This is one of my 1997 pieces. It was written after a friend had wound up in a tragic fight where he had gotten stabbed by a knife and died. Recent events led me to revisit this song and remaster it.

The original song was arranged with piano and drums. This one I gave the haunting melody to the flute, keeping it in its lower register, which sounds more somber. I especially like using the Cambridge concert flute soundfont. While I have newer VSTs, this particular virtual instrument has about the best expression I've heard in flute synths. For bass, I went with an acoustic style synth that is common in most, if not all GM soundfonts. Percussion is a mix of Sonatina Orchestra VST and Cakewalk's SI-Drum Kit VST set to the Hall Kit.

For most of you, the technical stuff about the music and its arrangement is all very well, but you're probably more interested in the song itself. That is, you probably noticed that the flute is much more melodic than most my pieces, and there's a reason behind that. For the song has lyrics. It is/was intended for a musical that I was trying to write that summer that my friend was to graduate, and I starting my senior year of high school. Like I've said before, music is something like therapy for me, and that's because of the prominent role its had in my life probably since I first was taught to play the piano. So it's kind of been my life. Since the first time I was able to compose on the computer, music composition has been a creative outlet for me, which I guess you can say is a hobby. My job, for now, is at the store, but my life is brought out in music.

But anyways, I was trying to write a draft for a musical about life at high school, focused around a crew of friends that both do a lot of fun stuff together, boating and water skiing. Yet they each have their own particular thing that they identify with, as we often do in high school. For instance, there's Michael the musician, who is Rob, the football jock's best friend. Rachel is Rob's girlfriend, though I can't remember if I put her in the typical cheerleader stereotype, but, if you've seen Varsity Blues, then yeah, I can't deny my concept wasn't far off from it, though not so much a comedy as a tragedy. Not saying I didn't have some ideas for humorous scenes, but this was supposed to be a 'serious' musical about a group of high schoolers that are trying to come to grip over the death of one of their own personal friends. Kind of hard to make comedy over that. But I suppose I might of tried to lean it towards something like Saved by The Bell, in some of their PSA sorts of stories about drugs and addiction. The story is/was pretty straightforward. It starts off with the crew coming home from the last boating and waterskiing trip of the year, joking around about stuff that happened while at the campsite over the weekend, or who took the worst crash into the water while skiing. There was a school lunch scene where they'd talk about the day, or plan out their weekends. Just typical high school stuff, including getting ready for the prom, which I think was supposed to be some southern/country theme. Then there was the fight that Rob would get into with a freshman that had some issues, and brought a knife to school. This leads to the fatal stab wound, then the funeral before graduation.

This song, titled Rob's Requiem, and initially Requiem for Rob is sung by his girlfriend Rachel. It could have also been known as Sunday Morning, due to intro melody. To tell you the truth, I still tear up when I listen to the song and go through the lyrics with the melody. I mean, she's at her most vulnerable point in her life thus far, and her boyfriend that was planning her life with can no longer be her forever lover, outside of soulmates in heaven, anyways. So a lot of these feelings come out in the lyrics, and can be heard in the melody even without the lyrics.