James Huneker, a critic with the New York Courier, wrote about the impact of Brahms’ music on him: Brahms dreams of pure white staircases that scale the infinite. A dazzling, dry light floods his mind, and you hear the rustling of wings – wings of great terrifying monsters; hippogrifs of horrid mien; hieroglyphic faces, faces […]

Abram Chasins visited Rachmaninoff in Hollywood: Arriving at the designated hour of twelve, I heard an occasional piano sound as I approached the cottage. I stood outside the door, unable to believe my ears, Rachmaninoff was practising Chopin’s étude in thirds [G sharp minor, Op. 25, No. 6], but at such a snail’s pace that […]

Don’t dash off a six-thousand-word story before breakfast. Don’t write too much. Concentrate your sweat on one story, rather than dissipate it over a dozen. Don’t loaf and invite inspiration; light out after it with a club, and if you don’t get it you will none the less get something that looks remarkably like it. […]

Title: Cry out with joy and gladness Text: Isaiah 12:2-6 Composer: Greg Smith Instrumentation: SATB and piano (unison verses) Product medium: PDF score and part SAMPLE:    

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Title: Abstraction III Composer: Greg Smith Instrumentation: Trombone and piano Product medium: PDF score and part SAMPLE:

Language is at its most powerful when it disturbs, not by arriving at insights/understandings, but by creating possibilities. – Thomas Ogden T. Ogden, Reveries and Interpretations: Sensing Something Human, Lanham, Roman & Littlefield, 2004, p. 219.

"I would rather write 10,000 notes than one letter of the alphabet."' Beethoven.  Letter, 28 November 1820.  Cited in: Kelly, Henry & Foley, John (1998) Classic FM: Musical Anecdotes.  London: Hodder & Stouhgtan, p.68.

Title: Big Business (silent film soundtrack) Composer: Greg Smith Instrumentation: Piano Product medium:PDF score (31 pages) BACKGROUND: Film:     Directors: James W. Horne & Leo McCarey     Starring: Stan Laurel & Oliver Hardy     Year of release: 1929     Synopsis: Two salesmen are trying to sell Christmas trees in california. The customers, however, are not so keen. Who would […]

“It is a mark of soulfulness to be present in the here and now. When we are present, we are not fabricating inner movies. We are seeing what is before us.” – John Bradshaw (1992) Creating Love: The Next Great Stage of Growth.  United States: Bantam Books, p.127.