Three Virtual Piano Pieces

[Jerry Gerber]

I've posted a few of these before, but for those who didn't hear them, here's the whole set of three pieces. Every year or so I write only keyboard pieces for a few months, it's a practice I acquired as the more I studied orchestration and practiced doing it, the more I found myself needing to go back to melody, harmony and rhythm, and allow timbral resources to lie dormant for a while.

Composed and sequenced in Sonar Platinum with Pianoteq 5 physical modeling piano. I tried to create three distinct emotional realities and subjectively interpreted as performance. Yet there's a narrowness in range as well, each time I experiment and attempt to do something new, I find there is always an aspect of it that feels un-new. What is newness anyway? Why does originality and creativity seem to wax and wane? What inner conditions help composers to grow, evolve and deepen what we do?

Creativity requires that we muster the courage to transcend life on this world. Life transcending life. Anxiety and depression are the false advocates of the artistic life, the imposters and procrastinators, the masks for how much we need to communicate with one another if we are to change this world one relationship at a time.

listen

[mh-7635]

Hi Jerry,

Hope all is well with you.

You have such a distinctive voice on show here. Never predictable and always inventive. The music spoke to me as eloquently as does your post.

[Jerry Gerber]

Hey Mike,

Hope all is well with you too.  What are you working on? I'm busy on a new symphonic movement for large virtual ensemble.

Looking forward to hearing new works you come up with!

Jerry

[mh-7635]

I'm good thnx Jerry.

Still Prelude and Fugue -ing...8 so far, totalling about 45 mins of music. The cello concerto is all but done and am considering getting a player in, I'll send it to you when finished. As always, I'll look forward to more work from you and as always hate you for being so prolific...  :-) you really are making me look like a tortoise.

[Jerry Gerber]

Funny you say that, I consider myself a slow composer, producing only a few works a year.  I guess as the years add up so do the compositions! 

When Haydn was in his 80s he wrote to a friend that he was just learning how to write for the woodwinds.  And when Beethoven was dying he remarked that he felt he had written a small amount of music.  When Debussy was dying of cancer, he said he was finally beginning to understand harmony.   Perhaps the planet we live on is musical kindergarten and we're all just beginners. 

Jerry

[Acclarion]

Thank you for sharing your piano pieces, Jerry.  We need more original voices in the world writing music.  Love the rich counterpoint and the flashes of tonality against a canvas of dissonance.  Calming and reflective :)

Dave