Hello all! Here is my newest work! It's called Adrift. It's written for piano and can be heard over on the works page. This piece is dedicated to my father Gordon C. Curtis on his 66th birthday. Thanks to my lovely wife Jessica for creating the awesome cover shown below. (Edit: The MIDI version is gone now. Check out the new version! More on that here.)
Adrift made me think about the ocean while I was writing it. I used frequently changing time signatures to represent the waves and shifting nature of the sea. In all, there are 88 time signature changes. (Please don't hate me, pianists!) I also tended to use lots of chromatic notes rather than relying on more straightforward chord structures.
The piece is fairly programmatic. The first section represents floating on the ocean waves near the beach. The piece then gets louder with more bass notes and chromaticism, representing a storm at sea. The next section represents slowly sinking to the bottom of the sea. This is symbolized with a drastically slower tempo coupled with lots of decrescendos and big chords. After an ominous drone note played under one of the earlier melodies, the piece changes to a faster tempo and loud dynamic to represent being chased by a sea creature. After a vigorous tremolo passage, the piece slows down to the original tempo and plays a variation of the first theme in a new key. This represents escaping the sea monster. It sounds more bitter-sweet than the first theme this time around. I will let the listener decide how the story ends. Of course, one can create their own tale to go with the piece. I just wanted to share approximately what I was thinking about when writing it.
I know this piece is a little later than I promised in the last post, but I got to thinking that it would make more sense to post it a bit later so Dad could hear it first. It is dedicated to him after all... Happy birthday, Dad! Hope you (and everyone else) enjoy Adrift!