Timothy Lee Miller

Flute (Doubling Piccolo), Clarinet, Violin, Cello, Piano, and Percussion

Composer's Note:

When leaves begin to fall was written in tribute to my Mom, Nina Ruth "Poochie" Bailey Miller, who in 2011 began exhibiting tremors that are associated with Parkinson's disease. A couple years later she began showing signs of dementia and was formally diagnosed with Parkinson's and dementia in mid-2013. Sadly, she passed away on February 1, 2018 as a result of this horrible affliction. Two of her sisters previously died of the same thing, and two other sisters had passed away from Alzheimer's disease. I recently released an album of my jazz music on a CD called SOMETHING MORE. Each piece was written for and dedicated to one of her sisters, as well as one to my son, one to my wife, and of course, one to my mom. It was released on March 9, 2018, however, I was able to play her song for her, Poochie's Waltz (her childhood nickname was "Poochie"), just about an hour before she passed away, and she seemed to be dancing to it as she lay there, her feet moving a little. She even seemed to smile and shed a tear or two. So did I, but more than a few. It was the last thing she heard, other than my dad, my sister and I telling her that we loved her, and that it was okay to go.

The music of When leaves begin to fall blurs the lines between classical and jazz as it tells the story of how a beautiful mind is essentially erased during the final stages of Parkinson's related dementia, which includes the loss of memory and cognitive thinking, and replaces them with hallucinations and paranoia. Yet, as these conditions gradually worsen each day, there are days, or hours, or even just moments of clarity that will occasionally shine through. The doctors call it "fleeting magical moments" that get shorter with each passing day, and they occur less often and farther in between. The doctors even warn not to place any hope in those moments, no matter how clear they may appear, they are but fleeting, and your loved one is not going to get better, or survive this.

My mom was a very genteel, Southern lady, full of charm and wit. There is absolutely no one who did not like my mom. Truthfully, she had no enemies, and everyone simply adored her. She was the epitome of the virtuous woman as described in Proverbs 31:10-32 in the Old Testament of the Bible. One of the pastors from my parent's church read that scriputre during her funeral, and although I had heard and read it many times before, never had it so perfectly fit the character and personality of anyone I knew. Growing up with my mom, I had not realized just how wonderful she was, until that moment. Oh, I adored her, to be sure, but never had I held someone up to that template before until then, when it became so real, and it was a perfect match.

Imprisonment in one's own rapidly shrinking brain is how a doctor described it to me. As the patient's brain slowly dies, you watch as their bodies begin to change, essentially starving to death because the brain blocks hunger singals, leaving them emaciated, yet somehow unaware of their own plight. The caregivers are often left in shock at how rapidly they seem to lose the ability to do simple things, like feed themselves, or brush their teeth, or comb their hair. They become as infants again unable to dress themselves, or stand, or sit, or walk on their own without assistance. And the worse thing is that they eventually even forget who you are. It was excruciating to watch as she literally just withered away. During her final months she was unable to find words to string together cohesive sentences, reduced to muttering and stammering for words. In her final days, she couldn't even move or talk, much less eat, or drink anything.

I used highly dissonant, almost screeching sounds of piccolo, high clarinet and string harmonics to created a sound of confusion and paranoia, which is underpinned by a hymn-like passage in the piano that is yearning for resolution. The dissonant sections are sharply contrasted by completely tonal jazz-like sections that symbolize those "fleeting magical moments" of clarity. Those moments are crafted to represent the genteel nature of my mom, almost with a feeling of lost innocence, which also includes a rendition of her song, Poochie's Waltz, that ultimately gives itself back over to the dissonance of confusion. My dad was a Baptist minister, and my mom was as much a part of his ministry as was he. She often played the piano for church services but usually sang in the choir. In the latter portion of When leaves begin to fall, I have laced together several of my mom's favorite hymns, along with her favorite song, The Tennessee Waltz, as well as her song in a polytonal stanza that represents all that may yet be playing inside her head, but in a fashion that has become scrambled by her debilitating disease, robbing her of the clarity she once knew.