The Store on 2nd Street is a piano miniature inspired by WVU’s composer-in-residence and composer of the Star Trek television series Dr. Jay Chattaway’s advice to me to “visit the dissonance store.” Combine that with another of his suggested composition exercises to “write something entirely with a certain interval”, I wrote the backbone of this piece back in 2020 as an exercise. When the opportunity arose, that short excerpt became this piano miniature that features pitches that are mostly seconds apart, both harmonically and melodically (hence the title).

This piece describes a lighthearted “visit” to the local dissonance store that highlights a spooky waltz, plus a cheeky twist at the end.