Kindred Spirits Music Analysis

Every year at CMEA, we play set of three songs and there’s a specific pattern to the set. In the pattern of the set, the second song is usually a ballad. This year, our ballad for the set is Kindred Spirits, composed by Brian Balmages. Kindred Spirits was composed for the Browning family after Nicholas Browning had murdered his family on November 1st, 2008. His mother, father and two younger brothers, Gregory and Benjamin, were all shot by Nicholas and passed away. Gregory and Benjamin were both percussionists at their school and their classmates wanted to play a song at their concert in memory of the Browning family, but their director had a different idea. Their director had the idea of having a song composed and dedicated just for them and …show more content…
Although the piece may not seem difficult, it can be challenging to make it sound just right, to the point where even the audience will feel something. Within the piece, there are many exposed parts that help represent the death of the Browning family. Each of these exposed parts must be played correctly in order to not only make the piece sound nice, but also to help share the feeling of grief and loss with the audience. Examples of this would be the chimes and singing where both of these parts represent the death of the family. There are four chime hits in the middle of the piece and each hit is supposed to represent each member of the family, the singing comes at the end of the piece which represents the voices of the family. Kindred Spirits also has parts within the piece where it has to be quiet, but we can’t play it too quiet to the point where nothing is being heard. Also, because of its softness, there is room for little to no mistakes in the piece since everything will be and has to be heard in order to make it sound beautiful and mysterious. These are just a few examples to show that Kindred Spirits actually has a high difficulty level if the goal is to play it nicely, like ours