One Page Pieces Project
COVID-19 came to the United States on March 12, 2020, and on that date all public gatherings were shut down for fear of spreading the virus for which no one had natural immunity. As a response to that and less than a week later, Adam threw out the following challenge to composers and non-composers alike, to create piano works that would fit on one page and express how they were feeling in the moment. He posted 38 scores on a dedicated YouTube channel called One Page Pieces that lives on today, and posted the videos and images of the scores on Facebook as well. Here is his original Facebook post:
Like everyone else out there, I’m looking at weeks, if not months, of time alone in my apartment. Concerts are canceled or postponed, festivals up in the air, and the collaborative nature of our work has become intensely more challenging.
To fight the anxiety and depression, I invite anyone to create a one-page piece of music and submit it to me either via facebook or at onepagepieces@gmail.com. You do NOT need musical training to create this.
This can be notated music for piano and/or voice, melodica, toy piano, synthesizer, accordion, or whatever else I find around my house.
If you want to create a page of instructions instead of notated music, that’s great.
If you want to make a graphic score for me to interpret, that’s great too.
This can be for musicians/non-musicians alike, and anyone at any age or stage of training.
Let’s just make something and share it with each other and not worry about good/bad.
One page. Do something with it. You can do something different with it tomorrow if you want.
Whatever it is, I’ll do my very best to realize it and send you a video of your creation as I interpret it. Perhaps that’s enough, but if you want to share it, I’ll post the video and/or the submitted score with your consent.
There’s no right or wrong, good or bad. There’s just creation and response. We all need this. Thank you and hope this brings you some joy and/or distraction.
To view some of the more interesting scores, click here.
Here are a few of the pieces: