Welcome

I'd like to inaugurate this blog with a sincere welcome to friends new and old, and so I will: welcome to you all!

For those of you who happened upon this blog by chance or referral (and not because I know you personally and insisted you read it), I should briefly introduce myself. I'm Killian, and I live in Huntington Beach, California. I've loved and played all sorts of music (particularly baroque) and video games (particularly fighting) since my childhood, and this blog will be focused on the former.

I've established this blog mostly for the purpose of having a medium through which I might write in greater detail about a music project I'll be launching in the coming weeks. On 10-26-2009, Domenico Scarlatti's 324th birthday, I plan to post on YouTube a collection of 30 of my own sonatas, more in his honor than in this style. Some of you may already have guessed that I chose 30 to coincide with Scarlatti's Essercizi per gravicembalo, a famous collection of 30 sonatas published some 268 years ago and surely far superior to mine in every conceivable way. And like Scarlatti, though undoubtedly more appropriate to me than to him, I want to admonish all prospective listeners and players to take the sonatas for what they are, so to speak -- that is, I'd like for everyone to keep in mind that my meager submissions to the musical world are always written entirely in the interest of fun and entertainment, and neither for the sake of educating nor moving anyone in any profound sort of way. I can say sincerely that if even a single person should derive any kind of entertainment from playing or listening to anything I've written, I'll already have accomplished what I set out to do. (And if I should hear that someone has actually learned from or been moved in any way by what I've written, I think I'll be equally moved myself!)

In my first post beyond this introductory entry, I'll give a bit of history concerning the 30 sonatas, which I pulled from the 157 sonatas I've finished to date. Some were selected for specific reasons (Sonata No. 1, for instance, really was the first sonata I ever wrote, and seemed appropriate to open the set), but most were selected randomly. The final sonata in Scarlatti's Essercizi per gravicembalo is actually a fugue. In keeping with this spirit, I wrote a fugue to close my set of 30 as well.

My plan following the release of the initial 30 sonatas is to continue presenting more sonatas on YouTube and writing about them here in the coming months and years. This is something I'll be happy to do if I find that there's interest in the first 30. I might release more in big batches until all the current sonatas are posted, and then maybe write and make available a new one each week thereafter.

Before closing, I want to thank you, the reader, for your interest, at least inasmuch as you've taken the time to read this, and I invite you to follow the development of this project, send criticism, send suggestions, and even send praise if you find anything worthy. Your care will fuel my desire to share. I also want to thank those close personal friends without whose encouragement, persistence, nagging, etc., I may never have resolved to create this page at all.

My proudest hope for this project is that it ends up mutually entertaining for you, the listeners/readers, and me, and I'm excited to get the ball rolling and see what happens. Thank you all again for reading, and remember:

Vivi felice!