For a long time I have been an enthusiast of the piano music of Billy Mayerl, an English composer from (mainly) the first half of the 20th century. He wrotes squillions of short piano pieces in the novelty genre (its a sort of form of Jazz, but non-improvizational). His pieces are full of beautiful melodies, clever rythmic tricks and a rich and ever varying harmony.
I decided to have a go at writing something inspired by him. So here it is. In my view, it's fun to play, has decent tunes and harmony. However, it does not have the sort of rhythmic cunning that Mayerl often exhibits nor his rich and perfectly constructed harmony. The metrenome markings are pretty much the maximum. I find with the computer generated midi file they sound ok, but I think in a performance, strains B and C would go slower as the shaping of the performance would make up for the slower tempii. This piece was an attempt to write something more harmonically than melodically driven. It was interesting; when I started on strain B, the melody just sort of announced itself after I had roughed out the hamony. Thanks to Corky Sablinksy for help with a few bars that were particularly vexatious !
Mayerl also gave his pieces funny names like 'The Nimble Fingered Gentleman", hence the silly title of this piece, "Digital Delinquency".
Here are the notes as a pdf. Here is the basic midi file.
My composing teacher at the time, Dawn Nettheim, wrote down a harmonic structure and it was my job to write a set of variations in that structure. She claimed that her harmony was 'unbreakable', so I had a go at breaking it.... I'm rather fond of the silly tango at the end.
Here are the notes as a pdf. Here is the basic midi file.
Here are some variations on what just about serves as a theme. They are kind of rustic sounding. The structure isn't exactly theme and variations, as some ideas are reused (I didn't have many) but it will suffice. I have never revisited this piece since first writing it down. It needs revisiting.
Here are the notes as a pdf. Here is the basic midi file.
This piece was a wedding gift for my friends, the late Becky Elson, and her husband Angelo de Cintio. Becky played the penny whistle and Angelo plays the guitar and I once spent a happy evening teaching them the waltz.
Here are the notes as a pdf. Here is the basic midi file.
This was the first thing I wrote. It was for Maartje, my partner at the time, who had very shaggy hair ! My pleasure in 7th chords (which has not abated) is rather evident here. It's an awkward piece to play. This piece is programmatic. The idea is that a rather young (hence the very simple "nursery-rhyme" tune) and silly animal is waking up, setting off hunting, chasing a rabbit down a burrow, prancing around with delight at its catch, eating its lunch, and then falling asleep again. After looking at this piece, a retired professional Australian composer asked me : 'What DO you hear when you plonk these notes down on your piano ? He also advised me not to give up my day job, which I heeded, until much later. I have lost his letter, which is rather disappointing. Here are the notes as a pdf, and here is the basic midi file.