Us guys at Block One Studios have been working on a heart attack awareness video for a local Emergency Medical Service. We shot it a couple weeks ago, and Geno’s been editing. Today, some of the edit got locked, and Geno asked me to compose some music for it.

So I composed some music. And it doesn’t fit at all with the video… But that’s part of the learning process I guess. It won’t be used for the video, but I decided to finish it out anyway because I liked the way it was going.

It’s a piano piece. I don’t play piano — trust me on that. So I decided to try my hand at composing something for the piano. There’s no way I could ever even try to play what I wrote! After consulting a friend who’s quite good at the piano (thanks, Reis!), I think I might try splitting apart some of the way-too-many-notes-for-one-pianist and making the duet available as sheet music.

You can download the song by clicking the image below. I named it “Pectus,” the Latin word for heart. It sounds kind of dry, since I just used my software instruments (Vienna Special Edition, using samplings from a Bösendorfer Imperial piano)… I think it’d be neat to hear it played in real life sometime. Software just can’t capture the emotion that people can put into music.

Hmmm… Well, I guess I spoke too soon in my last post. With my brother’s help, I managed to get a new composition reel up!

Franz Schubert’s “Der Erlkönig.” Check out the Wikipedia article for the story behind the music. Cello Quintet (plus one): Jonathan Wessel, Stephen Minion, Matthew Palazzolo, Heidi Mueller, Tyler Stembridge, and Roger VanDeburgh. From the Sforzando String Camp 2009 chamber recital.

Haydn’s String Quartet No. 53 in D Major, “The Lark.” Joshua Muzzi – 1st Violin; Calvin Kuntz – 2nd Violin; Tyler Stembridge – Cello; Chad Stembridge – Viola. From Sforzando String Camp 2009′s chamber recital.

This year, even in spite of arriving late to Sforzando, was fantastic. I feel like I learned quite a bit (both musically and spiritually!), met some new people, and in general just had a great time playing music with other like-minded young people.

Over the past five years, I’ve had lots of memories made during that one week of a sudden emphasis on music… I wouldn’t trade the experiences for anything. Every year makes me want to come back next time; every year inspires me to improve in the skills the Lord has equipped me with.

Next year’s camp is tentative right now, due to Marquette Manor Baptist Church going through a bit of a transition time in getting a new pastor. It’s in the Lord’s will, anyway, every year. If He wants it to continue, it will continue.

And next year, if it happens, it’ll be Sforzando’s seventh year. Every year brings something uniquely special… I can’t wait to see what God has in store!

To God be the glory, great things He has done!

Besides orchestra, chamber, history, and theory, there are plenty of other things that go on during Sforzando String Camp.

This year in chapel, Mr. Ron Perkins delivered three messages to campers, each dealing with how our lives as Christians are examples to unbelievers. His source from the Bible was mainly in Ephesians 2:8-10, focusing specifically on verse ten.

His point was that we, as Christians, should be walking in good works (we are God’s workmanship created for good works!), striving to live godly lives. He told about when he was a young teenager and visiting some churches with his dad near where they lived. The thing that made the most impression on his mind was that the kids at these churches — whom he also knew from school — were either no different than they were at school (in a bad way), or were hypocrites (putting on a front at church).

The examples of those kids kept him from putting his faith in Jesus for another nine years. If he had died before then, sadly, he would be spending eternity apart from God in hell — that’s the sad reality. Even though the works of these kids pointed to them not having true faith in Christ, from an outside perspective, they were representatives of Christians. It’s important that those of us who have true faith in Christ be careful in the way we live our lives — not that we can be perfect, of course. It’s about following Christ, keeping our eyes on Him.

Titus 2:11-14 are some verses that Mr. Perkins set forth as examples of what we’re to be striving for: renouncing ungodliness and worldly lusts; living self-controlled, upright, and godly lives; waiting for the hope of Christ’s return; being zealous for good works. When a person becomes a Christian, things begin changing. In my life, desires and motives have been changing, my identity has been shifting, etc. In Mr. Perkins’ life, his lifestyle changed, his choice of music changed, etc. It’s all about a change of identity — identifying with Christ instead of the world we were once a part of.

One of my favorite things during the camp week is having spare time to simply play music with others. This year, we had a few impromptu sessions, during which we played a string sextet, improvised on common folk tunes, etc.

In the minutes leading up to the final Friday night concert, everyone in the room where we put our cases banded together in playing Dvorak’s 9th symphony — most people playing from memory. That was fun! After the concert, Tyler and I, along with another violist, succeeded in playing what was our most complete improvisation yet, based on Pachelbel’s Canon in D Major. We affectionately refer to our arrangement as the “Tacobell Canon,” it being in a western fiddle style.

Sforzando is so great because of the people, both campers and staff. The faculty is always willing to help one learn, and campers always get along quite well with one another. Tyler and I both have so many great memories from the years we’ve attended the camp!

Next post coming up: Conclusion.

Music history and theory are the two main classroom classes of Sforzando String Camp every year. History is usually straight forward (there’s not too much complication one can get into with it).

This year, we covered Antonín Dvořák, Joseph Haydn, and Ralph Vaughn Williams. In addition to studying the lives of these composers, we also took a look into the form and instrumentation in the pieces we were playing by them.

Something new I learned about Haydn’s “Surprise” symphony (No. 94 in G Major; in German, it’s the symphony “mit dem Paukenschlag”) was that Haydn wrote it to outdo a student of his, Ignaz Pleyel. It worked. The audience attending the premiere of it at the Hanover Square Rooms, London, demanded an encore after hearing the second movement (which contains the surprise)… Second movements of symphonies are never encored. In symphony form, the second movement (usually out of four) is slower and calmer than any of the other movements.

One blessing in disguise that came from being late to camp was that neither Tyler or I had to take the greatly-feared Theory Test. We got to choose which theory class we wanted to be in — and we both chose Theory IV Composing.

Theory is my weakest point in music; I never really studied much of it until beginning lessons with my viola teacher around four years ago. While I can now (slowly) identify note names, key signatures, scale degrees, and chord inversions, I’m still not very good at it. Kinda ironic, since I love to compose music (hence why I chose the composing theory class).

Dr. Seth Custer shared some really good thoughts about utilizing different techniques in arranging and composing. He made the class practical by having everyone do a homework assignment, arranging “Shenandoah” and disguising the melody using various methods. On Thursday, he had four of us (including Tyler and I) put our compositions up on chalkboards, then proceeded to take them apart and examine what we had done.

Him doing that was quite helpful for me, in a couple ways. First, it showed me that there are a ton of ways that composing can be approached. Second, I got to step back to take a look at where I am with my composing skills, and what I need to study in order to improve.

I realized that I tend to be so afraid to overuse a theme, that I jump around way too much. There’s quite a bit of mileage to be pulled out of a musical theme, if one is to think about it and try different things.

Something else I realized is that I need to do more composing on good old staff paper, rather than relying on the computer all the time. Dr. Custer rightly said that a good composer can hear the music in his head.

And the last thing that was really driven home was that I need to dig into some theory topics and really get a hold on the mysteries of how music works. I’d like to start by really trying to get down keys, intervals, modes, scale degrees, etc., and also to diving into learning counterpoint (which I’ve used in my composing thus far, though ignorantly…).

To sum it up, I feel like I walked away from theory class this year with quite a bit. Now, I need to apply it.

Next post coming up: on other aspects of Sforzando.