SERVICES
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♫ EXAMPLES ♫
PIANO
PIANO IMPROVISATIONS (Fool's Gold album, 2022)
CHAMBER MUSIC
SYMPHONIC
POP / MUSICAL / LO-FI
INNOVATIONS
While certain traditional principles must be upheld when creating timeless music, simple epigonism won't do; music naturally evolves. The following is a brief overview of two of my compositional innovations.
DOUBLE-PEDALLING FOR PIANO
This new pedalling technique makes use of the long-neglected sostenuto pedal. Since the pedal mechanism's invention 150 years ago, barely any composer has used it for anything other than sustaining a lone note at the beginning of a measure. But one can do much better: The prudent combination of the forte/sustain pedal with the middle pedal allows the pianist to execute previously unplayable passages, to bring different voices back and forth at will, and to control the instrument's resonance with unprecedented precision – among other benefits. All my keyboard works after 2017 thus contain double-pedal markings. Since the technique can be applied to piano literature from Bach to Prokofiev, I also teach this pedalling method to all my advanced students. A written manual for the general public is in the works.
EXPANSION OF THE SONATA FORM
The traditional sonata form has persisted since the times of Mozart and Beethoven, and justly so: impeccably proportioned, it is the grand pinnacle of all musical forms, and the living, breathing structure that rightfully underpins the greatest musical masterpieces in history.
However, the form's weakness from a modern point of view is its predictable recapitulation, or reprise, which repeats the exposition more or less unchanged. While I'm not completely averse to the reprise per se, many of my works instead contain a denouement, a formal resolution in which all of the sonata's initial themes are united, and two often even play at the same time.
