I thought about doing something with another hymn tune today — the one I had in mind was Be Thou My Vision, which is one of my favorites. And it would have satisfied the Celtic requirement from Andy’s request, because it’s an Irish tune. But when I started playing around with it, I found that what I was doing sounded a little too much like the piece from Day 8, so I figured I’d better go in a different direction just to keep my mind clear (and boy, is that ever a full-time job! 😉 ).

But I still had Be Thou My Vision in the back of my mind as I came up with a little melody that uses some of the same intervals and has that slightly pentatonic feel. I veered off into minor territory, though. Before I knew it, I had come up with something that skirts dangerously close to being minimalist, which goes against my academic training (yikes! they’re gonna take away my Composer Card! 😛 ). I threw a bit of a monkey wrench in it, though — albeit a pretty one, I think. Such is my wont. 🙂

This is for string quartet, and it has a nice big viola solo in it, in honor of my friend Ralph and my friend Dirk. I think it’s also a bit elegiac-sounding, in honor of VirgoMom.

The MIDI violins start to sound like oboes to me after awhile, so if you prefer to think of it as 2 oboes, viola and cello, that’s cool.

Click play to listen:

[audio:http://missmusicnerd.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/audio/SevenYearsAgoToday.mp3|titles=Seven Years Ago Today]

Thanks for listening!