Description of Submission:
This piece (for which I don't officially have a title for) is basically about my struggle, not only with 'coming out', but also with my own acceptance of who I am. This whole piece is an attempt to describe my inner conflict of accepting myself, through music. This piece is classically written for a piano duet. I try to describe my struggle in several different ways, from key relations and key central-ness, to rhytmic and melodic coloring.
The key of the piece at first glance is c minor, and at the beginning of the piece the Secundo (or bottom part) establishes this normal, or stereotypcial, key of c minor by playing just the tonic and dominate (the strongest two tones in any scale). This is meant to represent the generally accepted sexuality of people to be 'straight'. When the Primo (or top part) enters it seems to be in not major or minor, but f dorian (an old church mode). This is a key that sounds close to minor only it has a raised submediant (or 6th mode). This key is slightly different (although still related to) c minor and represents being 'gay'. These two keys sound very close (only with different tonal centers) and vary by only one scale degree, and this is meant to show how although 'gays' and 'staights' are different they are all human and all are really the same. In other words 'gays' and 'straights' have are same in every way except in one small hardly noticeable way (i.e. on scale degree differs).
When the Primo part enters it tells the listener that this piece is going to be a battle. The entire piece goes through with the secundo part pounding out the 'normal' key of c minor in the strongly set bass and up several octaves the primo part is playing in f dorian. The piece is broken up into three main sections (the first two repeat) and in each section there is a new battle between the two keys. The first section is basically the two keys introducing themselves and fighting for dominance over the other. In the second section the secundo part in the 'normal' key of c minor seems to have a slight advantage over the primo's f dorian. Several times the primo part plays the tonic chord f minor (the main chord in that mode that makes f sound like home-base) but this merely results in a quick uproar in the secundo part to ensure the 'normal' key of c minor. After sever attempts of th eprimo part of gain supremancy over the c minor the secundo part moves it's home-base to f, but not to f dorian but f minor. Kind of like a glimmer of hope that the primo's f dorian if finally accepted but the only difference is the secundo part insists on lowering the 6th scale degree. It's like the secundo part is saying 'if you're going to be on a different home key your going to do it like us.' The secundo part settles back down into the 'normal' c minor and the primo part once again plays in f dorian, and the struggle between the two keys starts again, like at the beginning. For a slight moment the secundo part seems to give in and accept f dorian, but when the primo part comes in, it is soon realized that the secundo part is merely imitating and mocking the primo's f dorian key center. Once again they both settle down into their respective keys and a huge sound of anger and tension ensues, with the f dorian scale winning over the c minor. At the very end the secundo part basically bangs any notes he/she wants (with in a certain spectrum). This final rush of confusion depicts the shattering of any and all key centers and is basically saying that there is no 'normal' anymore and that all keys can be accepted, and the last notes of the piece are firmly set in f and is my final acceptance of who I am.
From the above description of the piece, it is easy to see how the struggles that occur can be applied to describe my struggle of coming out and accepting myself. Writing this piece made me feel a lot better about who I am as a person and helped me to describe the tough time I went through to find who I am. I hope you have enjoyed this and I hope that this piece will help all people that go through their own acceptance to undertstand that there are others that have gone through the same thing and understand, and also that it is alright to be who you are.
Biography: Jeremy is in his second year attending Shenandoah University. He is majoring in music composition. In his spare time he likes to compose various music pieces.
Why Karen and Melody Liked It: We loved the way Jeremy used music to imitate the conflict and feelings of being gay. |
