Lord, I Have Shut the Door

Tuesday, February 20th, 2007

Yesterday, I went to Dan Kreider’s graduate composition recital which was performed in partial fulfillment of his second principal for a Master degree in Church Music. I particularly enjoyed his cello suite entitled “Meditations on the Psalms.” The last piece of the recital was a choral piece entitled “Lord, I Have Shut the Door” – a very nice tune put to a very nice hymn text that I had never heard before. I thought I would post the lyrics here for your reading/meditating pleasure.

Lord, I have shut the door, Speak now the word
Which in the din and throng Could not be heard;
Hushed now my inner heart, Whisper Thy will,
While I have come apart, While all is still.

Lord, I have shut the door, Here do I bow;
Speak, for my soul attent Turns to Thee now.
Rebuke Thou what is vain, Counsel my soul,
Thy holy will reveal, My will control.

In this blest quietness Clamorings cease;
Here in Thy presence dwells Infinite peace;
Yonder, the strife and cry, Yonder, the sin:
Lord, I have shut the door, Thou art within!

Lord, I have shut the door, Strengthen my heart;
Yonder awaits the task— I share a part.
Only thro’ grace bestowed May I be true;
Here, while alone with Thee, My strength renew.

Original Theme and Variations

Monday, February 12th, 2007

Here it is – my Original Theme and Variations for Advanced Harmony II. You’re sure to recognize the tune, but in case you’re unfamiliar with it, it is entitled “The Bonnie, Bonnie Banks of Loch Lomond.” It is written for piano and violin. You will hear the theme followed by 5 variations.

• Variation I – increased Rhythmic Motion
• Variation II – parallel minor key
• Variation III – switch to 3/4 time
• Variation IV – back to parallel major key in 6/8 time
• Variation V – borrowed sub-mediant key

This time I recruited my friend Sam (who sits beside me in class) to play the violin part while I accompanied on the piano. Mrs. Pinkston was standing right behind me at the keyboard while I played. She seemed to like it . . . kept making remarks about how she visited Loch Lomond (twice) and waded in it once . . . interesting.

Anyways, here is the MIDI file. I had to invoke the help of Cakewalk Sonar to do the tempo changes (Finale is very awkward with tempo changes in the playback feature). Let me know what you think.

My next piece for this class isn’t due until sometime in mid-March – an Original Modal Piece. Not sure what to do for that one, yet . . . hmm . . .

Piano Commencement Follow-up

Tuesday, February 6th, 2007

We got the results of last night’s run-offs this morning. No, I didn’t make the semi-finals – didn’t expect/want to either. Pressure’s off.

I had my piano lesson today with Dr. Mark Parker. Since I’m out of the running, I was able to play it for him and get his advice. He really liked my interpretation of the piece and only had small suggestions for improving it. I will continue to work on it now for my Sophomore Platform Exam at the end of this semester. I’ve got alot of other music to memorize for that still as well. Perhaps sometime I will record my platform and post it here to all to listen to. That might be fun . . .

Piano Commencement Contest & Site News

Monday, February 5th, 2007

Tonight, I played my piano piece for BJ’s annual commencement contest in front of a panel of 3 piano faculty members – Mr. Tom Grimble, Mrs. Faye Lopez, and Mrs. Judy Rea. My piece was “Prelude” from Suite Bergamasque by Claude Debussy. I got to play it on Mr. Grimble’s Steinway Baby Grand (a very nice piano at that). I can honestly say that tonight was probably my best ever run-through of that piece. I had no memory slips (whew!) and I don’t think I “botched” anything real major. However, I’m not sure how the difficulty of my piece ranks against everyone else’s. Oh well . . . they should post the results in the next day or two.

If you don’t know what the commencement contest is all about, here some info on that. Each year, the university holds a contest in each of the divisions of the school of Fine Arts. Every piano major/principal is expected (ie. required) to participate in the piano competition. We must pick a piece and prepare it without receiving any help or guidance from any of the piano faculty, especially our teacher. The run-offs for piano were tonight, and the semi-final round is scheduled for next Monday (the 12th). The winners of each of the commencement contests perform in front of the entire university family during commencement week.

Enough about piano . . . in other news . . . I’m working on an update for this site. There are some quirks about the design that annoy me (as a web designer), and I’m looking for a fresher, more readable layout. It’s almost done. That should come as time allows this semester. I’m also working on another client for xHTMLpro.com. And . . . this is my first post using WordPress 2.1 since I upgraded a week or so ago (Fantastico made that real easy). It’s great. I love the auto-save feature and the tabbed editor.

That’s all for now.