My Music: TWILIGHT

The big field east of Pluckemin, NJ Sept 1971

This song was inspired by my walks from home to the upper end of the field seen above, where I liked to sit and watch the sunset, though the photo was taken on a cloudy day. It was a time to think about the day and about my life in general. It was written in September 1971 and recorded around 1978. Here’s the song: Twilight.

My original plan for Twilight was quite different. I had always had some interest in classical music, and in particular I liked choral music. My high school choir was quite good, and I regret that I never tried to join it, though I don’t know that I had the right kind of voice for that. After coming up with the idea for the song, I decided to try to write it as a choral piece for four voices, Soprano, Alto, Tenor, and Bass. I took books out of the library to study musical composition on my own, and eventually composed the choral piece and wrote it out on music paper, the first page is above. I showed it to the director of my high school choir, who I knew through mutual friends, and he went through it with me on a church organ. He had some suggestions, but didn’t seem enthused. When I heard it played, I was disappointed. Now I realize I didn’t have the knowledge or skill to write choral music. I could work out harmonies on my guitar, but didn’t even have a keyboard to play them all together, and didn’t have the piano skill for that anyway. Mostly what I was missing was the ability to give each voice something unique to sing, rather than just making chords. Discouraged, I gave it up, but later I recorded the above version with just my guitar and vocal. I still like it.

Twilight is © Todd Klein, all rights reserved.

The post My Music: TWILIGHT appeared first on Todd's Blog.