tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-47061845471409632102024-03-11T22:51:03.750-07:00Thom P. Miller MusicFROM MICHIGAN TO MOJAVE AND BACK, DUNES TO DESERT, SAGUARO TO PINES. CHICAGO AND HOME .MUSIC FOR CONCERT PLACES, MUSIC FOR HOLY PLACES.INSTRUMENTAL FABRICS, PSALMS, SONGS ABOUT CREATION, TEMPTATION,FIRST LOVES, FINAL GOODBYES. Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger31125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4706184547140963210.post-84591282576266999782024-03-11T22:49:00.000-07:002024-03-11T22:50:30.831-07:00Magic (TPM, March 11, 2024)<iframe width="480" height="270" src="https://youtube.com/embed/EZ1soc4eTMo?si=QNaCyEPWlaNzylzZ" frameborder="0"></iframe>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4706184547140963210.post-25672019788911851182023-11-26T12:05:00.000-08:002023-11-26T12:05:06.544-08:00The Amen Carol (TPM, 2023)<iframe width="480" height="270" src="https://youtube.com/embed/XTyvjlBOngk?si=AoJHxhbsPLypivKC" frameborder="0"></iframe>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4706184547140963210.post-59749022885441779492023-10-27T18:55:00.002-07:002023-10-27T18:55:58.012-07:00Two Short Piano Pieces<iframe width="480" height="270" src="https://youtube.com/embed/bJS9XLCauts?si=qNjj4ylK_9eu3gzz" frameborder="0"></iframe>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4706184547140963210.post-68515612400876923372023-10-27T18:55:00.000-07:002023-10-27T18:55:00.461-07:00Thom's Halloween Song<iframe width="480" height="270" src="https://youtube.com/embed/DoiQ9bu8Iqc?si=AoGsxhu3_eN-yBGC" frameborder="0"></iframe>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4706184547140963210.post-35150276860166957812023-09-18T19:07:00.000-07:002023-09-18T19:08:35.735-07:00While Away (1997)<iframe width="480" height="270" src="https://youtube.com/embed/03tcQ8Ycdho?si=01BrzegBoH8aVfiA" frameborder="0"></iframe>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4706184547140963210.post-48706157854482727272023-08-05T12:44:00.000-07:002023-08-05T12:44:07.960-07:00"Lillian of the Valley" - May,2022<iframe width="480" height="270" src="https://youtube.com/embed/UYcDExmNME8" frameborder="0"></iframe>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4706184547140963210.post-58880528211639802242023-06-25T16:31:00.001-07:002023-06-25T16:31:27.625-07:00"Vestiges (What Remains)"--- "In Lieu of Flowers(IV): For Peg Porter (J...<iframe width="480" height="270" src="https://youtube.com/embed/IM9SelMHE98" frameborder="0"></iframe>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4706184547140963210.post-4033225357527419122023-05-21T08:30:00.000-07:002023-05-21T08:30:17.847-07:00Heron, Blue (May, 2023)<iframe width="480" height="270" src="https://youtube.com/embed/eBV7HRWiqN0" frameborder="0"></iframe>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4706184547140963210.post-87880866040556075872022-07-26T14:51:00.001-07:002022-07-26T14:51:59.610-07:00"Kerouac's Madness, Ginsberg's Clair De Lune" (Thom P. Miller, 2022)- Si...<iframe width="480" height="270" src="https://youtube.com/embed/N2lpr05zDxU" frameborder="0"></iframe>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4706184547140963210.post-26398060059584081952022-07-13T20:53:00.000-07:002022-07-13T20:53:03.914-07:00July 13, 2022<iframe width="480" height="270" src="https://youtube.com/embed/7kkMw-2qgMQ" frameborder="0"></iframe>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4706184547140963210.post-78748781590934373212022-05-11T16:27:00.007-07:002022-05-11T16:30:31.743-07:00<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRpRP5T0WDhYKx3vQEKR6Q_sHK1t9Y03jzTLjHcQPTUr62Dv87outXBn_pOZTizV3FDqT1Ufo4Wq4cBWJmz4wVBr10bowvs8PF-2l6hKe6kYA5pdDQ3aGY4jjMx3DtC4A1poR9hIsctIKDzyjMKOWXi3rEreUGblmw5YORXRppwVdLo4hy7XxjlFFt/s902/portfolio2.jpg" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; "><img alt="" border="0" width="320" data-original-height="902" data-original-width="902" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRpRP5T0WDhYKx3vQEKR6Q_sHK1t9Y03jzTLjHcQPTUr62Dv87outXBn_pOZTizV3FDqT1Ufo4Wq4cBWJmz4wVBr10bowvs8PF-2l6hKe6kYA5pdDQ3aGY4jjMx3DtC4A1poR9hIsctIKDzyjMKOWXi3rEreUGblmw5YORXRppwVdLo4hy7XxjlFFt/s320/portfolio2.jpg"/></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuKcneF7DZvEAnByqDEpN3X4Co91yiV0X0097TXAMnyk8HTj62mPqSTuWP_YgK_qWozAIFF5O3w6mBAoOaHyIFk5J6nsUly0y_J9qsgYsrv9VOZTyqKlZnvSO1nMaCGbahQwZm1bJ4tyQ5Dh0P9bxRdpR3_7j-rhEMUOrfMrwgL-amGRqR4KYeelcd/s902/portfolio%204%20+1.jpg" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; "><img alt="" border="0" width="320" data-original-height="785" data-original-width="902" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuKcneF7DZvEAnByqDEpN3X4Co91yiV0X0097TXAMnyk8HTj62mPqSTuWP_YgK_qWozAIFF5O3w6mBAoOaHyIFk5J6nsUly0y_J9qsgYsrv9VOZTyqKlZnvSO1nMaCGbahQwZm1bJ4tyQ5Dh0P9bxRdpR3_7j-rhEMUOrfMrwgL-amGRqR4KYeelcd/s320/portfolio%204%20+1.jpg"/></a></div>
SKIP IF YOU'RE ALLERGIC TO DUST
Putting my latest composition, “Lillian of the Valley”(May,2022), in my portfolio, I noticed the first piece in this collection, “Inch Time Foot Gem" was written in May,1972, when I was just getting out of Cal Arts. This binder holds the result of 50 years of writing—the single act I have chosen to define me---and also the decisions, sacrifices and wrong turns due to my attachment to creating different arrangements of tones that inevitably said something about myself.
There are over 70 compositions in this collection, most have been performed in public at least once, including several big Holy Week Cantatas written for specific churches with specific performers in mind. Pragmatic questions ( Will it work? Can they sing it? How long will it take to teach?) made for some interesting and downright fun composing!
70 compositions by a now-dusty 70 yr. old composer, starting 50 years ago as a young man, lost and trying to figure things out after his father’s unexpected death 3 years earlier---which, it would turn out, would continue to be the case through 50 years, to this day.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4706184547140963210.post-1557699139152453022022-03-07T16:22:00.002-08:002022-03-07T16:26:42.178-08:00Country Boy<iframe width="480" height="270" src="https://youtube.com/embed/q-YAaP3ZuWY" frameborder="0"></iframe>
Oh Yeah. Just another "gettin' older" song by another "gettin' older" songwriter, except I made this up when I was 23.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4706184547140963210.post-37023184673239175542022-01-19T17:29:00.001-08:002022-01-19T17:29:25.359-08:00"Indigent Night" - (Thom P. Miller, 1984) <iframe frameborder="0" height="270" src="https://youtube.com/embed/Qg649aCllYQ" width="480"></iframe><div><b><br /></b></div><div><b><br /></b></div><div><b><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 16.5pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><a href="http://thompmillermusic.blogspot.com/2014/08/indigent-night.html"><span style="color: #cc6611;">Indigent Night (1984)</span></a></span></b>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br />
It’s an indigent night with a delinquent moon.<br />
Stick with me, baby, and you’ll see the stars<br />
(they only come out at night.)<br />
And an indigent scream that’s just passing through<br />
(nice to see you.)<br />
<br />
A long dark night in the city of the soul,<br />
the run-down section of the heart.<br />
Feelings with addresses unknown<br />
belly up to the bar where they water down<br />
the vermouth and the truth.<br />
<br />
Sweet delinquency! Sweet delinquency’s the thing!<br />
It darts about like sparks through the stubble of the night,<br />
lights up the truth with neon joy.<br />
(God is in neon and neon is a gas.)<br />
Transient gals, won’t you come out tonight,<br />
Juke box eyes a’flashing?<br />
<br />
Vagrancy! It darts about like sparks through the<br />
Stubble of my beard<br />
(God is in neon and neon is a gas.)<br />
lights up the night with radical snow.<br />
Sweet Delinquency!<br />
(Streetlight Madonnas, come out tonight,<br />
shed those juke-box tears!)<br />
<br />
It’s an invalid night with a malpractice moon,<br />
(a long, dark night in the city of the soul)<br />
Obstacle illusions that fill up the night,<br />
(the run-down section of the heart)<br />
Foul up the air like the dog days of emotion<br />
(The sidewalk of the stars! The sidewalk of the stars!)<br />
and all their monkey-fart dreams.<br />
<br />
Desperation shoots through the veins on its way to the heart.<br />
<br />
The death-squads of desire, the kamikazi’s of lust,<br />
play under the lights a friendly game of search-and-destroy.<br />
Sirens wail, cut through the night<br />
with a searchlight fist in anger or salute<br />
to the malignancy of dreams, the delinquency of starlight,<br />
the indignity of shadows.<br />
<br />
The air is conditioned to the moaning of angels,<br />
kneeling in the half-light, begging for indulgence.<br />
The night is accustomed to the customs of strangers,<br />
the habits of drifters, filets of the soul!<br />
Vacant lot vigils of flop-house truths!<br />
Vigilante vespers by choirs of the lost!<br />
Stations of the double-cross!<br />
<br />
The air is scented with a summer of lilacs,<br />
Nostalgic transfusions of a whole different sort;<br />
On the outskirts of memory: a girl dressed in white.<br />
<br />
The hour before dawn, with its muscatel sweetness…<br />
The stillness of shadows…<br />
The silence of the mind as the heart strikes out.<br />
<br />
Thom P. Miller, 1984<br />
Soprano: Gwen Faasen<br />
Alto: Kathy Proulx<br />
Tenor: R. D. Swets (RIP, Bob.)<br />
Percussion: Ric Troll<o:p></o:p></span></p><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4706184547140963210.post-64305555133848965502022-01-11T12:02:00.007-08:002022-01-13T10:25:21.448-08:00Tina's Cantina (2022)<iframe frameborder="0" height="270" src="https://youtube.com/embed/EGnp0C3bfMk" width="480"></iframe><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: large;">Featuring "Maxine", my piano/sidekick for 40 years.</span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4706184547140963210.post-14413422225377890762021-12-07T11:13:00.024-08:002022-01-13T10:31:31.010-08:00PIETA (2021)<iframe frameborder="0" height="270" src="https://youtube.com/embed/CStG0N5r3P4" width="480"></iframe><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;">While some people were writing Christmas music... (I discovered in my sketchbooks that I was thinking of a similar piece 14 years earlier. Chicago has only mestasized.) </span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4706184547140963210.post-11377478880948811772021-11-30T11:26:00.004-08:002021-12-01T06:41:58.821-08:00Advent Compline (Thom P. Miller--2017, revised 2021)<iframe width="480" height="270" src="https://youtube.com/embed/ID7WY7pL-fA" frameborder="0"></iframe>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4706184547140963210.post-17559951116592689022021-11-02T11:48:00.031-07:002021-11-03T11:54:52.489-07:00inch Time Foot Gem (1972)<iframe frameborder="0" height="270" src="https://youtube.com/embed/du0u0TcN1Kk" width="480"></iframe><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">My "Signature Gesture Piece." Like a zen ink drawing, in a single movement--or in this case, "moment"--it is a complete statement. It is my signature.</span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4706184547140963210.post-35671060651973395662021-11-02T11:27:00.011-07:002021-11-03T11:26:29.661-07:00Thomas P. Miller — Magdalene (1975) for organ<iframe frameborder="0" height="270" src="https://youtube.com/embed/oFhkOuV699c" width="480"></iframe><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>With special thanks to Carson Cooman, for including this piece in his incredible catalog of recordings of contemporary keyboard music.</i></span><br /><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4706184547140963210.post-34988765707607221072021-10-29T13:00:00.043-07:002021-11-03T11:46:35.064-07:00"Don't B minor Me"<iframe frameborder="0" height="270" src="https://youtube.com/embed/5jZvMxmAIlo" width="480"></iframe><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">During my everyday doodling, up jumped a tune I first heard when I was 12---and not a lot since. It even took me a bit to place it. Slowed down, it really becomes quite elegant. This is George Harrison's first recorded and published song, "Don't Bother Me." He said he didn't think it was much, but I strongly disagree, as I've been playing it almost everyday these last few weeks. Thank you, George.</span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4706184547140963210.post-69400918107567318652021-10-29T12:59:00.008-07:002021-11-03T12:04:19.739-07:00Music for Dominic<iframe frameborder="0" height="270" src="https://youtube.com/embed/600KrxAmmP8" style="background-image: url(https://i.ytimg.com/vi/600KrxAmmP8/hqdefault.jpg);" width="480"></iframe><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana;">A morning prelude for Aug.8 --The Feast of St. Dominic.</span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4706184547140963210.post-29968548004842800992021-10-29T12:53:00.022-07:002022-01-13T10:22:09.756-08:00"The Joy You Bring" ( 1975)<iframe frameborder="0" height="270" src="https://youtube.com/embed/TmUWB46VPcE" width="480"></iframe> <div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;">"I sing just to know I am alive." (Nina Simone)</span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4706184547140963210.post-65979671562561766782021-10-29T12:52:00.005-07:002021-11-03T12:00:47.689-07:00"Winter Moon" (Year's End,1975)<iframe frameborder="0" height="270" src="https://youtube.com/embed/kJPW2ZcqRW8" width="480"></iframe><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: medium;"><i>My Christmas Card that year.</i></span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4706184547140963210.post-39835029161966454582021-10-29T12:48:00.021-07:002022-01-13T10:18:09.535-08:00In Lieu of Flowers I: "Dos Equis"/"Tres Equis" (1973)<iframe frameborder="0" height="270" src="https://youtube.com/embed/EG4UgxVZoHs" width="480"></iframe><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>This pretty much speaks of my time near the Mojave Desert. Pass that pipe, hombre...</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4706184547140963210.post-82879139881434511972021-10-29T12:47:00.004-07:002021-11-03T11:14:41.344-07:00In Lieu of Flowers II: "Desperate Flame" (1995)<iframe width="480" height="270" src="https://youtube.com/embed/zYl1DSacbtM" frameborder="0"></iframe>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4706184547140963210.post-76547569739344748392021-10-29T12:46:00.004-07:002021-11-03T11:16:42.402-07:00In Lieu of Flowers III: "Pavannes and Arabesques" (2005)<iframe width="480" height="270" src="https://youtube.com/embed/q9Po0Vjq6DU" frameborder="0"></iframe>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0