These nine pieces for the piano are based on Anglican psalm chants. I have an Anglican Psalter with 242 chants – goodness knows where I got it from! – and each of these piano pieces is based on one or two chants from the psalter chosen at random. I hope I don’t get sent to hell for wrecking the chants! I can’t remember which chant I used for what as I’m totally disorganized and and have long abandoned any semblance of organization.
At first, since they were based on something religious, I called them after the monastic Liturgy of the Hours: Matins, Lauds, Vespers, Compline, etc. There were eight traditional prayer times, and then I wrote another piece and there were 9 pieces and only 8 liturgical prayer Hours! So I thought what the heck and named them after the hours of the day. The pieces really having nothing to do with the hours of the day and nothing to do with the Liturgy of the Hours, but things have to have some order!
I was pretty familiar with the Anglican chants as when I was a “monk” and everything changed from Latin to English we didn’t have much in the way of music to sing the Liturgy of the Hours (aka Divine Office) in English so we “pinched” the music from the Anglicans! Anyway, all I know now is that these 9 piano pieces have absolutely nothing to do with the hours of the day, nothing to do with the monastic Liturgy of the Hours, and nothing to do with the Anglican psalmody except I started out by stealing the psalmodies’ harmonies!
Here they are!
- 4 am: Audio HERE, sheet music HERE.
- 6 am: Audio HERE, sheet music HERE.
- 8 am: Audio HERE, sheet music HERE.
- 10 am: Audio HERE, sheet music HERE.
- 12 noon: Audio HERE, sheet music HERE.
- 2 pm: Audio HERE, sheet music HERE.
- 4 pm: Audio HERE, sheet music HERE.
- 6 pm: Audio HERE, sheet music HERE.
- 8 pm: Audio HERE, sheet music HERE.
Weave a Web 
The evening offerings are the best, with the exception of the first.
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Thank you Catxman – appreciated.
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My top 3 are…
I like 2pm the best
I like 10am because it’s different…a little choppy.
I also like 4am
You were inspired that day!
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Once again, thanks for listening Max. You comments made me go back and listen to them again! I “think” I agree with your selection, although I gravitate to the first one (4 am). And also the second to last one (6 pm) probably because it’s simpler – and was the extra one I wrote at the end. One day I might do some more based on the Anglican chants, but each chant is only 4 bars long and fairly limited in range – so I think that casts a “squareness” over the piano pieces.
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What you based them on works well. What is amazing is that you wrote them close together and they don’t sound alike plus the quality is there.
I still go back to 10am…I like that one alot.
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I got the difference in sound (I shouldn’t give these secrets away) by googling such things as “exotic foreign rhythms” etc and then messing about with that rhythm and the chant harmonies! And these are the results!
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It doesn’t matter how you get there…as long as you get there…that is awesome when you mix.
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Yes 4am is definitely too lively for that time of day! I enjoyed all of these but 2pm is my favourite.
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I’m like that at 4 in the morning! All excited about the coming day! By 2 in the afternoon I have wilted (like a beautiful flower).
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