<![CDATA[ANTHONY LUIS SANCHEZ: Composer and Musicologist

<![CDATA[ANTHONY LUIS SANCHEZ: Composer and Musicologist - Blog]]>Wed, 04 Mar 2026 14:06:04 -0800Weebly<![CDATA[On the Legacy of Independence (2026)]]>Mon, 02 Mar 2026 08:00:00 GMThttps://www.anthonyluissanchez.com/blog/on-the-legacy-of-independence-2026

for piano and (optional) narrator

Music by Anthony L. Sanchez (b. 1988)

Copyright © 2026 by ZEKE SPILLED INK MUSIC (ASCAP), Savannah, GA

Video created by the composer using Microsoft Clipchamp video editor- "Black and White" filter and text applied with fading effects

Not made with A.I.

Text by Thomas Jefferson, Public Domain

Photograph by Maria G. Sanchez- Taken at Wormsloe State Historic Site in Savannah, GA in 2011

VST playback via MuseScore 4 Score

Recording and score available for purchase on Patreon: www.patreon.com/posts/on-legacy-of-151553495

Program Notes:

I created On the Legacy of Independence (2026) shortly after reading the book 1776 by the historian David McCullough (1933-2022). My piece functions as a commemorative reflection on the 250th anniversary of the signing of the “Declaration of Independence” and the formation of the United States in 1776 during the American Revolution (1775-1783). The process behind writing On the Legacy of Independence originally began with ideas that I eventually discarded in favor of going in another direction. My early attempts focused on setting the entire “Declaration of Independence” by Thomas Jefferson to music and including quotations from popular songs from the era: most notably, “Free America,” which used the same tune as “The British Grenadiers.” After realizing that such attempts would prove distracting or had been overdone by other musicians and composers, I concentrated instead on the following excerpt from Jefferson’s historical document:

… We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness….

I initially wanted to apply this text musically by turning it into an art song for voice and piano. I later decided against that idea and transformed the syllabic and rhythmic contents from the textual fragment from the “Declaration of Independence” as a “song without words” for solo piano or a composition for piano and optional narration (I present the words in the score as italicized segments for context). The piece also includes moments throughout where I rhythmically and harmonically set the word “independence” like a fanfare and feature rhythmic patterns in the lower registers of the piano to sound like drums. In framing On the Legacy of Independence in that way, I avoid romanticizing colonial American history. My work underscores the gravity and significance in understanding that the “Declaration of Independence” had been written during war with Great Britain and serves as a reminder of the necessity for democracy in our own trying and uncertain contemporary times.

]]><![CDATA[Mardi Gras from Two Perspectives]]>Thu, 29 Jan 2026 08:00:00 GMThttps://www.anthonyluissanchez.com/blog/mardi-gras-from-two-perspectivesMardi Gras functions as part of the Carnival celebration in the United States, Latin America, the Caribbean, and parts of Europe. I had discussed the Afro-Latin American connections to Carnival in previous posts over the years in relation to Puerto Rico via the African diasporic connections through the vejigante masks and bomba music and dance. Regarding the version specific to the United States from areas like New Orleans, Louisiana and Mobile, Alabama, Carnival and Mardi Gras combine the traditions from African, Francophone European, and indigenous cultures. Carnival celebrations run based on the Christian (Catholic) Liturgical Calander and begin on the Epiphany (January 6). Mardi Gras marks the final day for Carnival festivities in preparation for Ash Wednesday and the start of Lent through fasting and personal reflection. Mardi Gras for 2026 falls on February 17th.[1]

The American connections to Mardi Gras in the “New World” derive from French colonization. However, they vary by date and location. One of the first documented references to Mardi Gras and New Orleans derives from the settlement of Louisiana on March 2, 1699, via the “Pointe de Mardi Gras,” after French-Canadian colonizers arrived on land on a Fat Tuesday. Mobile, Alabama also claims to have the first reference to Mardi Gras festivities in the city as early as 1703. Sources on the topic mention that this occurred because Mobile served as part of Louisiana under French rule at the time. Information concerning the first documented Mardi Gras celebration in New Orleans proves equally conflicting. Local historians and tour guides indicate 1837 based on newspaper archives, while others specify 1781 during the brief Spanish colonization of Louisiana.[2] Entertainment for Mardi Gras originated as private events via masked balls and limited to the wealthy via subscriptions. It did not grow into a more public event with parades, music, and performance societies and social clubs (krewes) until the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, with Mardi Gras becoming an official holiday for Louisiana in the 1870s.

I have visited both New Orleans and Mobile respectively several times over the past decade. Based on the photo galleries that I have provided below, both cities share the historical preservation of the cultural and musical traditions of Mardi Gras through pageantry and jazz, even though New Orleans tends to receive more attention. Both cities also provide schedules for the festivities and parade routes throughout the Carnival season, with each parade hosted by a given krewe or social club.

New Orleans, LA Carnival/Mardi Gras Schedule

Mobile, AL Carnival/Mardi Gras 2026 Schedule

[1] The origins for Carnival date back to ancient Rome and served as a time for partying and debauchery, with the tern “carnival” deriving from Latin meaning “farewell to meat.”

[2] Viewers must exercise caution when searching for visual documentary evidence about Mardi Gras in New Orleans. Some videos tend to concentrate too much on sensationalism and spreading disinformation about people and events in the city.

Mardi Gras History in New Orleans

Mardi Gras History in Mobile

]]><![CDATA[Symphony (In the Age of Artificiality) (2019-2025)]]>Sun, 07 Dec 2025 20:47:31 GMThttps://www.anthonyluissanchez.com/blog/december-07th-2025

for orchestra and multimedia

Music by Anthony L. Sanchez (b. 1988)

Copyright © 2025 by ZEKE SPILLED INK MUSIC (ASCAP), Savannah, GA

VST playback for acoustic sections via MuseScore 4

The "study score" for this piece is available now on Patreon: www.patreon.com/posts/symphony-in-age-144935593

Text for electronic voice in "Movement IV" written by the composer via the Text2Speech "Public Domain" website

Photograph by the composer- Edited using YouCut (app)

Music created and edited using MuseScore 4, Reaktor 6 Player (Native Instruments), and Audacity

Movements:
I. Premonition 0:00-6:12
II. Disturbances 6:13-14:32
III. Intrusion 14:33-18:53
IV. The Struggle for Humanity 18:54-24:53

Program Notes:
My Symphony (2019-2025) functions as an electroacoustic composition with a dual purpose. I experiment with the symphonic orchestral format for audiences in the twenty-first century. The large-scale work also offers a prescient social commentary concerning the dangers associated with increasingly invasive and excessive use of technology in the arts. The subtitle for the piece, “In the Age of Artificiality” refers to the current influx of technology powered by Artificial Intelligence. While I initially did not set out to compose an electroacoustic symphony when I began working on the piece in 2019, that idea became more necessary when considering that AI-generated materials (including visual arts and music) started gaining more public attention in the 2020s. Things had gotten the point where it became difficult to differentiate between reality and the imaginary, between music made by humans and music generated entirely by a computer algorithm. Such technology had also become normalized and perceived by myriad companies as a replacement for human creativity and effort.

That grim reality did not sit well with me. Bearing the situation in mind, I wrote the Symphony to demonstrate what would happen if the orchestra conductor gradually got replaced by invasive technology… and humanity fought back. I created four movements that begin as traditionalist symphonic music and gradually transform into a conflict between acoustic and electronic musical elements, leading to a electronic voice that attempts to replace the orchestra conductor by interrupting and manipulating the orchestra. I chose to end the piece with the conductor regaining control of the orchestra and effectively “killing off” the electronic voice to illustrate that humans can still have the power within themselves to try and create or interpret music and other art forms.

]]><![CDATA[Encountering Fragments of History Through My Travels Abroad]]>Wed, 19 Nov 2025 16:05:22 GMThttps://www.anthonyluissanchez.com/blog/encountering-fragments-of-history-through-my-travels-abroadThe images that you see before you in the following gallery derive from real historical artifacts and architecture from the Spanish colonial era via the Yuso monastery at San Millan de Cogolla in La Rioja, Spain. Through my recent travels across northern Spain, as well as parts of France, I visited many cities, towns, and sacred spaces that adhere to the Catholic religious practices and cultural customs from the Middle Ages and Renaissance periods. The monastery at San Millan de Cogolla demonstrates careful documentation and preservation: not just of the first known written instances of texts presented in both Castilian Spanish and Euskara (Basque) languages. Visitors can also find handwritten musical scores of Gregorian plainchant and Mass settings presented in Latin and written in one of the earliest forms of grand staff notation, which have been documented in gigantic books bound with animal skins and leather. The area within the monastery reserved for the church choir also features a rotating device intended to simplify reading and singing the sacred scored through group participation, both in practice and for religious events. Some evidence suggests that such exposure to music can demonstrate positive psychological and therapeutic benefits, based on current research from Dr. Kathlyn Gan at the University of Toronto Scarborough.

]]><![CDATA[The Bomba: Main Components, Origins, and its Application as a Tool for Fighting Enslavement in Puerto Rico]]>Mon, 08 Sep 2025 07:00:00 GMThttps://www.anthonyluissanchez.com/blog/the-bomba-main-components-origins-and-its-application-as-a-tool-for-fighting-enslavement-in-puerto-ricoIn preparation for Hispanic Heritage Month, the following text presents a segment from my research entitled, Freedom on Their Own Terms: Understanding and Reassessing Enslavement and Insurrections on the Island of Puerto Rico (Copyright © 2025, publication date subject to change). It will form part of my forthcoming book concerning Afro-Puerto Ricans and forms of resistance to enslavement during Spanish colonization on the island . The excerpt below provides a brief overview on the bomba music and dance genre in Puerto Rico in relation to its connection to resisting enslavement on the island. I have modified the text to conform to blog post formatting. Readers will find the corresponding musical incipits for the sample bomba drumming patterns at the bottom of the post after the footnotes. I used the Musescore 4 music notation software program to notate the bomba rhythmic patterns.

Disclaimer: The excerpt presented and forthcoming book demonstrate years of ongoing investigative historiographical and musicological research and do not incorporate AI-generated content of any kind.

Communication and collaboration served as valuable approaches for enslaved Africans in Puerto Rico in the nineteenth century to work together and fight against captivity. Some documented enslavement insurrections indicate that participants also incorporated music and dance via the bomba through “call and response” vocality and percussion by playing barrel drums, the cuá (sticks), and maracas. This specific performative genre in Puerto Rico has existed for nearly four centuries in the 1600s since the Spanish colonized the island and is often historically connected as a form of resistance to African enslavement. Readers should comprehend the bomba as having more than one type of rhythmic pattern played by the Buleador (Low Drum) and the Primo providing improvisatory drumming. The bomba consists of sixteen known drumming patterns, with the “Bomba Sicá” functioning as the basic drumming pattern in bomba performance and other variants like the “Yubá,” “Holandés,” “Belén,” and “Cunyá” (see "Figures 1 through 7" for Buleador drumming patterns).[1]

Dance also figures prominently in the bomba. By establishing nonverbal communication between the primo drummer and lead dancer in a bomba performance (eg., physically looking at each other or the dancer gesturing to the drummer by waving clothes), the primo drummer must watch and closely follow the dance movements. The main sections in a bomba dance consist of the paseo (introduction), piquete (picket), and corrido (rapid dance movement that simulates running). The dancer in the bomba dictates when the primo drummer should play and improvise the musical portion. Readers should also not assume that the bomba remains exclusive to Loiza. Bomba also exists in other parts of the island like Santurce, San Juan, and Ponce.[2]

Information concerning initial documentation about the bomba and its origins tends to produce murky results due to colonialist interference. However, most sources concur that its inclusion within the Puerto Rican lexicon derives from the French rather than the Spanish and from a source that has little to do with either music or dance. Historians often credit André Pierre Ledru, a French naturalist, for applying the term while documenting his travel experiences in Puerto Rico in Viage a la Isla de Puerto-Rico from 1797. While the book mainly concerns the work that Ledru conducted in relation to describing the landscapes and plants that he encountered on the island, the historical document also functions as ethnographic material from the eighteenth century. Ledru provides social commentary regarding the Puerto Rican people, their history, and customs.[3]

Viage proves significant because Ledru additionally includes information about the Afro-Puerto Rican population. He denotes the visibility of the enslaved and freed people on the island in the eighteenth century through statistical census information by describing their visual attire, cuisine, and their participation in social events. His work also presents one of the first known uses and descriptions of the bomba music and dance in writing. Available editions of Viage, however, stem from Spanish translations and not from the original French text. The etic perceptions that André Pierre Ledru expresses about Afro-Puerto Ricans can also come off as ignorant due to his misguided description about “benevolent” enslavers on haciendas.[4]

Examples from the nineteenth century concerning enslavement revolts demonstrate Afro-Puerto Ricans applying the bomba through the “call and response” vocal techniques to secretly transmit coded messages regarding rebellion and liberation in Puerto Rico. Historians mention several key moments that happened in 1826—the same year that Miguel de la Torre issued the Reglamento de Esclavos de Puerto Rico—where enslaved Africans on the island used the bomba to resist bondage. The first event transpired as a joint effort from enslaved people from Toa Baja and Bayamón in July and involved a planned escape to Haiti led by a José Joaquin from Bayamón from the hacienda of Miguel Dávila. The second instance took place in Ponce, also in July, and featured the bomba as a tool to relay information about causing mayhem in the barrios of the city by intentionally burning the sugar cane fields.[5]

Archival materials from the 1820s and research concerning connections to the bomba and enslavement revolts reveals that myriad participants in these events arrived in Puerto Rico as enslaved bozales. They had been purchased by hacendados who initially immigrated to Puerto Rico from areas in Europe and North America. The bozales also strongly opposed their captivity and resisted through rebellions via the bomba in places like Ponce in southern Puerto Rico.[6] The Puerto Rican historiography indicates that the second documented conspiracy for revolt involving the bomba transpired from July 9 to 10, 1826 and had been perpetrated by an Antonio Congo. Congo and many other enslaved bozales planned to hold a bomba demonstration in protest on July 10th that year because it fell on a Sunday, when most enslaved Afro-Puerto Ricans could rest from all their work. The conspiracy took place at the hacienda of an enslaver named Fernando Overman and quickly spread to other nearby haciendas. Available details regarding the planned insurrection state that Congo and the perpetrators involved wished to seize weapons and kill the White people on the island.[7]

This information does provide significant details by illustrating that enslaved Africans used music and dance to protest their mistreatment. It also mentions names and provides the reasons why the enslaved Afro-Puerto Ricans revolted at that point in time. However, it leaves some important questions about the bomba and its application within these contexts unanswered. Knowing that the bomba applies many different percussive rhythmic patterns instead of a universal one, what types of bomba rhythms did the protestors play, or plan to play, on both occasions in July 1826? How long did they want each performance to last as part of the conspiracies? Which instruments did they use? Most importantly, what lyrics would the enslaved Afro-Puerto Ricans have sung or spoken that could have denoted the coded messages about their plans for attack, defense, and liberation?

Answers to these questions remain uncertain. Much of the information regarding the bomba in the nineteenth century in relation to enslavement revolts reveals several problems for historical research about Puerto Rico. The most noticeable one stems from the fact that lyrics in bomba music and dance incorporate improvised texts. These texts usually do not get transcribed and preserved for public use. Textual transcriptions of bomba lyrics from the revolts that occurred in Puerto Rico in 1826 have not surfaced.

Readers should not misinterpret the absent information about the bomba as absolute or as a rush to judgement. When compared to other regions in Latin America and the Caribbean, Puerto Rico has endured a fractured history regarding preservation, something that more contemporary research efforts have attempted to remedy by allowing access to digitized historical literature and archival materials.[8] The invisibility of the enslaved Afro-Puerto Rican identity within that history, however, serves to aggravate matters. That means that scholars and readers cannot access the bomba textual transcriptions as archived materials so that more people can understand what happened to that population in the nineteenth century. However, it is possible for musicologists in contemporary times to surmise what kinds of lyrics that the participants in enslavement revolts might have sung or said.

The following excerpt stems from an original collaborative composition called Esta es la Bomba Síca[9] (This is the Bomba Síca) from 2024. My goal in creating this piece stems from maintaining the accurate instrumentation for the bomba by scoring the work for barrel drums, cuá, maraca, and vocals (either male or female). The bomba lyrics, written by Freddy Sanchez and included in this book with permission, demonstrate the words that could have been clandestinely sung or spoken on a hacienda in Puerto Rico in the nineteenth century. The words in Esta es la Bomba Síca signify how the enslaved Afro-Puerto Ricans in the past would have used music and dance as codes to show what they truly thought about the hacendados:

Esta es la Bomba Síca
que bailaba mi bisabuela,
Esta es la Bomba Síca
que bailaba mi bisabuela,
al fín de la cosecha
bailaba lo que sentía,
al fín de la cosecha
bailaba lo que sentía.

(English Translation)
(This is the Bomba Síca
which my great-grandmother danced,
This is the Bomba Síca
which my great-grandmother danced,
at the end of the harvest
she would dance how she felt,
at the end of the harvest
she would dance how she felt.)[10]

Some historical research from the twenty-first century suggests one possible bomba subgenre that the enslaved Afro-Puerto Ricans could have applied as resistance when singing and dancing. The “Cocobalé” (sometimes also spelled as “Kokobalé) functioned as a bomba type that incorporated martial arts tactics. Participants would practice defensive “dancing” with machetes to bomba drumming patterns and singing in secret to both transmit the coded messages about rebellion and to prepare the enslaved populations on the haciendas for any impending attack against them by enslavers.[11]

Cocobalé bears striking similarities in its description to “Capoeira” from Brazil. That practice also initially applied martial arts “dancing” to train enslaved Africans to fight back against the plantation owners. Unlike Capoeira, which has received countless attention via historical documentation, Cocobalé presents problems due to scant resources about the topic. I have encountered discussions and demonstrations concerning Cocobalé in research from the 2000s and 2020s from both island and stateside Puerto Rican communities: mainly from the Segunda Quimbanda Folkloric Center, Miguel Machado, and the 2023 Cumbre Afro symposium.[12] At the same time, however, these resources allude to the necessity for further concrete research on the subject. I must presently agree with such conclusions and regard the available details with suspicion. Conducting current online searches for academic materials about Cocobalé often produces few valuable results.

[1] Vimari Colón-León, “Bomba: The Sound of Puerto Rico’s African Heritage,” National Association for Music Education (March 30, 2021), https://nafme.org/bomba-the-sound-of-puerto-ricos-african-heritage/ (accessed August 19, 2022).

[2] Vimari Colón-León, 2021.

[3] André Pierre Ledru and D. Julio L. de Vizcarrondo (Transl.), Viaje a La Isla de Puerto Rico, San Juan, PR: Universidad de Puerto Rico (1957), 47, https://issuu.com/coleccionpuertorriquena/docs/ledru_andre_pierre-1957_1797-viaje_/1 (accessed May 1, 2024).

[4] André Pierre Ledru and D. Julio L. de Vizcarrondo (Transl.), 47.

[5] Guillermo A. Baralt, “Chapter V: From the Bomba Dance in Ponce to the New Reglamento de Esclavos de Puerto Rico of 1826,” in Slave Revolts in Puerto Rico: Conspiracies and Uprisings, 1795-1873, Translated by Christine Ayorinde (Princeton: Markus Wiener Publishers. 2015), 41-52.

[6] Guillermo A. Baralt, 41-52; Francisco Moscoso, Inventario comentado de resistencia de los esclavos y de la lucha abolicionista en Puerto Rico, siglos 16 al 19 (Lajas, PR: Editorial Akelarre, 2023), 38-39, file:///C:/Users/antho/Downloads/Inventario%20comentado%20resistencia%20esclavos%20CC%204%200.pdf (accessed October 30, 2024).

[7] Guillermo A. Baralt, 41-52; Francisco Moscoso, 38-39.

[8] Francisco Moscoso, 38-39.

[9] Due to poetic license and to preserve the rhythmic flow in the lyrics, the lyrics for Esta es la Bomba Síca feature an accent on the letter “i” instead of the letter “a.”

[10] Anthony Luis Sanchez and Freddy Sanchez, Esta es la Bomba Síca (Savannah, GA: ZEKE SPILLED INK MUSIC, 2024). Lyrics reprinted by permission. Readers should note that the bomba lyrics lose its rhyme scheme and rhythmic flow when translated into English.

[11] Miguel Machado, “Reclaiming the Past: The Afro Puerto Rican Art of Cocobalé,” Medium (March 31, 2021), https://vagabondmachado.medium.com/restoring-the-past-the-afro-boricua-art-of-kokobale-4fe99f215d1 (accessed May 17, 2023).

[12] Guiro y Maraca 5, No, 1 (2001), https://segundaquimbamba.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/volume-5-no-1.pdf (accessed November 6, 2024); Miguel Machado, “Reclaiming the Past: The Afro Puerto Rican Art of Cocobalé,” Medium (March 31, 2021), https://vagabondmachado.medium.com/restoring-the-past-the-afro-boricua-art-of-kokobale-4fe99f215d1 (accessed May 17, 2023).

Selected Bomba Buleador Drumming Patterns

Figure 1: “Bomba Sicá” Rhythm

Figure 2: “Bomba Yubá” Rhythm

Figure 3: “Bomba Holandé” Rhythm

Figure 4: “Bomba Belén” Rhythm (Rarely Used)

Figure 5: “Bomba Cunyá” Rhythm

Figure 6: “Bomba Cuembé (Güembé)” Rhythm

Figure 7: “Bomba Seis Corrido” Rhythm

]]><![CDATA[Prelude No. 2 (2025)]]>Fri, 22 Aug 2025 14:45:23 GMThttps://www.anthonyluissanchez.com/blog/prelude-no-2-2025

Here is another composition that began as a draft track in the Mario Paint "Composer." Like the previous Prelude that I showcased in my last post, I needed to revise and expand several parts of the piece. I wrote the original track in 3/4 time and applied the Dorian mode, albeit within the confines of diatonic notes and limited keys: in this case, C Major and A minor, which feature no accidentals within their keys in relation to the "Circle of Fifths." I also experimented with cluster-like trichords and triads in the original track, primarily to push the limits of the three instrumental layers in the "Composer" program. MuseScore 4 allowed me to rewrite the "Prelude No. 2" with greater harmonic variety. While I still applied trichords, I did so mainly within an established key (D minor) and to accentuate transitional moments with tonal ambiguity by including accidentals. I additionally changed the meters in the piece so that the work did not stay in 3/4. I included several moments throughout where the meters change or alternate from 4/4 to 5/4 or 3/4 to 2/4. I wrote the music this way to keep the composition more engaging than what I originally wrote.

I intentionally wrote these Preludes by focusing primarily on postmodern tonality. In that regard it adheres to a similar approach that I used when composing the Piano Sonata (2020-2024). I perceive "Prelude No. 2" (and "Prelude No. 1" for that matter) as potentially pedagogical material for the piano. The music can function as an introduction to contemporary piano writing in the twenty-first century and can help encourage students to try "modern" music by living composers without being intimidated by the overall soundscapes and compositional or pre-compositional techniques. I intend to include more Preludes in the near future to expand the set.

]]><![CDATA[Prelude No. 1 (2025)]]>Thu, 14 Aug 2025 14:53:34 GMThttps://www.anthonyluissanchez.com/blog/prelude-no-1-2025

As a composer, it is imperative for me to try and explain the processes behind the pieces that I write. Descriptions like “I wrote this music because it sounded good” often prove both remedial and ineffective. I recently discussed the creative potential and limitations for writing music in the Mario Paint “Composer.” Prelude No. 1 serves as one of several piano pieces that I have been working on this year that began as draft tracks in Mario Paint. The piece differs from other preludes for solo piano that I composed in 2021, where I applied a twelve-tone serialist composition technique.[1] What audiences hear in the finished product featured above differs greatly from what I had originally composed in Mario Paint. Given what I mentioned in my previous post concerning the missing features and restrictions in the “Composer” program, I needed to consider several factors when rewriting the work by hand and with the MuseScore 4 music notation software:

I had to reconfigure the time signature from 3/4 to 6/8.
Rewriting the piece required translating the piece from the original virtual “instruments” to something that would work on a piano for two staves rather than one.
I composed additional harmonic layers in both the treble and bass registers.
Composing in MuseScore 4 enabled me to work with different parameters by altering note durations, applying accidentals whenever necessary, using an increased note range in the higher and lower registers, and adding more measures to expand the score.
I needed to create an entirely new “B” section for the piece, where I applied a slower tempo and varied the harmonic progression through tonal center transitions.
I also needed to write a coda to give the piece closure.

I have more compositions that I am writing based on drafts that I created in the Mario Paint “Composer.” It is my goal to try and match what I originally wrote and follow procedures similar to what I have outlined. I anticipate that my efforts could result in a series of new Preludes for the piano.

[1] I am currently in the process of renaming and revising the short serialist preludes from 2021 as Dodecaphonic Preludes.

]]><![CDATA[Exploring Features in the “Composer” Program in Mario Paint]]>Thu, 07 Aug 2025 07:00:00 GMThttps://www.anthonyluissanchez.com/blog/exploring-features-in-the-composer-program-in-mario-paintI previously discussed the significance behind the multimedia edutainment program known as Mario Paint for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES) as part of my ongoing “Iberian, Latin American, and Caribbean Elements in Video Game Music” compilation. The purpose for the current blog post will expand upon that discussion by offering more insight regarding the “Composer” feature located within Mario Paint. Writing music through the “Composer” feature serves as a distinct and unconventional introduction to music notation software programs: whether for younger audiences just beginning to learn about music or for seasoned composers. It also functions as part of the larger scope of the Mario Paint program in allowing people to create and synchronize musical tracks with short animation. Players can access the “Composer” feature by toggling through the visual arts choices on the bottom of the screen, left-clicking the arrow on the far-right side for more options, and left-clicking the “Piano Keyboard” in the middle of the bottom of the bar.[1] Concerning the Graphical User Interface (GUI) for the Mario Paint “Composer,” it is structured in a format that simplifies navigation and writing music and is presented as follows:

Fifteen Instruments and sound effects (top bar)- mostly represented as characters from the Super Mario games, animals, humans, vehicles, and other objects

Mario Head = Pitched Percussion
Mushroom = Drum
Yoshi = “Yoshi” riding sound effect from Super Mario World[2]
Star = Pitched Percussion
Flower = Brass (Trumpet)
Game Boy = Keyboard/Synthesizer
Dog = Animal sound effect
Cat = Animal sound effect
Pig = Animal sound effect
Duck/Goose = Animal sound effect/”Orchestra Hit” effect
Baby = Human sound effect
Plane = Guitar
Boat = Unpitched Percussion
Car = Keyboard/Organ
Heart = Electric Bass

Also includes a Double-Barline tool to end a created track at a specific point
Sound effects can be played at different high or low pitches.
One musical staff (center) – features a treble clef to the left, but no accompanying bass clef at the bottom of the screen
Note range and pitches extend from “B3” (low) to “G5” (high) – Most written and sounding pitches are structed in the “Composer” program like a keyboard instrument, except for the Boat and a few other instruments:
Plane and Heart sound one octave lower than written.
Duck/Goose and Car feature an octave-doubling effect.

Playback Controls (Below Staff: Buttons organized as they appear from left to right)

Stop – Ends the track
Play – Begins the track
Loop – Repeats the track indefinitely when activated
Tempo (Knob, with “+” and “-" icons) – Increases or decreases the speed of the track and can be adjusted from left (slow) to right (fast)
Scroll – Enables navigating a track and moving to a specific measure by left-clicking the left or right arrow on the sides of the bar
“Clear” – Erases the entire track

Other Icons (Bottom: Buttons organized as they appear from left to right)

Bomb – Functions as an “Exit” or “Back” button that leaves the “Composer” program – also featured throughout other areas in Mario Paint
Eraser - Removes note, double-bar lines, or mistakes in a track in the “Composer” program – also featured throughout other areas in Mario Paint
“3/4” and “4/4” – Time signature buttons that determine whether the track is played in three beats (quarter notes) per measure or in four beats (quarter notes) per measure
“Yoshi Face,” “Diamond,” and “Mushroom” – Demo songs that show the capabilities of the “Composer” program
Dog – Functions as an “Undo” button to fix a previous mistake – can be used only once - also featured throughout other areas in Mario Paint

Limitations
The “Composer” program serves as one of several features in Mario Paint. Because this program initially worked via a 16-bit video game cartridge on a console instead of a computer, several features are missing due to the hardware limitations (even through emulation on the Switch and Switch 2 consoles). It is still possible to create music despite the gaps. Here is what I have encountered when working with the Mario Paint “Composer”:

It features a treble clef to the left, but it excludes an accompanying staff with a bass clef at the bottom of the screen. That means that whatever track that people create gets restricted to only one musical staff and clef.
“Composer” allows up to three simultaneous instrumental layers and no more.
The note ranges and pitches cannot exceed below “B3” or above “G5”
Musical notes entered in the staff are presented diatonically in the key of C Major. “Composer” does not include a “Sharp” or “Flat” button to change notes. While it technically “is” possible to write tracks that are not in C Major, that approach requires some experimentation and a basic understanding of key relationships and modes.
Musical notes in “Composer” are limited to quarter notes and do not feature any other note durations. It also does not include any musical rest symbols. Creating complex rhythms in the program, while possible, requires physically counting each beat in each measure and ensuring that the desired beat is in the correct spot within the track.
“Composer” features only two available time signatures: 3/4 time and 4/4 time. These time signatures also affect the total measures allowed for a given track. Tracks that use the 3/4 time signature feature up to thirty-two measures, while tracks that use the 4/4 time signature only permit up to twenty-four measures. This discrepancy possibly results from the hardware limitations on the cartridge.
Every action in the “Composer” program, like the rest of Mario Paint, relies strictly on the mouse for control and does not feature computer keyboard support or shortcuts.

[1] The same bar includes a “Treble Clef” icon, but that refers to the “Select Music” option, which allows people to change the background music when using the visual arts workstation. Players can choose up to three different tracks for background music or choose a mostly muted option, occasionally interrupted by brief sneezes from a virtual dog.

[2] This sound effect can be used for percussive means.]]><![CDATA["Stepping Into my Shoes: Abolition and Music as Resistance to Invisibility in Afro-Puerto Rican Identity": Installation Description]]>Wed, 18 Jun 2025 07:00:00 GMThttps://www.anthonyluissanchez.com/blog/stepping-into-my-shoes-abolition-and-music-as-resistance-to-invisibility-in-afro-puerto-rican-identity-installation-descriptionSome might recall several months ago that I posted an introductory video description and photographs concerning an interactive installation project as part of the 2025 International Gullah Geechee and African Diaspora (IGGAD) symposium. In recognition of the upcoming Juneteenth, and in helping to further acknowledge the global connections to the African diaspora in Latin America and the Caribbean, allow me to share more information about how I structured the installation. I envisioned the project as a timeline displayed on four walls in a room, where the information and artifacts served to demonstrate the progress and obstacles that Afro-Puerto Ricans have encountered on and off the island since the abolition of enslavement in Puerto Rico officially became law in 1873: a process that proved slow and gradual. The installation also functioned as a critique concerning museum archiving and the dangers associated with selective historical and cultural memory. I originally wanted to include detailed descriptions for each wall, but I could not do so due to the limited space that I had available at the time. That was, until now.

I present the descriptions for each wall as I originally intended. For contextual purposes, I have reposted the visual introduction from the installation and have modified certain parts of the descriptions as clickable links to information and items that I had referred to in the project. I also include links to corresponding music playlists for the second through fourth walls of the installation, which I previously designated via QR codes. Unless otherwise indicated, the laws that I refer to in the descriptions for "Wall 1" and "Wall 4" in this post are available online in their original Puerto Rican Spanish language.

Wall 1: “Abolition”- Description
Abolishing enslavement in Puerto Rico proved a crucial turning point in history for the Island in the Caribbean. That moment has also sparked current debates about what abolition truly accomplished for Afro-Puerto Ricans. The artifacts displayed on and around the wall demonstrate abolition laws and function as commentary on representing Afro-Latin identity through history and the arts. It features musical instruments linked to Afro-Puerto Rican culture, which often functioned as tools to communicate resistance to enslavement in the nineteenth century. The translated articles that I highlight from the 1870 Moret Law and 1873 Abolition of Slavery, as well as artistic interpretations of plantation life and history in Puerto Rico by the painter Francisco Oller (1833-1917) and abolitionist efforts from Spain, show the frequently overlooked legal and social obstacles that formerly enslaved Afro-Puerto Ricans still faced after obtaining their freedom. I also feature photographs and sketches of abolitionists and educators from Puerto Rico, Spain, and elsewhere who advocated ending enslavement and taught the Afro-Puerto Rican population. I do so to both demonstrate their significance as historical figures and illustrate that Afro-Puerto Ricans who also pushed for equality, like Rafael Cordero (1790-1868) and Celestina Cordero y Molina (1797-1862), deserve more attention.

Wall 2: “Racial Discrimination and Migration” – Description
How did Afro-Puerto Ricans adjust to life after abolition? They witnessed key events like the transition from Spanish to United States imperialist power after the Spanish American War (1898). Like the Gullah Geechee and other African diasporas, Afro-Puerto Ricans actively participated in “The Great Migration” (1910s-1970s) by moving from the island to metropolitan areas in the mainland U.S., like New York City. They also encountered (and rejected) racial discrimination on and off the island while seeking to understand and redefine Blackness and Afro-Latin identity through popular music and the arts.

This wall exhibit presents artifacts from Puerto Rico after 1898 through daily life photography and discusses how restrictions imposed by “Jim Crow” laws and nationalist policies impacted Afro-Puerto Ricans through attempts at cultural whitening. I illustrate that this problem has remained in contemporary times via an excerpt from the 2020 Census for Puerto Rico, which features questionable statistics. The exhibit also presents a November 1916 article from the NAACP magazine The Crisis, which demonstrates early perceptions from African American scholars who would view Puerto Rico as a racial utopia when compared to the “Jim Crow” southern U.S. I additionally include audio from Afro-Puerto Rican popular musicians, poets and composers from the 1940s to 1970s, choosing several works that candidly address Afro-Latin identity or criticize racial discrimination.

Music Playlist for Wall 2

Wall 3: “Resistance” - Description
Afro-Puerto Rican communities across generations continue to resist erasure and assimilation in the twenty-first century through activism, social protest, and awareness of diasporic connections. This wall exhibit begins with a quote from the 1925 essay "The Negro Digs Up His Past" by Arturo Alfonso Schomburg (1874-1938): an Afro-Puerto Rican historian who contributed to the Harlem Renaissance in helping to foster Black consciousness and fight against cultural invisibility. The handkerchiefs display and interactive block-stacking game serve educational purposes for the audience by teaching viewers to avoid racist language in everyday Puerto Rican Spanish and English speech and demonstrating the constant struggles to achieving and maintaining activism. The music featured in this wall exhibit contains three songs from 2000 to 2020 by Afro-Puerto Rican popular and folk musicians. They address Afro-Latin identity and discrimination through rap, resist political corruption in Puerto Rico (to protest former Governor of Puerto Rico Ricardo Rosselló in 2019) through plena drumming and song, and offer a stateside Puerto Rican response to the murder of George Floyd in 2020 through bomba drumming and song.

Music Playlist for Wall 3 (Explicit, Listener Discretion Advised)

Wall 4: “The Next Step” – Description
The previous three wall exhibits explored how Afro-Puerto Ricans have established a significant presence throughout history. This wall demonstrates the importance of keeping that history and cultural memory alive for future generations while also showing respect for cultural preservation. While I began this installation with legislation abolishing enslavement in Puerto Rico in the nineteenth century, I conclude the installation with newer and official legislation from the Puerto Rican government from 2021 to 2024 that openly affirms African identity in Puerto Rico. I additionally provide examples from current Afro-Puerto Rican musicians and groups who promote their music culture without trivializing or diminishing their history and identity. The installation ends with an interactive display of a bomba drum coupled with a looped video clip from my IGGAD 2024 bomba collaborative project with the Hispanic Heritage Dance Group and the Geechee Gullah Ring Shouters.

Music Playlist for Wall 4

]]><![CDATA[An Update on Some of my Latest Music]]>Mon, 16 Jun 2025 16:51:12 GMThttps://www.anthonyluissanchez.com/blog/an-update-on-some-of-my-latest-musicAs a composer I realize that creativity requires putting in effort. It is something that I strive for, especially in an era when Artificial Intelligence can automatically generate music, visual arts, and texts based on command prompts. I have gotten into the habit of describing my music as “Not made with AI” and for good reason. My concern with the current musical use for AI stem from its overuse and perceptions as something to use to take shortcuts. While I do use music notation software and production programs like MuseScore and Reaktor 6 when working on acoustic or electronic music, they are the kinds of programs where I have to physically insert notes into the score or manipulate the parameters on something like a virtual modular sequencer rack.

The following current pieces featured in this post demonstrate part of my compositional approach. The sounds heard in Sequencer Experiment 6B (2025) derive from the “Space Sines” modular rack setup in the “Soundscapes” selection in the “Racks” folder from the “Player” tab in Reaktor 6 Player. I physically altered the playback speed and manipulated the notes and wave frequencies by generating tones from my laptop keyboard and controlling the knobs and buttons with my laptop mousepad. This approach allowed me to convert my laptop into a musical instrument as a portable synthesizer. I then put the completed track that I recorded in Reaktor 6 Player into the Audacity music production program to pan the overall direction of the left and right audio channels in the track. I also added “Realtime” audio effects and manipulated the audio to try and get the best results.[1]

[1] While I understand that Audacity currently has the option for people to get AI-generated audio effects, I choose not to use any.

Sequencer Experiment 7 (2025) and Sound Etude 19 (2025) also illustrate other ways that I have used Reaktor 6 Player. I applied the “8-Step Sequencer” feature to produce sounds by connecting the correct virtual patch cables to their corresponding inputs and outputs. I then manually changed the notes and tempo in the sequencer to present more tonal arpeggios rather than just random cacophony. For Sound Etude 19 I generated the tones from my laptop and changed the frequencies, filters, and sound waves with the mousepad. The difference in this piece lay in how I did not rely on the sequencer to produce the tones.

Note: I shot and edited the photographs featured in Sequencer Experiment 6B (2025) and Sound Etude 19 (2025). The looped visuals in Sequencer Experiment 7 (2025) were created in Blender by Freddy Sanchez and used by permission from the artist.

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