Selected Compositions

For more information on obtaining or purchasing scores, please visit the following sites for more information:

APAKA Music

Rebel Frog Music

The Rebel Frog Series

The one and only original! Scored for 2 Marimbas, 2 Vibraphones, Bass, Percussion and Drum Set.  Performers are encouraged to expand on the written score and make each interpretation their own.  The title of the tune is an anagram, revealing the dedication. Check it our HERE

Part Two in the Rebel Frog Series, this time with a featured soloist!  Like A Maroon Hog’s Rebel Frog,  performers are encouraged to expand on the written score and make each interpretation their own. Scored for Glockenspiel, 3 Xylophones, 3 Marimbas, 2 Vibraphones, Bass, Percussion and Drum Set. Check it our HERE

  • The Shady Lady and the Rebel Frog, 2015

Part Three, featuring a musical seduction between the ensemble and a solo flautist.  Scored for Glockenspiel, 3 Xylophones, 3 Vibraphones, 4 Marimbas, Bass, Bass Drum, Drum Set and 3 Cajóns.  Expected premiere Fall 2015! Check out the video HERE!

The Christmas Special!  For when playing the same old standards just isn’t enough! Featuring renditions of “Little Drummer Boy”, “Joy to the World” and “Sleigh Ride” among others. Watch HERE!

Graphic Notation

Aggregate Remixes is a sonic collaboration designed to create music while working remotely and independent of one another, and also being able to use whatever “instruments” are at hand. Each performer records their own interpretation of a brief graphic score from a collection of 21 different scores, each designed to be 60″ in length. Then each performer takes the aggregate submissions and arranges them together into a new recording, selecting the order in which they’re heard and how they’re layered on top of each other. This results in multiple unique remixes of all the individual recordings. Each performer involved gets to take on the additional roles of interpreter, composer, arranger and producer.

  • Ashland, Oregon, 2016

Commissioned by percussionist Adam Lion and the Oregon Fringe Festival.  The score consists of a series of panels inspired by and depicting different areas of Ashland.  Performers are encouraged to respond to the score utilizing any aural or visual means they deem appropriate.  Only the following rules need be adhered to:

  • Begin at the central compass rose; perform a deliberate act
  • Keep to the brick pathways
  • Only move on when you come to the edge
  • Don’t be too literal
  • When enough time has passed, finish at the beginning

  • Contactual Constellations, 2014

For 2- 6 players, Contactual Constellations features graphic musical scores manufactured onto bass drum heads, played upon by the performers, captured in real time and projected for the audience.  See the scores HERE!

“Seeing the musical score, while hearing it being played, and, in real-time, getting to follow along visually to see how the artists interpret the score is an amazing experience for the audience,” – Terry Longshore

For any number of players on unspecified instruments. Abraham Remixed is based on the words spoken during a conversation between God and Abraham as presented in the first verse of Bob Dylan’s Highway 61 Revisited.  The scores are meant in inspire a structured improvisation. Check out the score HERE   Check out Video HERE

  • Seventy Years of a Broken Heart, 2012

Seventy Years of a Broken Heart is a large graphic score composed on a single 56′ long scroll of rice paper for narrator and indeterminate instrumentation; any number of players.  The line of text written straight down the middle is embellished by, and inspires the the undefined graphic notation surrounding it.  To create the text, one sentence was taken from a prominent “love song” from each of the preceding 70 years of popular music.  When strung together, they create a strange narrative of longing that also traces the evolution of song lyrics from “As Time Goes By” to “Call Me Maybe”. Check out a few excerpts HERE!  Or Check out a scrolling video of the entire score HERE!

  • Three Movements for Recital Hall, 2012

Written specifically for the recital hall at Southern Oregon University, Three Movements for Recital Hall makes use of the variety of curtains, doors and the orchestra pit to turn the hall itself into an instrument. Check out the scores here!

Small Ensemble

“G5MTME” takes a different look at the dynamic between soloist(s) and the accompanying ensemble. The percussion sextet provides a strictly notated melodic and rhythmic canvas for the soloists to interact with. Meanwhile, the soloists are given minimal direction from me. They are instructed to choose a set of 9 instruments based on vague descriptions of their sonic qualities. Their only further direction is how many sounds to play during a given section of the piece. Placement, dynamic, duration, etc… are at their discretion. The accompanying sextet surveys some of my favorite compositional ideas and aesthetics that I’ve encountered during my time at SOU and beyond including Steve Reich, John Bergamo, John Cage, Frank Zappa and Mark Applebaum. This work was commissioned to celebrate the 50th Anniversary of the sister university relationship between Southern Oregon University and the University of Guanajuato. Check out a live performance HERE.

Written for Tyler Willoughby and Joseph Howe, “Whiskey Variations” utilizes a combination of traditional and graphic notation along with a spoken word narration to reimagine the traditional Irish song, “Whiskey in the Jar”.  The percussionists use a wide variety of instruments to create a reactive sonic landscape that the narration wades through during the verses, contrasting with the tight, complex unison of the choruses. Check out a sample of the score HERE

  • X @ Y for Z, 2013

X(duration) @ Y(bpm) for Z(number of players)

For 1, 2, 3, 5 or 8 players, depending on the movement. The instrumentation of the piece is open. The rhythms are meant to be interpreted at the player’s discretion, using any number of instruments, of any kind. This can also include melodic instruments. However, if multiple melodic instruments are heard at the same time, kindly play in the same key. Or don’t. Think of the written page as a sort of coloring book, where as long as you stay “within the lines” of the rhythm; the timbres, pitches and to a degree, articulation, are free for interpretation.  The individual pieces can be presented as a whole, separately or in any other combination.

  • Ahsek, 2013

Written for percussion trio,  Ashek is constructed utilizing rhythms from a variety of hit songs by Kesha.  Orchestrated for similar medium sized percussion set-ups, the rhythms are realized overlapping at different speeds to create a very danceable yet complex rhythmic landscape.

  • Midnight by the Rogue, 2012/2015

A percussion quintet written in the style of Lou Harrison.  Different rhythmic motives and tihais are interpreted at different speeds, intersecting and colliding before finally resolving in the big finish.

Large Ensemble

For multiple large crystal singing bowls performed in an interactive fashion with crowd participation.  Best served outdoors.

  • Four Movements for Carl Sagan, 2015

For SATB choir and percussion quartet (2 Vibraphones, 2 Marimbas and Bass Drum).  A four movement work based on the Carl Sagan quote “If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe”.  Each brief movement emphasizes a different section of the text, and explores different rhythmic and textural ideas utilizing short melodic fragments.