Thoughts and Prayers

Introduction

In March of 2022, I applied to Dr. Timothy Mahr's CURI program Sounding Our Times: Composing a Musical Response to Today's Challenges. I had been discussing composing a double concerto with him for several months at that point outside of the research program, but the idea for the main theme of the piece wavered from intertwined sculptures to a piece entitled "If the dead could speak, what would they say" about minimizing death in the future. I actually had planned to tune the entire saxophone section down to 427.5Hz for the beginning of the piece, but thankfully decided against it. After being accepted into this CURI program, this piece is what evolved into Thoughts and Prayers.

For the first half of the program, I was incredibly torn on what topic to write about. The goal of the project is to write a work for band that "will be a personal expression in response to some aspect of the major issues confronting our existence. " There are so many atrocities happening in the world that I was having a very hard time just picking one. But, after seeing massacre after massacre on TV and in the news, I knew I had no real choice but to respond to this massive endemic our country is facing. So, I turned my focus onto gun violence, and how we as a country respond to it. There is a terrible cycle emerging of a shooting followed by an increasingly shorter response. The more and more that these shootings happen, the easier it is to forget about them as we are bombarded with constant news of horrific massacres causing us to be desensitized to the issues at hand. News of a shooting is no longer a surprise but almost a given.

I worked full-time for 10 weeks during the summer, meeting once a week with solely Dr. Mahr and once a week with both the other researcher Louis Dhoore and Dr. Mahr. These meetings helped me brainstorm and refine my ideas and shift them from focusing solely on political corruption to gun violence. I was having a very difficult time writing darker music, and a a vast majority of what I was churning out was lukewarm at best. Both Louis and Dr. Mahr helped me come to terms with being in the right headspace and getting the motivation to write the material I needed for this piece. Without them, it would've been a completely different piece.

Closing Symposium

At the end of the 10-week research period, I presented my progress along with many other researchers at a closing symposium. At the time, I had only finished about 60% of the piece given that it didn't need to be actually finished until March, so I put what I envisioned for the end of the piece on the poster. Given that this was an atypical research project, I struggled with what content to put on the poster, but decided to focus on the challenges, tools, and process in addition to the actual material.

photos by Steven Garcia, 2022

The Piece Structure and Details

Numbing of Our Society

This section portrays society's desensitization, where the normalcy of conflict becomes so routine it is numbing. It is depicted through alternating periods of intense conflict and an insidious, almost tranquil return to daily life. This is musically represented by harsh, discordant sounds with stacked minor 7th chords in the brass, frantic electronic woodwind as buzzing responses, and sarcastic elevator music to heavily contrast the ongoing conflict.

Soprano’s Lament

The soprano's voice emerges, recounting the aftermath of these events. It brings a lyrical, consonant melody to the fore, over an uneasy piano ostinato. The instrumentation is sparse, with other instruments gradually joining in harmony with the soprano's melody. However, this lament is soon interrupted by the tenor, suggesting an unresolved dialogue.

Societal Conflict

This part of the composition embodies the discord of society. Each side attempts to voice their perspective, increasingly trying to overpower the other. They neglect the other voices, descending into a cacophony that symbolizes the peak of conflict. Musically, this is represented by frequent time signature and meter changes, constant timbre shifts, and intense passages where the soprano and tenor melodies clash, amplifying the tension.

Tenor’s Lament

Here the tenor then gets a chance to express its narrative without the soprano's influence. It brings a different texture to the piece, with larger intervals in the melody that symbolize its newfound freedom. The harmony is dark but warm, with a saxophone section and a recurring piano/harp theme that brings a sense of introspection.

Breaking the Cycle

In this pivotal section, the soprano and tenor reconcile their differences and collaborate, indicating a slow but determined effort to break the cycle of violence. The music revisits themes from the conflict sections but shows a progression as the woodwind response extends and adapts material from both the soprano and tenor, suggesting a unified direction.

Picking Up the Pieces

Finally, both voices come to an understanding. They begin to discern the possibility of harmony despite their differences. This progress towards resolution is expressed musically as the soprano and tenor share portions from each other's melodies, and the once lost chord remains unresolved, yet the overall tension and dissonance from earlier sections are noticeably absent, indicating a cautious optimism for the future.