Music for Memorial Day from American Holidays by Terence P. Minogue

Oak Park, CA00, May 25, 2015 (Newswire.com) - ​​Memorial Day is here again, and the music we choose tends to be generic American patriotic songs, such as "My Country "Tis of Thee" and "Stars and Stripes Forever" more so than music specific to this day for honoring those Americans who died during military service. Terence P. Minogue's composition "Memorial Day" is an orchestral piece that is part of his American Holidays suite that specifically commemorates the day and specifically those who fought and died during World War II.

In the year 2000 there were just under six million U.S. World War II veterans still living. Today there are only 855 thousand left and they are dying at the rate of about 492 per day. Minogue says, "I am fortunate to have spoken to my father about the war. Although he told me a few stories, his generation didn't speak much about it, hiding behind a mutually agreed code of silence.  Then 50 years later, sometime in the 1990s, some began to talk, and I wanted to express what they said to the generations after us before they all faded away. The music of Memorial Day was born from memories of my father's short World War II stories. And the stories he would never tell anyone -- about his friends that didn't make it back."

"My father had an odd entry into the war, spending the first couple of years as an FBI agent. However, the pressure to be in uniform was too much, so he joined up and became a seaman on a destroyer in the South Pacific. He was supposed to be in Operation Downfall in 1945. This was the code name for the plan to invade Japan.

Terence P. Minogue, President/Composer

"My father had an odd entry into the war, spending the first couple of years as an FBI agent. However, the pressure to be in uniform was too much, so he joined up and became a seaman on a destroyer in the South Pacific. He was supposed to be in Operation Downfall in 1945. This was the code name for the plan to invade Japan. 

"When Operation Downfall was planned, the Joint Chiefs of Staff gave President Harry Truman estimates for U.S. deaths at about 280,000. This meant that anybody going in had a pretty good chance of dying on Japanese soil, against the enemy's military and an armed and determined civilian population. My father told me that a priest was shuttled over to his destroyer where he gathered up all the Catholics and gave them last rites. However, at the last minute, the atomic bomb ended the war and the invasion was canceled.

"I have a haunting image I have of my thirteenth Memorial Day, marching in the grammar school band. The year was 1963 and most of the World War II veterans were in their early 40s. I saw them watching the band and the flags, but their eyes were looking at something far away and I could sense they were remembering buddies who didn't come back.

"The music of Memorial Day is divided into three sections. It begins with a parade, where drums pound and buglers play a combination of Assembly Call, Call to Quarters, and Fire Call, which morphs into a surreal marching version of Taps (the bugle call played for fallen soldiers). A strange memory takes over and we hear the sounds of war and distress.

"The second section is a journey to the war in the Pacific. The melody is based on the Japanese Hirajoshi scale, a five-note (or pentatonic) series of notes most often heard on the Japanese Koto, a plucked instrument. The warlike sounds crescendo into a shrieking and horrific end leaving the cry of a lone bugler.

"The third section begins with our bugler playing Taps, which changes to a blues lament. The blues lament then becomes Japanese, using the same Hirojoshi scale. Then the Japanese melody is repeated in 1940s big band style, and as the orchestra dies out we hear our lone bugler playing the British Alarm Call (all soldiers to come to arms). The bugle slowly dies away."

Terence P. Minogue is President of Minogue Inc. , a music recording, production, and distribution company. His work has been awarded two gold RIAA records. His compositions and arrangements are for a number of genres, from hard rock to choral and symphonic, and have been featured on television and in film. He is also a co-owner of The Daily Doo Wop, a website and Facebook page, dedicated to the music and memories of those who were young during the 1950s and early 1960s. American Holidays is available on Amazon.com and iTunes, with scores available for rental through Alfred Music.