B=2, A=1, C=3, H=8 Math and music aren’t so incompatible after all. More specifically, gematria (substituting letters for numbers) was used repeatedly in J.S. Bach’s music. An artist might sign the bottom of a canvas, but Bach’s signature is his music. I was recently analyzing the Fugue in C major(for fun, of course) from Book 1 of the Well-Tempered Clavier. Replace BACH with the numbers according to their order in the alphabet and you get 2+1+3+8=14. So would you be surprised if told you that the subject from this fugue is *checks notes* 14 notes long? Well listen for yourself… A significant event in this piece is the first big…
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Play Smart, Not Hard
It looked like a guitar, it felt like a guitar, and it certainly sounded like a guitar, but this instrument had a hidden talent. A couple of months ago, I got the opportunity to test a very interesting instrument. I had heard chatter around the guitar department about a “smart guitar” being developed in house, but I had only heard rumors about this mysterious instrument. It seemed inevitable that the ironic “smart” adjective would begin sticking itself to the musical world. Smartphones, smartwatches, smart-refrigerators, and all the other smart counterparts are the norm. My imagination could only conceive of a smart guitar that had a built in touchscreen on the…
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Mrs. Robinson for Guitar Duo
Coo coo ca choo. I found myself walking down the street the other day and absentmindedly whistling this classic tune. To be fair, I had been considering different hit pop songs to arrange for my new guitar duo, Un/Strung, to add to our concerts. Some of our repertoire gets quite heavy and modern, so this piece seemed like it would be a nice refresher for the audience after we pelted them with the sonic burdens of Satie and the likes. My favorite part of this song and arrangement is that whoever plays the Guitar 2 part will enjoy the cathartic technique of tambora, or beating the strings of the guitar…
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Four Colors
Paint me a picture. All our senses work in concert to bring us a complete experience of the surrounding world. Sometimes, one sense can have tremendous affect on another; that is the inspiration for this piece. Occasionally when I would be learning new repertoire, I would subconsciously associate colors with sections of a piece or its entirety. Perhaps a brush with synesthesia, not every sound evoked a specific palette. In my experience it has been rather spontaneous, but once the association is made, it is impossible to separate. The four pieces included in this set all started as small ideas that formed through thoughtless improvisation on the guitar. Sometimes the…
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Music Lessons
Have you ever wanted to learn how to play the guitar? Perhaps you have struggled with vague YouTube tutorials that offer no personalized solutions, or maybe you have never even held a guitar but want to give it a try. Either way, it is always a great time to enroll in formal music lessons! As someone who has taken lessons for many years, I know many tricks to keeping practice fun while also improving overall guitar skills! I believe learning a musical instrument is a valuable life skill whether you want to be a hobbyist or a professional! Contact me at greghaysmusic@gmail.com to ask for a FREE trial lessons and…
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“Same Drugs” string quintet
I’ve decided to branch out a bit from arranging for guitar, but I am still keeping it in the family. My first string quintet arrangement is going to be of Chance the Rapper’s melancholic lament of diverging relationships in “Same Drugs.” I was originally going to orchestrate for a brass quintet, but a bassoon doesn’t quite capture the same mood as swelling strings. A bassoon sounds like a shoulder shrug after the loss of the relationship, whereas strings can convince you that not only did someone important depart from your life, but your heart walked out of your chest and went with them. I have to admit, after working on…
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1919
This Tuesday will be the first day of the last year of the teens decade of the twenty-first century. What defining characteristics will historians of the twenty-second century assign to this decade? Will there even be historians? Or will there simply be archivists of memes and gifs? How will they remember the music? What movements and artists will survive the inevitable erasure brought about by the passage of time? Hopefully in one hundred years someone, somewhere will see this post and leave a comment. What we can know, however, is how the year 1919 shaped out. First, we should wish a happy 100 years to those very special babies that…
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…And a Happy New Year Too
My gift to you: I am helping to revamp your tired Christmas music playlist! I'll introduce you to some of my favorite non-traditional songs and I'll even tell you my Christmas wish...
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New Carnaval Arrangements
Slowly, I am making way through arranging movements from Robert Schumann’s Carnaval Op.9. So far I have arranged 3 out of the 21 (not including those Sphinx movements). This December I have released movements Chopin and Valse allemande for guitar duo! Go over to Sheet Music Plus to get the sheet music
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SMP Press ArrangeMe Program
Sheet Music Plus has recently started this fantastic program that allows arrangers to compose to create new versions of songs that are still held in copyright. Rather than having to personally get permission from the copyright holder, SMP has already taken care of the legal work. All the creator needs to do is add the copyright credits provided by SMP into the copyrights of the new arrangement. When a title is sold, SMP uses a portion of the sales to pay the original copyright holders and then even supplies the arranger with a small commission. This frees myself, and many others, from exclusively arranging works in public domain (although that…
