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 Except for this composition, few songs prominently feature a typewriter. In fact, there are, by now, a generation or two of “youngsters” who have never touched or seen a “real” typewriter. I only dreamed when I was the only male in a class of “girls” taking typing at Huntsville High School (1968-1969) how well my 80+ wpm typing-speed would serve me in my college, life, career, and life-after-career.
I became aware of The Typewriter when, a number of years ago, I purchased the pictured volume of Leroy Anderson piano solos. By that time, I already played and likely recorded another of his well-known compositions, Sleigh Ride. Leroy Anderson wrote many pieces that became popular favorites, with many featured by Arthur Fiedler and the Boston Pops Orchestra. The Typewriter has been on the list of pieces I wanted to record since discovering it.
The piano solo arrangement had no included percussion / typewriter notation (that I needed and wanted). I listened to several online recordings and wished to find an easier way to obtain the notation than by transcribing it myself. Free legitimate versions of notation for the piece are not found readily… I found that I could purchase the entire orchestral score for $65; but, I wished to find a less expensive solution to obtain the typewriter / percussion parts. After more searching, I found that I could (and, did) purchase notation for the typewriter / percussion parts for $2. That’s my kind of deal — big-spender that I am… I used this store-bought notation to augment my re-instrumentation of the solo-piano version of the piece.
The typewriter sounds I used are ones that I found online and trimmed, cut-apart, and placed in-time into the recorded arrangement. Because each typewiter-key strike, bell, and carriage-return are discrete soundbites, I was able to arrange them in-time so that the piece’s tempos could fluctuate and breathe without losing synchronization with the typewriter audio/MIDI. All the sounds that are not typewriter are my Kurzweil PC3K8, using the 21st revision of the custom synthesizer program that I created (then, the 11th revision) for 2013’s Christmas At The Keyboard project.
I hope that you enjoy my version.
 This year, my Christmas music-project is my selection of your and my favorite songs and carols from previous Christmas projects, 2007-2014. I have included all recordings made by Roberta Silva and me since the first volume of “Memories of Christmas” (2006).
Each of these songs has a rich history. Some of these I will later share. The only new performance for this year had been intended to be a medley that included “Silent Night” and “Adeste Fidelis.” However, 2007’s “Christmas Fantasia” project also includes both of these songs. David Lowe’s included organ arrangement, “Prelude, Fugue, and Toccata on Adeste Fidelis” features the piece again. It seemed that a third arrangement of “Adeste Fidelis” in this year’s project would have been excessive. This recording will wait its turn in an upcoming year’s project.
The included arrangement of the “Hallelujah Chorus” for brass and strings is by me. It is also from 2007. I was never pleased with certain aspects of the 2007 version. So, the 2015 Christmas season, I placed the work back onto the potter’s wheel and gave it a re-spin. Now, in 2017, I’m thinking about throwing it back onto the wheel and giving it another spin… Please stay tuned.
Without hesitation I will say that my favorite piece in this group is the last one, Roberta’s 2008 recording of “Some Children See Him.” I transcribed Dave Grusin’s arrangement of this and “In The Bleak Midwinter” from the “James Taylor At Christmas” CD. I hope that you find the piece and Roberta’s beautiful performance as emotionally moving as I do.
Merry Christmas & Season’s Greetings from Stan Owen, Jr. and Creative Minds’ Music.
Click on the mp3 player to play
| Title |
mp3 Audio |
Composer |
| In The Bleak Midwinter |
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Harold Edwin Darke, arr. Dave Grusin |
| Christmas Fantasia |
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Various, arr. Carl F. Mueller |
| O, Little Town Of Bethlehem |
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Lewis Henry Redner, arr. Harold DeCou |
| Do You Hear What I Hear |
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Gloria Shayne Baker, arr. S. Owen, Jr. |
| Carol Of The Drum |
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Katherine Kennicott Davis, arr. Harold DeCou |
| Go Tell It On The Mountain |
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Traditional, arr. Harold DeCou |
| I Wonder As I Wander |
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John Jacob Niles, arr. S. Owen, Jr. |
| Sleigh Ride |
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Leroy Anderson |
| Willy Evergreen |
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John Von Spreckelsen, arr. S. Owen, Jr. |
| Hallelujah |
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George Frideric Handel, arr. S. Owen, Jr. |
| Prelude, Fugue, and Toccata on Adeste Fidelis |
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John Francis Wade, arr. David Lowe |
| Some Children See Him |
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Alfred Burt, arr. Dave Grusin |
Funeral March of a Marionette
(…in my best Alfred Hitchcock voice) “Good Evening… Tonight, we share the story of an unfortunate marionette who died in a duel. There are exclamations of grief and great sadness by the marionettes and puppets who are part of his troupe.
The funeral procession begins, but is interrupted when the principal participants abandon the procession for libations. Eventually, their period of refreshment ends, the procession resumes and eventually concludes. Everyone then solemnly makes their way home.”
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The first version of “Funeral March of a Marionette” was written by Charles Gounod around 1872 and was originally published as a piano piece. It was part of a never-published suite that was intended to mock a then-living, little-regarded-by-Gounod-and-others music-critic. Because the critic died before the suite could be published, the March was extracted from the suite and was first published as “Funeral March of a Marionette.” Later (1879), Gounod arranged the piece for the orchestral instruments heard in this recording.
The Funeral March has been recorded many times over the years, including an early recording by John Philip Sousa. However, it likely gained it’s largest exposure as the opening and closing theme, arranged by Bernard Hermann for Alfred Hitchcock Presents (1955-1962) and the Alfred Hitchcock Hour (1962-1965). Hermann featured two short arrangements of the March as the show’s opening and closing theme. The most remembered of these versions is an 8-bassoon arrangement.
I searched for free or online-for-sale versions of the Hermann score(s), but was unable to find them. I began to think that this would be another piece that I would be forced to transcribe. I ordered a 2-CD set containing Hermann’s scores from the Alfred Hitchcock Hour. To do the transcription, I ordered and obtained the CD containing the show’s opening and closing themes. Unfortunately, the versions of the March that are on the CD, at 30 seconds, each, do not contain enough of the composer’s original four minute and a half content. For me, it was “back to the drawing board” for this project…
After additional searching, I found Gounod’s orchestral score available on one of my favorite online resources: the International Music Score Library Project. IMSLP shares music scores that are in the public domain. An unbelievable amount of content is available from them, online.
The Funeral March score includes parts for flute, piccolo, English horn, clarinet, bassoon, tympani, bass-drum, triangle, french-horn, trumpet, trombones, ophicleide (predecessor of the modern-day tuba), violins I & II, viola, cello, and bass-violin. I played and recorded each one of these separately, one at a time, while listening to the ones I’d already recorded. Additional tweaking almost certainly occurred…
I hope that you enjoy my rendition (above).
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