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Afraid of the Dark by Keith O. Edwards [Email]
Genre: Ragtime

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SONG STATS:
Hits: 720
Comments: 3
Votes: 2
Plays: 123
Last Played: Aug 25, 2008 - 10:36:07 AM
Downloads: 33
Fans: 0
Uploaded: Jul 04, 2006 - 04:11:49 PM
Last Updated: Jul 15, 2006 - 10:07:42 PM
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Keywords:
Ragtime (20), concert band (6), frenzy (3)
Description:
This was written in time for the Great Patriotic Holiday in the USA, and public television has been broadcasting images of outdoor concerts and fireworks. It seems to me that much of the music played has, like everything else, gone Hollywood and commercial, and I worry that America's musical heritage, perhaps the greatest of the world, may go the way of the buffalo.

What I hope to demonstrate here is what can be done using traditional American themes and riffs. The piece begins with the common syncopation that starts James P. Johnson's "Charleston," and ends with a familiar theme that everyone has heard but no one can name.

This took me about two weeks to write, and I was bellyaching that it took ten hours to devise the first strain, a mere 17 seconds of music. Still more hours were spent perusing a trombone slide-position chart to be certain that the smears (called glissandi in classical music) were playable. There was also difficulty choosing a suitable title. It originally went under the ungrammatical name "Reoccurring Nightmare," but then I noticed that Steve G. already has a fine piece here with the grammatically-correct title, "Recurring Dream." Other titles that followed are "Harlem Nightmare" (abandoned because I didn't want anyone reading a political meaning into it), "Louche," "Incubus Nightmare," "Night Terrors," "Jungle Nightmare," and "Manic-Depressive Rag & Two-Step." I favored this last one, because there really is a manic quality to the piece, but my trombone advisor at iBowTieBrass suggested that, for fear of causing offense, no band director would perform a piece with such a title. Ah, well, this is America, and one must conform.

As a sop to all the snobs who will post opprobrium below because I don't use a sound library, I have mixed the bass waaay up. For the rest of you, I hope that you think it sounds like the ghosts from an after-hours jam session under a sputtering carbon-arc lamp down a dark alley on a sweltering night in 1912.

Quiz time: How many key changes are there in this short piece? Name them.

The sheet music for this tune can be seen and played at my SibeliusMusic page.
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Great Stuff &mdash 07/04/06 - 06:00:09 PM
Music from an angry genius.. The guy doesn't know how good he is.. He is is own musician, and speaks with his own voice.. Do yourself a favor and listen to all his stuff.
There are people who think they are musicians because they've bought equipment. Instead, Edwards has taken the time and effort to develop a craft. That shows. The more attention you pay when you listen, the more you wll be rewarded.
The joy of it is that he doesn't kowtow to popular tastes (whatever those are.) The honesty and directness of the music is its strength.

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Full Disclosure &mdash 07/10/06 - 05:08:31 PM
Although I did not ask him to write the above review, I know Davis Gloff, and I last met him about three years ago after he had performed in a church. My guess is that he wrote the above review in response to my rather fulsome praise of his songs I posted at his page at MP3.com. (Although they really are clever songs.)

I was somewhat embarrassed by the above praise, and, while in liquor, I went back to his MP3.com page and said that a song of his was better than the Sermon on the Mount. (Let's see him top THAT!)

[ Reply to This ]
One of MacJams' Finest &mdash 07/16/06 - 10:14:42 PM
I'm just going to come right out and say that you're one of the finest composers here, and almost unquestionably the most familiar with traditional techniques and the works of all the major composers, and you utilize all this with excellent skills and creativity to produce excellent works of music. It really is a true tragedy that your music here often is passed over for flashy loop presentations.
Keep sharing your excellent craft. :)

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