All Descript Part2

Index of Pieces (Part 2) of David J. Erskine. (Par t 1 here)
Including those available as sheet music

Descriptions (Part 2 of 2)
(Alphabetically ordered within this Part 2, but Part 1 is independently alphabetically sorted)

— Alien Theme
Composed 2011 as impromptu. This wasn't meant for Tim Erskine's movie (The Emissary, 2015), but I visualized his alien while this tune popped into my hands in the fall after I helped him film that summer.

— Anthropic Theme
Anthropic Theme of suite Terraphilia. Composed circa 1999. This movement was going to be about mankind effecting the Earth. Opens with a little boy awakening… then men marching. I never fully developed the suite. See also "Dark Forest".

— Asleep in My Arms
Composed 1990. A spin off from working on the cross-hands portions of “A Time Apart” (CD Expressions, 1997). Premiered at Autumn Recital Sept. 1990 at the Lafayette Presb. Church. I moved my new Yamaha C3 piano there for the performance.

— Buonasera
Composition inspired in 2017 by accidentally playing the 7-note two hand parallel motiv while working on another piece. I was entranced. Title suggested by other Composers Group's members. Promenading at sunset through the village?

— Dark Forest
Composed beginning in 1999, this movement was originally to be about water. But by 2007 my mind follows a creek illuminated by dappled light meandering through a forest. (Another movement of this suite is “Anthropic Theme”). In Feb. 2007 my brother Tim moved into his Marin County, Calif place. He wanted to test microphones, so I played this piece on his Mason-Hamlin piano. (Exuberance! was similarly recorded there.)

— Door County Serenade
In July 2006 this idea popped out when I started playing an older piece sufficiently slowly. I thought it would be good as a processional for my brother Tim’s upcoming wedding in Door Co, but at the last minute I decided to play something else, but I crudely recorded this version in my livingroom to preserve the idea (2006). In December 2019 I recorded another version with a slower tempo, and in a better recording environment since it was at a Composers Group recital.

— Exuberance!
Composed circa 2007. Played March 2007 on my brother Tim’s Mason-Hamlin piano while he was testing microphones (“Dark Forest” was similarly recorded there). It was an etude I had developed to challenge myself for agility, and the left and right hands parallel each other.

— Fantasy for Grandmother
When I was young my pieces were boisterous and frenetic; I hadn’t learned to prune ideas, so everything and the kitchen sink is in this piece. Composition started spring 1984 at Cornell, and finished by the fall when I moved to Berkeley. This was recorded at Different Fur studio in San Francisco by new friend Scott Levitin who worked there as an engineer. It was Aug. 8, 1985, the day before I planned to drive to Salt Lake city from Berkeley, to visit Tim. I needed a good night's sleep. But Scott was saying the piano was free after midnite, and this was my first opportunity to play and be recorded on a professional piano, so I had to do it! We recorded from midnite to 2am (friends know a night owl I am not). Perhaps my excitement can be heard in my playing. The next day I was so dead tired I was falling asleep at the wheel entering Nevada. Crazy, but this was the same Yamaha C7 piano George Winston had played on, so waay cool for me.

— Golden Little Flower
The first plaintive section is about loss and was composed in 2010. At that time I could envision a change of chords and moods to a resolution section, but I had writer's block. So I put it away until Februrary 2020 when I figured out how to break through my blockage, with the quiet "dark night" interlude followed by a dawn of the next section. Its hopeful tone is a counterweight to the sadness of year 2020. I finished in October 2020. Recorded Nov. 8, 2020 on a Yamaha C3 by Jeremy Goody and vidoegrapher Bill Rudiak at MegaSonic Sound in Oakland, for an online Youtube recital for six composers Nov. 24, 2020 sponsored by Contra Costa Performing Arts Society, and organized by Christopher Johnson of our Composers Group. Check out the recording, and video!

— In the Dark
(10/28/21) I hadn't been able to compose anything over the last 9 months— I would go to the keyboard and nothing would come out! (I guess the sadness of the times and work stresses). Fellow composer Christopher Johnson helped shake me out of my funk by forcing me to improvise at his keyboard when I visited him at Sea Ranch in June. Then a couple weeks later in July this melody popped into my head when i was watching TV and i quickly went to the piano to preserve it. I ended up playing for a long time-- so long that the lights on the automatic timer clicked out. Sheryl came into the livingroom and said "Did you know that you are playing in the dark?"— gosh, how did she already know the title of the piece?
This piece is a romp-- exuberance alternating with more measured lyrical passages. In places it's on the edge of what my fingers can do (but good to always challenge oneself). (Digital recorder was placed casually placed on carpet near edge of piano, underneath.)

— In Lieu of Roses
Composed spring 1985. I remember playing it for new friend Erin, and then the hikers I climbed up Mt. Shasta with when they dropped me off at my house. This piece was a spin-off from the study piece that became Sierra Passage. Recorded at the same 1985 late night session as “Fantasy for Grandmother”, and it has an awesome sounding bass. The tempo and playing style of the version I did at the 1990 Autumn recital at Lafayette-Orinda Presbyterian Church is more mature, but the piano and acoustics were not as good for that recording.

— Little Red
In 2014 I adapted an earlier tune I had invented in 2009 while painting interior of my house. The adaptation was for my brother Paul's video (Little Red, 2014) based on Little Red Riding Hood and the Wolf characters. The 2009 tune already was happy-go-lucky, so all I needed to do was add the wolf chords.

— March of Many Woeful Men
Composed in the early 1980s while in graduate school at Cornell. Played on the piano at Sage Hall.

— March Rain
| Sound (2012 vers) | - |
Composed initially May 2012, and then completed January 2019, based on an idea improvised March 2011. First performed for the Composers Group Recital, June 15, 2012, Grace Presbyterian Church, Walnut Creek, CA, Contra Costa Performing Arts Society series, and then again in more mature form Februrary 15, 2019. The sound snip is the 2012 version in rehearsal warming up for the performance, and it appears as 4th track in CD Musings (2018). The Febuary 15, 2019 version (1st track of CD Mist [2019]) has a more developed middle and ending, and is the version I prefer.

— November's Feelings
Impromptu from 2010.

— October's Feelings
Impromptu from 2010.

— Our Blue Dot Too
Piano solo variations I came up while practicing the chords of Pale Plue Dot, November 25, 2018.

— Pale Blue Dot
Composed 2018 in collaboration with JD Margulici. I composed the piano accompaniment, and JD Margulici wrote the lyrics and sang the vocals. This is a song about how the Earth is being polluted. It was inspired by the chords of the Anthropic Theme (which is in 6/4 time) but done in the 4/4 time that JD likes.

— Redwoods Idea
Impromptu from 2011. It begins with the sound of crickets; I was picturing a foggy redwood forest.

— Riff on Pachelbel
Impromptu from 2011 based on an older idea, say, from 2008. I revamped it for the November 2019 version, which has better recording acoustics.

— Winter
Composed at the end of 2016, is introspective and brooding, recorded live December 9, 2016 at a Composers Group recital at St. Paul’s church in Walnut Creek, Calif.

— Your'e a Star in My Heavens
Composed circa 2014. This was a practice version June 6, 2014, the week prior to the Composers Group recital.

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