Music

I fly out to Utah tomorrow for my mother's funeral.

Music has long been an important part of my spirituality: the song of the heart really has been a major form of prayer for me, as the scripture says. Ever since I was young, I've been composing—really amateur stuff, since I'm mostly self-taught as a musician. Mostly religious songs. Won an Honorable Mention or two in the New Era music contest, actually, in my young teens. Between 1997 and 2004, I did quite a bit of composing for the guitar, which was important to me as a way to keep engaging with texts from LDS scripture after coming out.

I've composed hardly anything since I've been in graduate school, until just recently. I'm posting here two things I've composed in the past couple of months, as a way to cope with my mother's decline and death. Just sheet music, I'm afraid (PDF files), no recordings—I don't know how to do that. The songs are inspired by the Taize style of music: a simple verse, often taken from scripture, sung over and over as a kind of meditation.

Take her home (Alma 40:11-12) - PDF
We shall declare (D&C 133:52-53) - PDF