Shifting Autumn Colors

"Dancing on the Fingerboard" has four brief autumn-themed violin or viola pieces for learning and practicing shifting from the first position to the third position. The first is in the major mode, is played with separate bows, and is mezzo-forte throughout. I call it "Shifting Colors of Autumn: Green. The second piece has the same pitches and rhythms as the first, but it has dynamics and bowings. It is called "Shifting Colors of Autumn: Yellow.

The third piece, "Shifting Colors of Autumn: Orange," is in the minor mode, uses separate bows, and maintains the same dynamic level throughout. The fourth piece, "Shifting Colors of Autumn: Red," marked at a slower tempo than the first three, has the same pitches as "Orange," but it has dynamic markings and bowings.

While Michael and I went walking in the woods today (Fox Ridge and Lake Charleston), I took some video of the yellow leaves to pair with "Shifting Colors of Autumn: Yellow." Yesterday I took some video of red trees for "Shifting Colors of Autumn: Red."

Now I have two videos to share.

Happy Halloween from Georges Méliès et moi

Nothing says "Happy Halloween" quite like Georges Méliès's 1896 film "The Haunted Castle." I am so pleased that "High Shape-shifting Ghosts" from my latest solo viola opus, "Dancing on the Fingerboard," fits an excerpt from it rather well.

Danny Kaye Conducts Rossini

My mother always talked about what a good conductor Danny Kaye was, and even though he couldn't read music (notice he is not conducting from score), he understood the language of music, particularly the physical language of music, extremely well. Usually when orchestras have celebrity guest conductors they keep their eyes on the music or the concertmaster. With Danny Kaye they clearly can't keep their eyes off the conductor.



Because I can, I'm indulging in one more musical Danny Kaye video:



and one more (non-music-related classic), just in case you haven't seen it. It really like a patter song without a melody.



One more conducting video, just because . . .

Viola or Cello Adoration

My violin and piano transcription of Florence Price's Adoration can certainly be played on the viola or the cello, but it is far more viola-or-cello-friendly when transposed down a whole step to C major. Hannah Barton and Michael Finlay put a beautiful video of this version played on viola that I would like to share here.

You can find the viola part here, and the piano score (with the cello part) here.

Evening in Paris

This is the first piece of "Two Places in Illinois." It is a nostalgic look at the Paris of the past.



I got some of these images from a 1908 City Directory that I found by way of Archive.org. I also found a short history of the city, which was once a booming railroad town during the days when you could get almost anywhere by train.

Coles County August 2020 and 2021

The natural world of Coles County, Illinois comes to a bright crescendo in August: everything is blooming, hopping, and buzzing. I wrote an optiminstic piano piece last August to celebrate the physical beauty of the place where I live. Writing it helped to offset the omnipresence of the pandemic. Oh those innocent days of the early virus!

Revisiting the piece in August of 2021, now that vaccines have FDA approval and are freely and readily available to everyone over the age of twelve, could have been rewarding and kind of triumphant.

But the virus is now much more infectious, and too many of the residents of Coles County choose to remain unvaccinated. Many of the adult residents of the county still will not wear masks in public indoor spaces. They still don't believe (for whatever reason) that Covid-19, particularly in its strengthened Delta state, is something to be concerned about.

But the flowers are blooming, and the trees are rich with bird life, bird songs, insect life, and insect songs.

My friend Marjorie takes beautiful photographs during her daily walks, and shares them with her friends. Yesterday I made a video using my "Coles County August" piece and photographs from some of Marjorie's August 2021 walks.

Atlas Moth

This is the first piece in a forthcoming book of scale pieces in first position that will be published by Mel Bay later this year or in 2022. Like "Weights and Measures," this set goes through all the major and minor keys, moving stepwise with repeated pitches that happen only at the unison or the octave. Working this way gave me a some sense of structure during the first wave of the pandemic, and now making videos is giving me some structure during this Delta wave, where it is more like a sunami here in the lower parts of Illinois.

I call this collection "Scale Tales," because each scale corresponds to an animal that has scales like moths and butterflies, birds, fish, lizards, turtles, and flying squirrels (!!!).

The second volume (again with scales in all the major and minor keys, but using the full range of the violin) will probably carry the title "Advanced Scale Studies," but it is structured the same way.

Habanera for Five Violas d'Amore played by Thomas Georgi

I'm so pleased to share this recording of the first piece of my Three Dances for Five Violas d'Amore played by Thomas Georgi.

Amanda Maier: Tranquillamente from "Six Pieces for Violin and Piano" transcribed for string orchestra

I have been spending some time during the past couple of days with Amanda Maier:


The score and parts for the transcripion (as well as for the violin and piano original) can be found on this page of the IMSLP.

Extra: The Songs of Cole and the Johnson Brothers (A lecture demonstration from Lisa Williamson)

Wait to watch this after reading the post right above!

Haydn Musical Clock Fugue Hob. XIX: 16 for String Orchestra

I'm very pleased with the way that our Charleston Summer Strings orchestra played this transcription I made of the sixteenth of thirty-two pieces that Joseph Haydn wrote for Flötenuhr (musical clock), so I'm sharing it here.


The score and parts are available on this page of the IMSLP.

Of Goats and Boats

When I was in the fourth or fifth grade, my music teacher asked our class to ask our parents for traditional songs that they might have grown up with. One friend brought in two songs, and those two songs were my favorites. My teacher assumed that they were both Latvian (only one was), so I have spent the past several decades scouring collections of Latvian songs looking for one that I remember as being titled "Where go the Boats." I have also shared this image with every Latvian person I have encountered:

I shared it with a trumpet-playing friend, and through the magic of his internet search he found that it was a Welsh song called "Cyfri'r Geifr"


Imagine my absolute joy hearing the melody and the words that have haunted my dreams during the past half century!

There's even a Wikipedia page about the song, and from that Wikipedia page I learned that the song is not about boats at all. It's about counting goats!

And here's an animated video to help kids in Wales to learn colors! You can learn your colors in Welsh too!

Scott Tennant Guitar Recital at St. Marks in San Francisco

This concert is from November of 2020. The video is set to begin when Scott Tennant's portion of the concert starts.



-Campanas del Alba
Eduardo Sainz de la Maza (1903-1982)

-Preludio de Adiós - 22:14
-Floreando - 25:06
Alfonso Montes (born 1955)

Music from an Age of Enlightenment

-Les Barricades Mysterieuses - 32:44
F. Couperin (1668-1733) (trans. S. Tennant)

-La Fanfarinette - 35:45
J.P. Rameau (1683-1764) (trans. S. Tennant)

-Ouverture de la Grotte de Versailles - 38:51
J.B. Lully (1632-1687) (arr. R. deVisée/A. Dunn)

-La Muzette – Rondeau - 42:21
R. de Visée (tr. A. Dunn )

-Les Sylvains - 46:52
F. Couperin (arr. de Visée/A. Dunn)

-My Gentle Harp/Wild Mountain Thyme - 53:24
Traditional Irish/Scottish (arr. by G. Garcia/S. Tennant)

Celebrating Juneteenth with Marian Anderson and Florence Price

This is the arrangement of "My Soul's Been Anchored in de Lord" that Florence Price made for her friend Marian Anderson:

Watching violin videos

I seem to have a lot of violinists in my instagram feed, and sometimes I find myself scrolling through the (sometimes daily) videos they put on without sound until I see a bow arm that looks inviting. "Inviting" usually has to do with variations in bow speed, or a beautiful efficient stroke that makes it beautifully from frog to tip (or tip to frog), and connects the up-bow and down-bow strokes with intention.

Sometimes I find a bow arm that moves as though it is in slow motion. Itzhak Perlman's bow arm is a good example. His slow bows seem to move in a way that looks like he is pushing the bow against the air in front of it. Augustin Hadelich does it as well (or even better). It is almost as if these violinists are moving their bows like mimes through the defined space that is the length of the bow.

Then there are the impressive masters of the fast bow like David Oistrach (who also moves the bow at other speeds, of course), and Jack Benny, who, even when he is trying to play badly in order to serve the comedy, can't disguise his beautiful bow arm.

And speaking of comedy, I hope you enjoy this bit by Marcel Marceau from Mel Brooks's "Silent Movie."

Adoring Florence Price's "Adoration" in Modesto, California

Adoration in Memphis

What a great emotional experience it was to hear the Memphis Symphony Orchestra, the orchestra my brother Marshall played in for most of his career, play my arrangement of Florence Price's "Adoration" to open their first concert after a year of silence due to Covid. You can listen to the concert here. The "Adoration" begins about 13 minutes in, after a stellar "Star-spangled Banner" played by the concertmaster.

"Adoration" performed by violinist Laura Colgate and pianist Elizabeth Hill

I love hearing the different ways that people play my transcription of Florence Price's "Adoration," and was particularly moved by this recording. What a thrill it is to have this piece chosen by the National Philharmonic to celebrate the begininning of this year's Women's History Month.

Dol: a measurement of pain or sadness

The history of the development of the dol as a unit for measuring pain is rather horrible. It came as a result of inflicting pain by way of heat onto the hands of women while they were giving birth, and asking them to rate the pain of the contraction against the pain they felt in their hands. You can read about it here. The kind of abuse that was inflicted on people in the name of science during the 1940s is in itself cause for a huge amount of sadness.

The name comes from the Latin dolor meaning pain, grief, or sorrow. The Italian word dolore is used often in late Italian Renaissance music, particularly in the music of Carlo Gesualdo and Claudio Monteverdi. I encountered it first in Bach's Cantata 209, Non sa che sia dolore. I chose (because I could) to think of the "grief" associations with the Dol scale for this piece in "Weights and Measures," and thought it would be useful (I had a day visited by doldrums yesterday) to play this piece on viola in order to work out some of my feelings. Then I tried it on the violin, and found a whole different spectrum of feelings to work through. I recorded both of them, with the idea of posting one or the other on line to share.

Then, while messing around in iMovie, I thought of playing both videos simultaneously. I lined them up to end at the same time (the tempos were a little different), and was really thrilled with the results. Sometimes the voices answer one another, and, surpisingly, sometimes they play exactly together, purely by chance!

Superb readings of all of Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier in animated graphical videos

Stephen Malinowski has completed his thirty-five-year-long project of making animated graphical scores for exquisite for all ninety-six pieces in the WTC. You can enter the treasure trove to read about the project here, or you can go directly to the youtube playlists through the links in the next paragraph.

Malinowski uses recordings made by the pianist Kimiko Ishizaka for Book I, and uses recordings made by the harpsichordist Colin Booth for Book II.

Here is a screenshot of some of the thumbnails: