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Info About the Music
My Country Tis of Thee was composed by Samuel Francis Scott and Lowell Mason. This is my arrangement of this piece. This might also be the very first piece I’ve written for piano and violin, though I don’t remember if I composed for that instrumentation before in college. In any case however, I had written out Christmas music for the Christmas Eve services for my church for the past couple of years, and, long story short, I wanted to also write something that my mother and I could play for my church for 4th of July. It is currently February 24th as I’m writing this and we’ve already finished rehearsing for it. This might be the earliest I’ve ever had a concert prepared.
My Country Tis of Thee starts off with both violin and piano playing. The piano only has bass lines in the left hand until the melody repeats itself. When it does, the violin drops out and the piano takes over, essentially playing the song in the style of a hymn.
From there, it goes into an original section of different melodies and chord progressions. The time signature in this section is mostly in 6/8 and the feel for this composition stays mostly the same to the rest of the composition. My Country Tis of Thee ends with the original melody (to the song).
Some Thoughts About Patriotic Music
“I believe in America. America’s made my fortune.” -Opening to the Godfather
(You can treat the above quote like a meme. I’m not sure if memes apply to this format, but I’m going with it anyway.)
A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about my composition, America the Beautiful. I’m going to continue this week with My Country Tis of Thee. Both of these compositions are going to be played at my church for the 4th of July service.
However, I’m not just writing these songs just for the church, I’m also doing it because I really like patriotic music for some reason. There’s something quite glorious about the chords and instrumentation being used in some of those songs.
I’m reminded right now of a recording I listened to on YouTube called Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition, which I believe was written to help morale during World War II.
Another example from a different time was from the Civil War song, When Johnny Comes Marching Home.
These might not be the most popular songs ever made, but they do strike a special chord with me for some reason. I’m not sure why. However, I will probably make an arrangement of When Johnny Comes Marching Home at some point.
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