Like everyone, I don't know what to do. But here’s what I’ve been doing. I found out that Mass was cancelled on Saturday once I’d already arrived at church, so I decided to spend my time writing. I've since decided that while we're social distancing I'm going to do my best write a small piece every day (under one minute in duration). I also intend to challenge myself in composing each "Quarantine Sketch." The challenge I gave myself with this one was not to use any chromaticism. Till tomorrow... stay calm and healthy friends <3 #quarantune #music #socialdistancing#coronavirus #composing #washyourhands

The challenge I gave myself was to write a canon at the octave. The challenge life gave me was to spend St. Patrick’s Day social distancing. Here’s my attempt to tackle both challenges with one piece. Hope you all found time today to do a jig in your pajamas.☘️  #quarantunes #stpatricksday#irishmusic #canon #coronavirus #washyourhands

Some of these may get a bit weird. These are weird times. I’m such a nerd, even though it’s 2020, I’m still always avoiding parallel fifths... so the challenge I gave myself with this one was to write a piece in which ALL movement involved parallel fifths. That became this piece, made entirely of open-spaced, major triads in parallel motion. #quarantunes #parallelfifths #washyourhands

The challenge I gave myself in writing this one was to only move by stepwise motion, wholesteps or halfsteps. All voices start on F and inch their way around. So the challenge I gave myself is the same challenge given to all of us right now: what do you do when you're not allowed to move around very much? Whatever you can. 🤷‍♂️  #quarantunes#stepbystep #coronavirus #counterpoint#washyourhands

Conveniently, my wonderful parents share a birthday... so today I challenged myself to write a 3 voice fugue on “Happy Birthday.” The real challenge was keeping it under a minute... Much love to Dad and Mama Rose who are celebrating while social distancing like champs 🎂 🎉  #quarantunes #happybirthday #fugue#counterpoint #isolationparty #washyourhands

Exploring further the idea of being “stuck,” today I challenged myself to write a piece around an incessant, single repeated note. #quarantunes #stuck #butonlyfornow#washyourhands

I’m a bit late to post... but I still wrote it before midnight so I made the deadline. Yesterday was J.S. Bach’s birthday, so I wanted to write a chorale prelude. Today is Stephen Sondheim’s birthday, so I thought , rather than use a chorale melody, I’d base it on one of his tunes. This one seemed the most appropriate for the times we’re living through. I also gave myself the compositional challenge of writing the LH in 2 while the RH is in 3—props to any organist who recognizes which piece I used as a model for this. #quarantunes #happybirthdaysondheim#happybirthdaybach #nooneisalone#washyourhands

I can’t imagine I’m the only who feels like time has been altered by the pandemic—without the usual daily routine and weekly events, it’s hard to tell what day it is. Well turns out it’s Monday, which means I’ve been posting these for one week! I thought I’d keep track of time by doing a variation on my original sketch every Monday. The challenge I gave myself last Monday was to use no chromaticism. The challenge I gave myself with this piece was to preserve the melody but re-harmonize it such that EVERY chord contains chromaticism (at least one note outside of the G major scale). Not a single sonority is spared.  A lot can change in a week. #quarantunes #reharm #whatistime #mondays#washyourhands

We lost an amazing human. Terrence McNally’s life and work made the world a much richer place. I had the fortune of seeing the recent revival of Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune twice and I’ve been thinking about that play all day since I heard the news of his passing... so I thought I needed to write something involving Clair de Lune. In pulling out the score I discovered that Claude Debussy died on March 25th, 1918. One day after Terrence, in the height of the Spanish Flu Pandemic. I had intended to write a canon at the fifth today (since I wrote a canon at the octave last Tuesday). Here’s what came out—a piece for two pianos. The entire first piano part is the second piano part transposed up a fifth and starting a quarter-note later. All the material is derived from Clair de Lune. In fact I didn’t have to alter it much... Debussy’s harmonic landscape is pretty forgiving. Thank you, Terrence. And thank you, Claude. #quarantunes #clairdelune #canon #debussy#terrencemcnally #washyourhands