The Art of Courage

About

I composed The Art of Courage in June 2018. My intention was to create a prelude-like piece that would be ideal to begin a recital with. It therefore needed to be immediately capturing and engaging, without putting too much technical strain on the guitarist.

The piece begins with a series of slow and expressive chords. The highest voice has additional passing notes, which allows it to stand out as an expressive melody. The striking nature of this section is largely due to the combination of triadic transformation and ninth chords. A simple yet memorable pentatonic-based motif pops up in the middle of the initial chord section, and it is then reworked to form the basis of the piece’s second section. The other component of the second section is a flowing melody consisting entirely of triplets. Its highest note is a raised 9th, which creates a unique and tense atmosphere. After the first section is restated in a new key, a third section enters. Unlike the first two sections, it has a simple polyphonic texture, and the melody is predominantly syncopated. A more elaborate version of the second section emerges from the third, and then the piece is concluded with a short coda that is based on the opening chords.