Accomplishing Goals (Part 8 of 9)

Another goal I had was to write music, particularly an oratorio. When I was sixteen, I had realized that no body had written yet an oratorio about the Prophet Joseph Smith. There was of course The Messiah, which Handel had written hundreds of years before. And in recent years there was An Oratorio from the Book of Mormon, which was written by LeRoy Robertson. I decided then and there, on December 23, 1977, that I needed to write one about Joseph Smith.
I started by selecting a group of scriptures from the Bible, the Book of Mormon, the Doctrine and Covenants, and the Pearl of Great Price. Then I started writing the melodies to each scripture. These I recorded by hand in a musical staff notebook. I felt that each melody was a musical revelation from the Lord. I felt that I needed to live my life accordingly to be able to receive such wonderful things from God. By the time I finished my Sophomore year of high school I had written the melodies for all the numbers. I was sick one day in the spring of 1978 and I took advantage of that time to put everything in the order that I wanted it.
The big task of harmonizing the melodies now occupied me. First I had to learn how to do that. I bought a very old book called Modern Harmony and studied it carefully. Over the next few years I worked off and on harmonizing and re-harmonizing the Joseph Smith Oratorio. I felt that I couldn’t tell anyone that I was working on it. I didn’t feel I could take any credit for it because it was like the Lord had given it to me. I took Music Theory my senior year in high school and that helped me immensely. I also increased in my piano playing skills so I could play what I had written. I had written all original music for our ward road show and it was neat to hear the music played on the piano by someone who could play it. My Grandpa Loveless had given me a special pen. It
was the kind that one dipped in ink and then it could make a five line music staff. This was a great addition to my Osmroid music writing fountain pen that I already had. By the time I had graduated from high school I had completed the harmonizations. Now all I had to do was to write it all out neatly which the choral parts and the piano accompaniment.