Feu Magnifique (Shuey, Michael Gabriel Edouard)

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 Complete Score
*#638006 - 0.70MB, 13 pp. -  0.0/10 2 4 6 8 10 (-) - !N/!N/!N - 51×⇩ - Shueymg

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Shueymg (2020/7/24)

Publisher. Info. Michael Gabriel Edouard Shuey Copyright Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 4.0 [tag/del] Misc. Notes fiery hand-over-hand arpeggios in a romantic style piano piece Purchase Javascript is required for this feature.

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My second and third year at the University, I studied under a new composition teacher, Jason Wampler as my first composition instructor, Mark Volker graduated in the spring of 1998. Jason was quite a bit different than Mark. He was very down-to-earth, and brought a sense of exploration to our composition sessions. He also continued my theory development. Almost at random he’d give a lesson on something I hadn’t learned before like the Octatonic scale. I always appreciated that I was never embarrassed or ridiculed for my gross gap in theory compared to the other students. Jason saw how much I loved playing around to make piano compositions. He challenged me to practice and complete one enough so that I could perform it at an upcoming composition recital with other students in the next quarter. I love a good challenge and I didn’t want to disappoint. I took a risk on committing to complete a piece that wasn’t even half done yet, but I loved its potential. I had a series of hand-over-hand runs, a style I practiced regularly as part of warm-ups. Adding in some full chords and filling in the runs with some up and down complexity, I came up with a “big” sound. In fact, “big” is what I called this piece for lack of a title for quite a while. Over a holiday break, I have written at the top of some of the original sheet music “big”, “big part deux” and “big part trois”, referring to the different sections of music. By the beginning of the Winter quarter, I had all the music sketched out (although it was never fully written into the computer until 2011!) and was intensely practicing.

The completed piece sounded very flashy with the runs, as well as very strong with some of the chord progressions. A somber middle section gave the piece some breathing room. The runs made me think of a whisking flame and the chords a crackling body. Looking at the hand written messages I wrote for whatever reason in French (I am half French after all!), I thought of the name “Feu Magnifique”, or Magnificant Fire only a few days before the scheduled recital date. Being half French as was Chopin, my piano idol, I felt a calling to not only have the title in French, but also some of the less standard music expressions. I was a little nervous performing this piece in front of a live audience of at least 50 people at the Cincinnati College Conservatory of Music composition recital. What a thrill. The acoustics between the top-of the line double-sided Steinway and the hall was a new experience. It was a source of confidence to me, as it made me sound “better than I was”. Jason also had one of his compositions, “Trane to Jordan”, a repetitive and layered locomotive train sound as a tribute to two of his idols, John Coltrane and Michael Jordan. It was quite catchy, and I still remember the melody. The recital was recorded and I received a copy. Dr. Zierolf was in attendance and Jason asked him what he thought of my piece. “He’s a piano player isn’t he?” “A little rough between the transitions, but interesting”. Being 3 years after my recital in his office as an entrance exam to take music classes, he must not have remembered me or made the connection, but I was proud that he didn’t slam the piece as being too amateur. Jason later graduated, moved to China and grew more into Electronic Program Compositions, with pieces such as his work with Ryan Ingebristen “We Can and We Must”.

Following my composition recital, this composition became a bit of a show piece. I went to an engineering school ENSMA in France for my 4th year of University. I joined in a talent day at school, where the engineering students showed off different talent. Everything from stand-up comedy to juggling was done for the faculty and other students. I played one of the Chopin Etudes along with this composition. It was a hit. There is a video recording of me, “Le American”, running down the audience isle in sun-glasses as a star before playing. Great fun. I continued to keep this piece in my repertoire during the next several years. Somewhat because I liked it and it was flashy, but also because I hadn’t finished all the arranging and getting into the computer and I would have felt feel terrible if I forgot it. Playing it from time to time is what kept my finger memory active. It wouldn’t be until 2011 until I first got it all into the computer music notation and continued arranging up to the time of this publication in 2020.