Today’s big winner is….. Makoto Ozone!
Have a listen to some music I finished today:
It’s called “A Joyful Adventure.” I wrote it after listening to this enlightened set of variations by Makoto Ozone:
This is Yoshi, a Japanese pianist, performing Ozone’s funky arrangement of Chopin’s Waltz no.7. What Ozone did to this waltz was brilliant, such a lovely mix of jazz with romantic.
Ozone’s treatment of Chopin put me in a jazzy mood, and helped free my mind from the rut of writer’s block that creeps up on me from time to time. After listening to this a number of times, I felt very creative. I wanted to play around with these jazzy colors, so I wrote the music above as an homage to Ozone. And by homage, I mean I totally stole his mojo.
Play the video starting at 3:17, and you will hear the rhythm I lifted from Ozone. I wanted to take that exact soundscape and make it my own, to write something as tasty as possible.
Of course, once I started down that road my project quickly morphed into something new, something that doesn’t feel like stealing at all. The music packs its own flavor of punch. It’s got something new to say.
By the way, I was also listening to some Gershwin while writing this music, and wouldn’t you know it, some of his mojo got sponged up into my music as well.
Who will I steal from tomorrow?… Only time will tell.
By the way, this music is based very loosely on Mazurek Dobrowskiego, the Polish national anthem. It is also the final section of my 2nd piano sonata, which you can listen to in its entirety here.