Here is a glimpse into what happens at the Juilliard Extension Division.

Evenings at Juilliard

This playlist is dedicated to my piano teacher Mlle. Yvonne Combe and to the French School of Music in Plainfield, NJ. Mlle. Combe studied at Paris Conservatory when four famous French composers were alive and Fauré was director of the Conservatoire. She and the French School have affected many lives, and many former students performed in Carnegie Recital Hall as children (including sis and myself) and later became professional musicians, lawyers, doctors, technologists, executives, educators, etc.

Tracks were recorded and edited in Garageband using Pianoteq 5.

I didn't step into a Juilliard classroom until January 2016, so most of this playlist represents what I was able to do as a self-taught composer with ten years of piano and solfege lessons at the French School during the 1970s.

Unbridled

Orchestrated in Advanced Orchestration from a shortened version of the original piano short score. This is a MIDI rendering using NotePerformer (better than standard Sibelius playback). Through Musiversal, Prague Orchestra did our class reading. For a 2:31 minute work, and a 20 minute reading, got back 371 .wav files in case anyone wants a benchmark for reference for their own works.

The Harbinger (Advanced Orchestration 2020)

The Butterfly is a two movement work, the second COVID premiere, and a bookend to The Puzzled Goose.

The Puzzled Goose was written when we went into lockdown in March 2020. The Butterfly represents us coming out of lockdown and stepping into our first face-to-face class after a year and a half.

Juilliard Extension Division Advanced Comp fall 2021 assignment. The original assignment was for clarinet, bassoon, and piano. This is the piano version.

The Butterfly, Movement 1: Emergence (2021)

MIDI version of the clarinet / bassoon / piano ensemble.

The Butterfly, Movement 2: The Untethering (2021)

Juilliard Advanced Comp assignment for guitar and cello. The style is "chaotic virtuoso".

The Fire Ant Dance (2021)

Art song for mezzo soprano and piano, a project for the 2022 EAMA summer institute, an intensive immersion (composition track) in Paris for all of July.

Sheet music: tinyurl.com/4mcje85h

Wynken, Blynken, and Nod (2022)

The first 20 bars of music were written in fall 1981 at age 16, which launched the “official” start as a self-taught composer. The next 4 bars are intact from 2008 when I started slapping short endings onto unfinished snippets. This is a reflection on 40 years of composing.

Sheet music: https://tinyurl.com/3vtfbzme

Snowflakes (1981 / 2008 / 2022)

Part 1 of a 4 part story arc on the Sirens.

The Haunted Dreams collection is a story arc about the Sirens from Greek mythology. Peisinoe represents the loss of innocence for a young Siren who accidentally causes her first shipwreck, and finds she likes it. Aglaope is a more mature Siren, and a force of nature. Thelxiepeia's Lament tells the story of her fatal encounter with Odysseus. Pandora's Box occurs because there are Sirens inside that lure Pandora into opening the container.

Started composing Peisinoe 3/16/2012, completed 3/19/2012.

Note: I'd started on a Part 5 called Guerre des Sirenes but as of 8/2015 I've decided to shelve this effort. I don't think any more can be said of this story arc (unless a later creative spurt proves otherwise). It's hard to beat the ending to Part 4 to wrap up the series.

Part 1 Haunted Dreams: Peisinoe (2012)

Spinning and Gninnips were written in 2006. These are two of the last things I wrote as a flesh-and-blood composer before I had a breakthrough in 2012 and started directly channeling the muse locked inside my head.

Spinning (2006)

Completed on 5/8/2014, re-recorded on 3/10/2015. This is an experimental prototype - to pull this off I really had to dial back the complexity in all areas except for the one where I wanted to do a deep dive. Even then there were four days in a row where I wrote one bar of music.

This is the story of Pandora's Box, which was actually a jar given to Pandora as a "gift" containing all of the evils of the world, which she was told not to open under any circumstances. She can't resist opening the jar and all of the evil escapes into the world, in spite of her attempts to close the container. The last note of the composition is a quiet B flat which resolves the last otherwise unfinished chord, representing the last thing left in the container after all of the evil has escaped - Hope.

This is also Thelxiepeia's Revenge (see the Haunted Dreams link) because there were Sirens imprisoned within Pandora's Box whose singing lured Pandora into inadvertently freeing them. I think this is karmic retribution for killing off Thelxiepeia; what started off as a trilogy for the Sirens seems to have metamorphosed into Trouble with Tribbles. I heard at least 3 Sirens escape from Pandora's Box, and the inmates are now running the asylum.

Part 6: Pandora's Box - Thelxiepeia's Revenge (2005/2014)

Part 2 of the Haunted Dreams series: Aglaope, started 4/1/2012, original version completed 4/17/2012, ending rewritten around 5/5, originally performed 5/19/2012 (Youtube), ending rewritten Again and re-recorded 3/15/2015. Dedicated to Al Pendleton, our choir director at Governor Livingston Regional High. He gave me enough courage to chuck the training wheels (Peisinoe) and floor the accelerator.

Unlike Peisinoe, Aglaope is a mature force of nature that comes rocketing out of the water to confront her prey. She succeeds in dispatching her victims in the end, and for a brief moment transforms into a joyous kitten. But not for long - while she lets out a satisfied burp in the end, it's clear she's already thinking of her next meal...

Part 2: Aglaope (2012/2015)

Do you know the first 50 digits of pi (after the decimal)? If you're a musician I suspect after this little exercise you'll know them too. Try this: assume middle C is 1, (I made B below middle C 0), D is 2, E is 3, all the way up to 9 being D. So the melody for 3.1415... is mi do fa do sol re re (back down an octave) la sol mi sol do, etc...

Comment from my dad: This illustrates why music is such an efficient memory algorithm. Any pianist can learn this piece in a few minutes and effectively memorize Pi to 50 places, and memorize it for life by playing it once in a while. Yet, if you tried to memorize those 50 numbers, it would take a huge effort (if you ever succeed at all) and maintaining that memory for life would be nearly impossible. Ah! the magic of music.

3.
mi
1  4  1  5   9  2  6  5   3  5  
do fa do sol Re re la sol mi sol

8  9  7  9  3  2  3  8  4  6
Do Re Si Re mi re mi Do fa la

2  6  4  3  3  8  3  2  7  9
re la fa mi mi Do mi re Si Re

5   0  2  8  8  4  1  9l 7  1
sol si re Do Do fa do Re Si do

6  9  3  9  9  3  7  5   1  0
la Re mi Re Re mi Si sol do si

Part 1: 50 Slices Of Pi (2009)

Started 1/15/2016, completed 1/25/2016. Recorded 7/2016.

This is a new part 3 for the siren story arc, which is now complete with 5 parts (Thelxiepeia's Lament and Pandora's Box are now parts 4 and 5).
This breaks up the unrelenting intensity to the siren story arc, but there is still something a little "off" with this watery waltz, and that's because it is the dance of the drowning victims.

This is a "swan song" of sorts, because it's the last thing I composed as a self-taught composer before I started classes with the evening division at Juilliard for music composition.

Part 3: A Watery Waltz (2016, fixed 2021)

This is a portion of the Solfege Teaching Guide audiobook which I am currently stitching together. Intended audience: everyone, musical and non-musical. The goal of this guide is to help everyone learn the fundamentals needed to become a self-sufficient musician. Available in paperback and Kindle on Amazon: https://smile.amazon.com/Solfege-Teaching-Guide-Eileen-Sauer/dp/1979641935/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1532362129&sr=8-1&keywords=solfege+teaching+guide. The audiobook will be on ACX, and I am the author, narrator, vocalist, and pianist.

Solfege Teaching Guide

Portion of Chapter 1 - Background - Solfege Teaching Guide Audiobook

This an early, rough recording that shows how I used solfege to teach myself how to compose and improvise. This is good old Dannhäuser solfege exercise number 1, and it sounds fairly normal for the first couple bars. Then I improvise a secondary voice. Take the improvisation away, and what you hear is what every French School of Music solfege student heard and sang on day one of their solfege training. Talk about an irresistible gateway drug into the world of learning how to sightread music.

This is also done in response to the countless people I have met who tell me they hear the most extraordinary music in their heads, they just don't know how to write it down. The French School methodology was specifically designed to enable solfege students to achieve this goal. As you can see, at every point in time I know exactly what I am doing, and everyone should be able to do the same, even if they don't develop absolute pitch. Use this recording as a litmus test for evaluating music instructors, courses, and conservatories, to ensure that with their training you will develop the skills to do this.

Using Solfege to Practice Improvisation

This is the fourth assignment in music production at Juilliard, experimenting with different synthesizers and samplers like ES2, ESX24, and Ultrabeat. Also reverb, equalizer, etc.

PsiLounge is just a hop and a skip from the Casimir wormhole. If anyone is up for happy hour, the first round of alternate Kosmos-politans is on me. BTW, Please don't invite the Vogons.

PsiLounge Beyond The Edge Of The Universe (2018)

Juilliard Evening Division spring semester kicked off for 2020. Advanced composition - wrote a Handwritten short score first that will eventually be adapted for string quartet.

The Harbinger (2020)

This is a completely rebuilt piano version of a string quartet assignment written in the Juilliard Evening Division composition class in fall 2016.

Lullaby Of The Doomed (2020 version)

Assignment done for Juilliard Evening Division Advanced Composition class fall 2019.

Churrasco By Candlelight (2019 - fixed 2021)

Second time taking composition, this was a virtuoso piano assignment in fall 2017.

Extasia (2017)

Orchestration short assignment done in fall 2017: vibraphone / harp duet. The vibraphone sounds best with hard mallets, since the effect sounds like chirping birds.

Fae Forest (2017)

This started as a composition assignment in fall 2016 for string quartet. That version derailed in a unique way because it wrote itself almost immediately, but with all quarter notes and eighth notes! During the summer of 2020, I brought it back to its original skeletal roots as a piano short score and revisited this with Evan Fein, and this is the end result.

Carillon Fantasies (2020 version)

Part 3 of the Science Series was more challenging than parts 1 and 2. While si, do, and re must remain in the correct octaves (since they represent 0 / 1 / 2 OR 7 / 8 / 9), mi, fa, sol and la can expand to include the pitch class since those notes map to one digit.

4  8  1  1  1  7  4  5   0  2   
fa Do do do do Si fa sol si re

8  4  1  0  2  7  0  1  9  3
Do fa do si re Si si do Re mi

8  5   2  1  1  0  5   5   5   9
Do sol re do do si sol sol sol Re

6  4  4  6  2  2  9  4  8  9
la fa fa la re re Re fa Do Re

5   4  9  3  0  3  8  1  9  6
sol fa Re mi si mi Do do Re la

4  4  2  8  8  1  0  9  7  5
fa fa re Do Do do si Re Si sol

6  6  5   9  3  3  4  4  6  1
la la sol Re mi mi fa fa la do

2  8  4  7  5   6  4  8  2  3
re Do fa Si sol la fa Do re mi

3  7  8  6  7  8  3  1  6  5
mi Si Do la Si Do mi do la sol

2  7  1  2  0  1  9  0  9  1
re Si do re si do Re si Re do

4  5   6  4  8  5   6  6  9  2
fa sol la fa Do sol la la Re re

3  4  6  0  3  4  8  6  1  0
mi fa la si mi fa Do la do si

4  5   4  3  2  6  6  4  8  2
fa sol fa mi re la la fa Do re

1  3  3  9  3  6  0  7  2  6
do mi mi Re mi la si Si re la

0  2  4  9  1  4  1  2  7  3
si re fa Re do fa do re Si mi

150 Slices of Pi

Part 3: 150 Slices Of Pi (up to 300) (2020)

Classical pianist/composer whose piano teacher - Mlle. Yvonne Combe - studied at the Paris Conservatory when four famous French composers were alive and Fauré was Director of the Conservatory.

As a child, played in Carnegie Recital Hall nine times (many French School alumni did the same). Eight known alumni back around the 70s went to The Juilliard School, and more attended other conservatories.

Background as a software developer, technical trainer, business analyst, engineering manager, and real estate investor; shifted in 2014 to focus on music composition and capturing French School's efficient and effective solfege and piano practice methodologies so that future generations of music students can have what was once available to Combe's students.

Eileen Sauer

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