Anthropomorphic Expressions

Anthropomorphic Expressions – The Trees Cry
April 2023
Duration: 3:00
Listen to the Anthropomorphic Expressions Playlist: https://soundcloud.com/bruce-klepper-1/sets/anthropomorphic-expressions
Special thanks to John-Marc Ventimiglia @john-marc-ventimiglia for his highly valued musical input and for creating the trees sound library used to compose this piece.

Anthropomorphism is the attribution of human traits, or emotions to non-human entities or objects. It is considered to be an innate tendency of human psychology. Anthropomorphism is a common way humans perceive and interact with the world around them.

Trees consist of a wide variety of plant species that have independently evolved a trunk and branches as a way to tower above other plants to compete for sunlight. The majority of tree species are angiosperms or hardwoods; of the rest, many are gymnosperms or softwoods. Trees tend to be long-lived, some reaching several thousand years old. Trees have been in existence for 370 million years. It is estimated that there are around three trillion mature trees in the world.

About a third of all tree species, some twenty thousand, are included in the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Of those, over eight thousand are globally threatened, including at least 1400 which are classed as "critically endangered". 

For violin, bansuri, duduk, cello, bassoon, double bass, marimba, xylophone, wood blocks, tree samples and percussion

Anthropomorphic Expressions - The Trees Cry

Anthropomorphic Expressions – The Rocks Sing
May 2023
Duration: 3:00
Photo by Bruce Klepper 
Listen to the Anthropomorphic Expressions Playlist: https://soundcloud.com/bruce-klepper-1/sets/anthropomorphic-expressions
Special thanks to John-Marc Ventimiglia @john-marc-ventimiglia for his highly valued musical input and for creating the rocks sound library used to compose this piece.

Anthropomorphism is the attribution of human traits, or emotions to non-human entities or objects. It is considered to be an innate tendency of human psychology. Anthropomorphism is a common way humans perceive and interact with the world around them.

The Earth is made of rock, from the tallest mountains to the floor of the deepest ocean. Thousands of different types of rocks and minerals have been found on Earth. Most rocks at the Earth's surface are formed from only eight elements (oxygen, silicon, aluminum, iron, magnesium, calcium, potassium, and sodium), but these elements are combined in a number of ways to make rocks that are very different.  Rocks are continually changing. Wind and water wear them down and carry bits of rock away; the tiny particles accumulate in a lake or ocean and harden into rock again. The oldest rock that has ever been found is more than 3.9 billion years old.

Humanity has made use of rocks since the earliest humans. This early period, called the Stone Age, saw the development of many stone tools. Stone was then used as a major component in the construction of buildings and early infrastructure. 

Rocks are commonly divided into three major classes according to the processes that resulted in their formation. These classes are (1) igneous rocks, which have solidified from molten material called magma; (2) sedimentary rocks, those consisting of fragments derived from preexisting rocks or of materials precipitated from solutions; and (3) metamorphic rocks, which have been derived from either igneous or sedimentary rocks under conditions that caused changes in mineralogical composition, texture, and internal structure.  

For alpine flugelhorn, alphorn, alpine trombone, violin, viola, harp, piano, tuba, timpani, rock samples, virtual instruments and percussion

Anthropomorphic Expressions – The Rocks Sing

Anthropomorphic Expressions – The Clouds Laugh 
May 2023
Duration: 2:15
Listen to the Anthropomorphic Expressions Playlist: https://soundcloud.com/bruce-klepper-1/sets/anthropomorphic-expressions
Special thanks to John-Marc Ventimiglia @john-marc-ventimiglia for his highly valued musical input and for creating the “clouds laughing” sound library used to compose this piece.

Anthropomorphism is the attribution of human traits, or emotions to non-human entities or objects. It is considered to be an innate tendency of human psychology. Anthropomorphism is a common way humans perceive and interact with the world around them.

It is easy to forget that you live in the sky - not beneath it, but within it. Our atmosphere is an enormous ocean, and you inhabit it.  This ocean is made up of the gases of air rather than liquid water, but it is as much of an ocean as the Atlantic or the Pacific. You may think of yourself as living on the ground, but all that means is that you are a creature of the ocean bed. You still inhabit the atmosphere like a sea creature does the water.  From the book: "A Cloud a Day" Gavin Pretor-Pinney

Every cloud is unique, while clouds appear in infinite shapes and sizes they fall into some basic forms.
Cirro-form: the Latin word 'cirro' means curl of hair. Composed of ice crystals, cirro-form clouds are whitish and hair-like. There are the high, wispy clouds to first appear in advance of a low-pressure area such as a mid-latitude storm system or a tropical system such as a hurricane.

Cumulo-form: generally detached clouds, they look like white fluffy cotton balls. They show vertical motion or thermal uplift of air taking place in the atmosphere. They are usually dense in appearance with sharp outlines. The base of cumulus clouds are generally flat and occurs at the altitude where the moisture in rising air condenses.

Strato-form: from the Latin word for 'layer' these clouds are usually broad and fairly wide spread appearing like a blanket. They result from non-convective rising air and tend to occur along and to the north of warm fronts. The edges of strato-form clouds are diffuse.

Nimbo-form: 'Nimbus' is he Latin word for rain. The vast majority of precipitation occurs from nimbo-form clouds and therefore these clouds have the greatest vertical height.

For flute, clarinet, bass quenacho, bass clarinet, contrabass clarinet, pipe organ, marimba, “clouds laughing” samples and percussion

Anthropomorphic Expressions - The Clouds Laugh

Anthropomorphic Expressions – The Flowers Smile
June 2023
Duration: 3:20
Photo by Heidi Schnicker
Listen to the Anthropomorphic Expressions Playlist: https://soundcloud.com/bruce-klepper-1/sets/anthropomorphic-expressions
Special thanks to John-Marc Ventimiglia @john-marc-ventimiglia for his highly valued musical input and for creating the “smiling flowers” sound library used to compose this piece.

If you could travel back to 130 million years ago, you might not be impressed with the earliest flowers.   Those early flowers were small and rare, living in the shadows of far more successful nonflowering plants. It took many millions of years for flowers to hit their stride. Around 120 million years ago, a new branch of flowers evolved that came to dominate many forests and explode in diversity. That lineage includes 99 percent of all species of flowering plants on Earth today, ranging from magnolias to dandelions to pumpkins. 

Later, in six lineages, flowers became more complicated. They evolved an inner ring of petals that became big and showy, and an outer ring of usually green, leaflike growths called sepals, which protect young flowers as they bud.  As popularly used, the term “flower” especially applies when part or all of the reproductive structure is distinctive in colour and form. In their range of colour, size, form, and anatomical arrangement, flowers present a seemingly endless variety of combinations. They range in size from minute blossoms to giant blooms. In some plants, such as poppy, magnolia, tulip, and petunia, each flower is relatively large and showy and is produced singly, while in other plants, such as aster, snapdragon, and lilac, the individual flowers may be very small and are borne in a distinctive cluster known as an inflorescence. Regardless of their variety, all flowers have a uniform function, the reproduction of the species through the production of seed.

For violin, bansuri, duduk, bamboo flute, lithophone, xylophone, harp, bells, double bass, “smiling flowers” samples and percussion

Anthropomorphic Expressions – The Flowers Smile

Mysterious, Magical, Music is Wonderful!  Thanks for visiting!  Please feel free to share my music.  Enjoy!

Bruce Klepper is a Colorado based composer with thousands of listeners worldwide. Klepper studied music composition in the 1970's and received a degree in music composition and theory.  After writing music for many years and starting a tech company based in Colorado, Klepper retired in 2014 from business so he could devote myself to his true passion, composing music. Klepper's music premiered in Carnegie Hall, September 2022.  Klepper writes music in a number of different styles, including contemporary classical music, jazz, soundscapes using field recordings, ambient music, and ballet music.  Klepper has been composing music for Danse Etoile Ballet (www.danseetoile.org) since 2016. Klepper has been collaborating with Parlando School of Musical Arts (www.parlando.org) faculty Britta De Groot and Sergei Govorov for over a year now, composing and arranging new music for the dynamic piano and saxophone duo to premier around the United States. Klepper's music can be heard on all major streaming platforms, including Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube, and SoundCloud. 

NOTE: there is no compression added to the tracks in order to preserve the full range of dynamics. You may want to listen with headphones or increase the volume on some tracks for the best listening experience.

Anthropomorphic Expressions

Bruce Klepper | Composer