Gregorian chant-inspired motif. This, together with the dark nature of the material, gives us the subtitle Cantus Tenebris. It starts out in A minor (mostly Aeolian mode, though -- no raised 6/7 until the end of the third time through, which is the only four-bar cycle) for four cycles, then three times in E minor (again, more Aeolian at first), then back to A minor for the final time through. This is actually the oldest of the three recently posted piano pieces, at least going by when they were started, and in terms of length, at 5'21" it's almost exactly halfway between the two others.

I guess this piece might sound pretty gloomy, but as I mentioned in Reverie, my music doesn't always reflect my mood at the time, and this is one where it definitely doesn't. I'm not really sure where this came from, other than that I liked the first two bars, and everything else arose from that, and there was no way to make it into a snappy little dance tune, so it is what it is.

The funny thing is that during the long gap of no new pieces from December 2020 through this October, I hadn't done much work on piano stuff; a lot of work on the symphony and a few different things for string quartet (I thought I had finished one of the quartet pieces but then decided the ending was too abrupt), but the Reverie idea came to me and I had to finish it for some reason, and then finding the old Perenepsis XIV score with four separate ideas in it (I decided to discard two of them, one of which was just an odd chord progression that was more interesting than entertaining, and a twisted waltz theme that maybe needed a little straightening out) led me to flesh out the two more substantial ideas there.

Now it's back to the strings and orchestra; there will be no continuing flow of daily or weekly posts, which is probably more disappointing to me than to anyone else.

Perenepsis XV: Not a Waltz

Nothing for nine months, and then two new pieces in two days? Here's what happened:

Reverie was actually finished (as in no more tinkering at all) for a couple weeks before I finally got around to posting it yesterday, and a couple days ago when I decided to declare it part of the Perenepsis series, I wanted to make sure which number came next. It should've been 14, but when I looked through my manuscripts, I found a 14 sitting there already, and to top it off, it contained bits of four different ideas. Instead of going out of order as I've already done a couple times, I decided to make Reverie #14, yank out one particular idea from the old 14, make it 15, and retain the rest of the old 14 as 16.  Now that that's all cleared up, on to the piece itself.

It's in 5/4 (except for a 7/4 at the end of the first half and another at the very end), hence the subtitle -- while it's also not a lot of other things, a waltz is one of the things it's most not, even though part of it is rather waltz-like (while still not being a waltz). The overall form is ABAB(A), the last A in parentheses because it's highly truncated. The A section is in Gm/Dm, and the B section (the part that's waltz-like, but not a waltz) is in Eb/Ab. Like Perenepsis XIII (Tapping), it has a lot of grace notes, this time to make up for the fact that 5/4 isn't a naturally graceful time signature. When I yanked it out of the original #14 manuscript, only the first 8-10 bars had been written, but once I got back to it, spurred on by having finished Reverie (and having made good progress on my G Minor Symphony), the rest of it came together pretty quickly.

Something I recently noticed is that my titles have been somewhat inconsistent in regard to the Perenepsis series -- Some have a descriptive name as the main title with the Perenepsis number as a subtitle, while others have the Perenepsis part as the main title with a descriptive subtitle. There's a reason for this: The main title is whatever name I come up with first. If I start out writing a Perenepsis, that's the main title, and I try to come up with something descriptive as a subtitle (with varying degrees of success, as shown by this one's subtitle). Other times, as with Reverie and Uncertain Time, the descriptive title comes to me first, and I decide that it's a Perenepsis while writing it -- sometimes early on, and other times toward the end. If anyone besides me was wondering about that, there it is.

Reverie (Perenepsis XIV)

The music I write is often contrary to my mood at the time of writing it. I've written calm pieces when having excruciating back pain, and dark stuff while in a pretty good mood. This one, though, I think pretty much reflects my frame of mind when it was written. As mentioned in my previous post, Hurricane Ida came along and delayed work on everything for a while  Power out for three weeks during the hottest part of the year, internet out for about four weeks (with intermittent outages continuing for a couple more weeks), but I think I kept that out of this.

Things still aren't quite back to normal -- whatever that means these days, anyway -- but they're getting better. And while I said that I didn't let the storm affect this piece, I think it may have, particularly the ending, after about the 7 minute mark. Not so much the storm itself, which was not a whole lot of fun, but the sense of relief and thankfulness that it wasn't worse.

In terms of form, it is loosely structured (as indicated by the title), with three primary recurring motifs, along with reworkings thereof. It's mostly in 4/4, although about one third of the bars are in other time signatures -- mostly fives and sixes, with a stretch of threes and a few stray sevens. It's hard to say what key it's in, but it's not atonal; it just shifts a lot. The most certain thing about the tonality is that it definitely ends in E Major, if that helps any... which it probably doesn't.

More Wondering

 As a follow-up to my previous post...

I probably would've had a new piece for either piano or string quartet up here by now, but I'm in the area that was hit most directly by Hurricane Ida, and have been without power (and hence my ability to produce or post any work) for 17 19 days now. There are rumblings from my electric company that I may have power later today or tomorrow, but as of now, my street is an island of darkness (Hey! That sounds like a good title -- all I need to do is write something to fit it; ideas are already percolating, even though it's not coffee, so "percolating" is probably not the right word) surrounded by light -- the power grid here is not very grid-like, but more like a tangled ball of yarn or a backlash on a baitcasting reel.

And then, when power does come back on, I'm going to have several things to do at the house before I can really get back to working on any music, so it may be October before I end up posting anything, and at this point it could be one of the several things that is close to finished, or something that pops into my head from having electricity restored, as momentum on the works in progress has come to a screeching halt -- really; I actually heard the screeching on the night of August 29. However, I'm determined not to let an entire year go without posting anything; just because the entire world has gone insane is no reason for me to join it.

On the plus side, I have gotten to sleep in a real bed the past two nights, although last night was less restful thanks to a tornado warning popping up just after I went to bed -- upstairs. Apparently, Nicholas decided that Ida had not completed its job on us, so has been pouring in more rain and wind before winding down. Not as bad as the initial hit, but probably pushed back my power restoration a couple of days. Oh well... the roof has bee tarped, my broken window patched for now, and I'm looking forward to cleaning out the fridge (yuck).

...

Naturally, by the time I had typed the above (on Wednesday, 9/15), the internet went out here -- again. I wasn't even surprised; it's just the kind of thing that's been happening for the past nearly three weeks. Plus, no bed last night, as power went out at my refuge, so it was back to mattress on the floor in front of the window unit. And the electric company once more said that it will probably be "a couple more days" before I get power, a line that they dropped on me last Sunday, so I'm less than confident that it will be true this time.

But there's some good news: Apparently, my cable and internet were restored last week; I just have no power to run them. Meanwhile, my brother got power back four or five days ago, but had no cable or internet until yesterday. Between the two of us, we had one fully up and running home, but also between the two of us is about two miles, so it didn't do us much good. I haven't priced extension cords of that length, but I assume they'd be pretty pricey.

So why am I making this post? Partly, it's to explain why the new music that I hinted at in my previous post has not materialized yet and probably will not for another few weeks. Also, though, it's because this situation is something that I would probably find funny (I'm easily amused) if it was happening to someone else. It's not nearly as much fun as it sounds, but I've had worse. In fact, many people here did have worse. My damage is probably below average here; parts of town look like a bomb hit -- it's almost as bad as the aftermath of Mardi Gras parades! You're welcome.