This is my submission for a little challenges posted in a Facebook group. The challenge was to write a 30-second piece of music inspired from the photo shown.

The idea for me is that since it's a gray photo with no color, it has a slight dark sound in the background, while the rest of the instruments bring out the love of the 2 people shown. The darkness suggests that this is a memory, one that one person lives with as they're grieving the loss of the other person.

This is my view of the picture. It's a bit dark, I know, and other people will see it in different ways. This is just my interpretation.

30 - Second Thingie

This piece is written in an ABABA structure. This is a very simple slow piece for your typical orchestra, with the exception of an added harp. The harmonies are muddy and dissonant to create a dark-like piece that fits my compositional style.

Black

Being alone is something I really enjoy, being mainly an introvert. But especially after some heartbreaking events, when I am alone my mind can wander to places that I dont want it to go, making me really feel like I'm truly alone. Being physically alone is something I really enjoy. Feeling alone, feeling empty.......not so much.

Solitude

This was written to signify an argument between a quiet voice and a very powerful voice. It starts simply, then gradually builds in intensity until the two voices eventually come to a consensus.

The 2 voices could be any 2 people having an argument about a number of things, and at the end they both land on an agreement about the topic at hand. Different from my usual music, but for me it represents 2 conflicting ideas about something of huge importance to me, and at the end I eventually find how I feel regarding that situation.

Voice

#2 Updated

This piece came about after I came across the famous Carlo Gesualdo's 4 chords that have stumped musicologists and theorists since their conception. Here, I develop a piece based on the mode switch of the chords (major to minor and vice versa). It is written for a solo tenor voice and piano, though the recording makes it sound as if it's a males choir.

Text by Carlo Gesualdo (translated from the original Italian):

My Sweet Beloved,
why do you withhold the relief which I long for?
Perhaps you think that my burning desire will end,
because you turn away whenever I see you?
Alas, this cannot be,
I must either love you or die.

My Sweet Beloved

This piece is fairly straightforward, telling a simple story (kind of) with one theme. It isn't too difficult, apart from the sopranos going to the peak of their range more than once and the piano accompaniment.

The recording I currently have is poorly done simply because I do not have a solo tenor sample. I'm hoping to have all of my pieces recorded by true musicians in the future, but for now the EastWest sounds will have to do.

Text (by William Butler Yeats):

Never give all the heart, for love
Will hardly seem worth thinking of
To passionate women if it seem
Certain, and they never dream
That it fades out from kiss to kiss;
For everything that's lovely is
But a brief, dreamy, kind of delight.
O never give the heart outright,
For they, for all smooth lips can say,
Have given their hearts up to the play.
And who could play it well enough
If dumb and deaf and blind with love?
He that made this knows all the cost,
For he gave all his heart and lost.

Never Give All The Heart

This is a simple little piece written for the NextNotes High School Composition Awards. The work is for a solo cello and piano. I wanted to capture the complex feelings associated with love, whilst also bringing to light the simplicity of love as an emotion. But more than this, I wanted to depict the idea of love as being at home, at peace. As the beginning starts with the main idea, then in the middle you go away from that idea for a while, then slowly return back to it, that relaxing place of comfort. This comfort is true, unwavering love.

Love

I am an aspiring classical music composer. My music is mainly dark and ominous, with added despair and pathos.

Trenton Rhodes

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