Another piece for composition class. This time I tried to make the most of very little melodic and harmonic material, minimalism if you will. Anyway, I found it to be very evocative of a cloudburst. Cloudburst – MP3 from Finale Cloudburst – PDF Score
Posts By: William Johnston
Roman Legion
Another piece I wrote for composition class. This time I had to write a piece using a specific interval. I chose a fourth and thought that the result was very evocative of an Ancient Roman army marching past. The piece is basically tonal, but not really harmonic in any way. It is scored for piano…. Read more »
Blackberry sync issue
In case anyone else runs across this issue, an apostrophe in an email address will cause Blackberry sync for Google Apps to fail when you try to log in. Log in is successful, but you cannot sync any shared calendars.
Theory III Listening Assignment – Mahler’s Symphony No. 2 “Resurrection” – 5th Movement
Gustav Mahler was born in Kaliště, Bohemia in 1860. His musical talent was apparent early, and he graduated from the Vienna Conservatory in 1878. A part time composer, his primary livelihood was derived from conducting opera and concerts. He wrote many art songs and nine symphonies, leaving a tenth incomplete. His music stretched tonality, but… Read more »
Theory III Listening Assignment – Dvořák’s Symphony No. 9, Op. 95 “New World”
In 1841, Antonin Dvorak was born in the Bohemian village of Nelahozeves near Prague. He was influenced by German harmonic tradition, writing symphonies that were based on Beethoven, Mendelssohn, and Brahms. He also explored elements of his own culture, becoming one of foremost Bohemian nationalist composers. In the late 1800s, he came to the United… Read more »
Solo for Horn
My first composition for the 2010 UWRF Beginning Composition class. The assignment is writing a solo for a monophonic instrument. I chose the French Horn. The form is ABA`. In retrospect, the beginning theme sounds like a mix between the Horn solo in the final movement of Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 2 and the Eintritt… Read more »
Theory III Listening Assignment – Liszt’s Piano Sonata in B minor, S. 178
Franz Liszt was born in Hungary in 1811, but lived most of his life in Paris, moving there as a teen. He was a huge success as a concert pianist and is still considered one of the greatest pianists since the instrument’s invention. In his thirties, he retired from concertizing and focused on composition. He… Read more »
Group policy deployment failure in Windows 7
I was having some issues with one of the computers on the domain. It refused to execute the installers during boot and threw event IDs 103 and 101. I found the solution, and am quoting it below for future reference. The solution is to set “Startup policy processing wait time” in group policy. It’s located… Read more »
Group Policy Deployment of Adobe Reader
For future reference. It appears that Adobe Reader includes both the original 9.3.0 msi file and the patch transforms for updates. If you want to use group policy to deploy an update, you need to update the msi using the patch files.
Dies Irae for chamber ensemble
This is the piece I arranged for the 2010 MYS Summer Composition Workshop. It is the result of two different attempts to harmonize the Dies Irae using standard voice leading rules. The Dies Irae is a hymn/plainchant written by Thomas of Celano, an early Franciscan monk, in the mid 1250s. It is a beautiful modal… Read more »