How every chord change carries an emotional direction, and why that changes everything about how you write music. What the Wheel Is Few would dispute that the purpose of music is the emotion it gives to performer and audience. Fewer still would dispute that in tonal music, emotion is carried primarily by harmony. It follows, then, that harmony ought to be understood in felt terms; that a system of chords should also be a system of emotion. Traditional Western music theory has

A Meditation on Music and Meaning. In my studies of music, I have often heard and contemplated the question of “where does the meaning of...

Inspired by epic film scores, “Breakthrough” represents a new era of my composing style, fusing traditional and modern instruments and...

Even though the majority of my pieces are in the classical style, I also enjoy composing and performing jazz. I recently completed Winter...