Teaching composition with the Bach Chorales.

In the old way, you never showed your personal compositions to your composition teacher. So, when Alban and Anton showed up to Prof. Schoenberg’s class, they did exercises. They did a lot of model writing, harmony exercises, counterpoint, etc. One of the good...

2014 Christmas Carol Mashups #11

I had a free hour yesterday and was able to get to five more requests. Actually, I got to six because I combined two in this first bit. Josh Norris had asked for the Widor Toccata in the style of John Rutter. I had initially refused on the basis that I was only doing...

2014 Christmas Carol Mashups #10

I only had time for two yesterday, but they are pretty fun.The first is “You’re a mean one, Mr. Grinch” in the style of a Handel aria. This clever suggestion came from Grant Anderson.A very challenging suggestion from Brittany Downey was to play...

2014 Christmas Carol Mashups #9

I only had time for two yesterday, but they were both excellent suggestions. Connie Backus Yoder suggested “The Holly and the Ivy” in the style of Bach. For this one, I took something like the accompaniment figure from the cantata setting of Nun Danket and...

2014 Christmas Carol Mashups #8

I had time for a few of the more interesting and challenging requests yesterday.  I think the hardest request so far has been by Stan Kleppinger who asked for “Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer” in the style of Hindemith. I thought about this one enough...