Melanie Anne Phillips

Photos from our recent trip to Crown Point & Vista House. (Click on picture to go to photo album on Facebook)

I like discord. That is to say, I enjoy composing music in which truly discordant harmonies are included in such a way the, in context, they are completely acceptable. This composition is one of my first experiments in discord, and I think it works pretty well. It's called "Jangle" not only because it is a jangly kind of music but because it is also intended to jangle the nerves.

I like writing themes. I remember recording this one some forty years ago. I was laying down this great melodrama villain theme I'd composed and then I got tired of playing it. In fact, I wanted to change the mood. So, rather than doing another separate recording, I just extemporized a completely contrasting melody to work agains the first part. Never revisted it, but decades later I began to wonder that if the first part was the villain, who did the second part represent? Having recently seen the animated cartoon "Despicable Me" with its not-so-evil villain who ends up being a foster dad, I originally thought it might be the villain's kid. But then I remembered the Simpson's episode in which Homer goes off chasing "dog with a fluffy tail", completely ignoring the fact he's just seen his own double for the first time! Those two animations made it pretty obvious this composition was about "The Villain and His Dog."

An upbeat little ditty, this piece is designed to go on forever by simply connecting the end to the beginning again. I've written quite a few circular songs over the years, but this was the first (and simplest) of the series. There's something comforting about a positive spin that will go on forever, just like movies that finish up the story and then show the characters starting a new identical quest all over again, giving us the sense that the adventure is "Endless".

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This composition struck me as the start of a quest, when the entire journey lies ahead and one begins with eager anticipation of adventures to come. Again, one of my innocent optimistic tunes from the 1970s when I was in my late teens. You know, I always hear full orchestration when I write these things, then just jot down the basic sketch and leave it at that. But try to hear the timpani and the French horn and the string section. If you can, I'll never have to bother multi-tracking it!