Wedding Music

Music for your own celebration

Wailea Wedding Music

Wailea Wedding Music was commissioned for a ceremony at a chapel on the Hawaiian island of Maui in 1999. To compose the Processional music, I used the birthdates of both the bride and groom to generate numerical ratios and corresponding musical intervals. After a fanfare, the groom's theme opens the piece with his birthdate-pitches. The second theme, based on the bride's birthdate, was orchestrated to accompany her as she walked the aisle. For the Recessional, played as the newlyweds walked together from the altar, I followed a similar procedure to generate a single theme based on their wedding date.

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Continuants

"Continuants" is a term linguists use to describe sounds in any language produced by a continuous exhalation of breath. In English, for example, the vowels as well as nasalized consonants like "m" are all continuants.

In ancient Sanskrit the "Om" chant is composed of continuants, gliding from the vowel sound ÒahÓ through the vowels "o" and "u," to culminate in the lip closure of m.

This piece of music comprises four repititions of the Om syllable. The pitches and rhythms are derived from a series of numbers provided by my friends Tom and Linda: dates, addresses and other numbers which are personally meaningful to them. "Continuants" is the wedding music I composed for them, with best wishes for their continued life together.

Listen to an excerpt...

Commissions

To find out more about a personalized composition for your own wedding or other cermony, please e-mail me at gm@handprintseries.com.