Original Instrumental Compositions

Original Instrumental Compositions


I started writing music in earnest around 1979 when I moved to Beaufort, SC to start over and learn the guitar. I wrote solo guitar pieces and sketched out my first symphony (piano only) titled The American Symphony which was mostly a series of folk melodies strung together to tell the story of our great country. I managed to get it played years later for Peter Perret, the director of the W.S. Symphony in the late 1980s. He didn't seem impressed. I never got around to orchestrating it. Most of my early guitar pieces are forgettable and I'm not sure if ressurecting them is a good idea- haha!

When I moved to Winston-Salem around 1987 I studied briefly with Sherwood Shaffer, composition teacher at North Carolina School of the Arts. That didn't go well- Shaffer was only interested in using the piano as a composition vehicle- and I wasn't a pianist, nor did I want to be.

My arrangement of my ragtime compostion, Tar Heel Rag, written for the University of North Carolina pep band, proved to be "too difficult" and in the wrong key for the trumpets. So I ended up going to Chapel Hill and playing the Tar Heel Rag solo on guitar in front of 14,000 people at half-time of a UNC basketball game. My gospel arrangements for brass quintet in early 2,000 proved to be "too busy" and had to be rewritten. The result wasn't bad although the CD was made by mostly amateur musicians.

The most impressive compositions are probably my string quartets written around 1990 and my string quartet and solo guitar piece, Dedication. Fortunately I have recordings of these peices (1991 Salem College).

I'm not writing anymore although it's easy- haha- for me. Maybe another time.....


CONTENTS: 
 

String Quartets (Performed at Salem College 1991)

1) Echoes
2) Chromium Trioxide (Performed in the Forsyth Co., NC Schools in 1992)
3) The Dog Kennel
4) The Wind of War
5) The Horizon Line
6) Dedication (string quartet and guitar- three movements)


Carolina Rag (Instrumental for Cello, Harmonica and Guitar); Performed and written for Chet Atkins; Reynolds Aud. Winston-Salem 1992)

Tar Heel Rag- Arranged for UNC Pep Band; Arranged for Guitar Solo