Instrumentation: solo piano

Year: 2025

Duration: 14 minutes

Program Note: One of my habits as a composer is to keep a collection of short little ideas. Some of these ideas are original and intended to be potential starting points for future work. Others are from different artists. Usually something catches my ear, and I transcribe it to refer to later or to study. I have many pages of sheet music cataloging various different ideas. All three of these piano pieces come from this practice. Similarly, the idea for each piece is presented in the opening few measures.

The first piece Something Forgotten is born from one of my oldest ideas and has bounced around my head for many years. The idea consists of an ascending four note figure that is answered with a protracted and shifted variation. The piece is quite contrapuntal and the main figure recurs throughout the piece in a fugue-like treatment.

The second piece A Moment Not Mine stems from an idea by Noah Kellman, a jazz pianist, who has a series of jazz tutorials on social media. This particular idea is an exotic variation on the most standard jazz chord progression: ii - V - I. When I heard it, I immediately wrote it down. I loved the way his variation created interest both vertically with the unusual harmonies he chose and horizontally through some lovely voice leading. This idea, and really this style of writing, became the impetus for how the whole piece unfolds.

The third piece Pulse Train is fast and energetic. The piece has its roots in blues and rock as the opening idea features primarily notes from a blues scale. The treatment of the material though is decidely not like the blues. Rather it is much more akin to a toccata with a virtuosic and relentless pulse that is challenging for the pianist.