Richard composed miniature musical sketches, based on the names of our grandneices and grandnephews. There are many ways to translate words into music. One approach is to assign each letter of the musical alphabet (A - G) with all the letters in the alphabet. Maurice Ravel used a German model for this, using the German system, where B natural is ‘H’ and B is B flat. The rest of the alphabet lines up as seen in the chart below.
Using the letters from the full names, I determined the pitches to be used for each name. The unique character of each musically encrypted name inspires the style and historical influence of each miniature composition.
KEY file - shows names in music notation
MOVIE file - tracks the names in a movie of the score as it is performed. You can see the names in the score as they are performed. Playback will sound best through headphones or good speakers, such as a home theater system.
