(Coming Soon) A New Music Community

Welcome to The Commonplace

Not an online course. Not a masterclass. Not a Patreon.

The Commonplace is a space we share.

It’s a studio, a sketchbook, a reading room, and a living archive.
It’s a place for people who care deeply about how music is made, shaped, and understood.
If you’re a composer, performer, conductor, theorist, listener, or just someone who’s curious: this is a place for you.

We explore unfinished work.
We look closely.
We ask good questions.
You don’t need to catch up or keep up. You just need to come curious.

What Happens Inside

Most of what happens here grows from one core thing: my work as a composer, music theorist, and musicologist.
Each week, I share the real-time development of scores, recordings, and research — all before they’re fully polished or published.

This isn’t content for content’s sake.
It’s the kind of material that usually stays in private folders, notebooks, or conversations between friends:

- Drafts, sketches, voice memos, and score edits before they're ready for the world
- Commentary and Reflections. Not hot takes, but intentional thought on my creative and research processes.
- Theory, analysis, and research as it applies to real, evolving music.
- Member exclusive videos and behind-the-scenes looks including masterclasses and free access to online courses.
- Ongoing discussions and questions from the community on our community Discord server and live streams

This is not a one-way broadcast.
It’s a shared creative space.

Why It Exists

The internet rewards speed, polish, and sameness.
But real creative work is slow.
It’s iterative. Messy. Honest.

As I’ve thought about my own musical journey, I keep coming back to this:
I learned the most when my professors brought me alongside them - not just through lectures, but by letting me witness the process. I got to see real-world problems get solved in real time. It changed the way I understood music. It made everything more alive, more connected, more human.

The Commonplace is my way of offering that same experience for people who want to be part of a deeper, more honest kind of creative work.

It’s a slower pace.
A more thoughtful rhythm.
It’s space is for creatives who love the process as much as the outcome.

What You Can Do Here

You can:
- Watch a piece of music or a research project unfold across weeks or months
- Study scores from my back catalog
- Hear the ideas that didn’t make it into a finished work
- Follow the thought process behind choices: musical, theoretical, or structural.
- Join in the conversation; or just quietly observe
- Support the work if it resonates

Whether you create music, teach it, conduct it, or simply love it - there’s a place for you here.

Join us at The Commonplace

Come in.
Look around.
Ask questions.
Support what you care about.

Coming Soon.

Let’s create something meaningful together built on these core values:

Community: 
I’d like to create a vibrant network of musicians. Composition and music research can be very isolating activities. Communities are often only found in academic settings, but we can change that. Engage in meaningful discussions, ask questions, and support each other’s growth. No one has it all figured out - we can all become better musicians together. 

Accessibility: 
Whether you’re a veteran musician or brand new; a student or educator; a composer, a performer, or a researcher; the music resources in this membership are designed to be accessible to everyone. Gain insights from my process and things I’ve learned over the years, as well as detailed courses and other exclusive content. I want to give everyone the chance to improve and excel, regardless of their background, musical style, or experience level.

Innovation: 
One of my personal goals is pursuing innovation. That includes my creative work, but it also means pursuing innovative approaches to learning and creating music. From advanced masterclasses to unique composition techniques, we will continually explore new methods to enhance our musicality.

Discovery:  
Composition, Music Theory, and Musicology are all about curiosity and discovery. There's something thrilling about discovering a new chord you love, or finding easter eggs hidden in the music you're analyzing, or in asking questions about music and finding the answer. This is your opportunity to discover new perspectives and deepen your understanding of music.

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join The commonplace

[NEW CHOIR MUSIC] Nothing Gold Can Stay

I'm extremely happy to announce this one. Autumn is my favorite season - and last autumn I was sitting there wishing the weather could feel like that year round, when I happened upon a poem, Nothing Gold Can Stay, by Robert Frost that talks about how beautiful and fleeting the patterns of nature are.

This one is for SATB + Piano + Cello - great for High School, College, or Community Choirs.

If you're putting together your Fall Program right now, 1) send me an email at jesse@jessestrickland.com and I'll send you a perusal score - along with a MIDI realization, 2) please send this to any choir directors who need this in their program.

Nature’s first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf’s a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.

Postcards

I’ve started a new instrumental composition series. Each piece in the series is written based on a photo that I took somewhere on this planet. In addition to the photos being a good creative prompt, each of them are meaningful memories to me. I’m planning for the first collection to have 10 Postcards.

I’ve got the first two here for you.

The first I took on the Little Platte River in Nebraska at our campground. As far as the music goes, the story is Sunset on the Little Platte River in Nebraska. Sleep is calling, but an active mind initially resists, but eventually succumbs.

The second is from the Upper West Side in New York City. It's called the city that never sleeps, so perhaps aptly, I took this photo at 2am the night from the roof of my building. Fun Fact, the photo was taken in late January, and you can still clearly see a Christmas Tree in one of the window on the right.

Afton Water Premiere

I'm excited to share with all of you a brand new world premiere! This is a choir piece I wrote back in 2019 for a commission that fell through. I liked the project enough that I went ahead and finished it. Fast forward to now, it received its world premiere back in December by the Armstrong Youth Chorus in Oklahoma under the direction of Mark Jenkins. Hope you enjoy!

Click here for the sheet music!

Magnify Your Name Music Video

As you may know by now, Evensong is HERE! You can get my new full-length studio album on Spotify, Apple, Amazon, and Pandora.

To go along with the release of Evensong, I’ve got a brand new music video that I’m excited to share with everyone! Magnify Your Name is the opening song on the album and serves as an overture for all of the musical styles that are to follow.

EVENSONG IS HERE

After nearly two years of work, I’m excited to announce that my new album Evensong is here!

Trappist-1: Percussion Quartet No. 1

The official video for my first Percussion Quartet is live on Facebook! Thanks to my friend Chase Banks and his wonderful team of percussionists for an excellent performance!

The piece itself is called Trappist-1, which refers to a Star System 29 light years from earth. It has 7 planets that all orbit their star closer than Mercury does to the sun. In order for this system to not collapse, the planets orbit each other in a very mathematical way, most of them orbiting their neighbor planet at a ratio of 3:2. In music, the 3:2 ratio is a Perfect 5th, and if you assign the outermost planet as C, then follow the ratios, you end up with a Cmaj9 chord - which is the basis of the piece. In addition, each planet was given a leitmotif, with each motif being proportional to the orbital period of the planet, using musical characteristics that match what we know about each planet. So, go check it out!

Interested in performing this piece? Score and Parts available here.

I'm Moving To New York!

A lot of you have asked me what I’m doing when I finish grad school. And I usually hate that question. Except now I have an answer to it!

This has been a few months in the making, but it is still really new. Back in March, a friend of mine who is a pastor of a church plant in Queens, NY called me and asked if I would be willing to come and serve as the Director of Music and Media. After praying about it for about two weeks, I accepted and began the long process of getting ready to leave South Carolina and move to New York. I’m really excited about the position I will hold up there, but also because New York is such a great city for a musician to be. Just about every kind of music imaginable is happening there.

The plan is for me to arrive in New York in early August - we’ll see if that actually happens. That being said, I’m super excited to work with ensembles and musicians in New York - so if you’re in the area, let me know if you want to collaborate!

England Highlights

I went exploring in England with a group of Choral grad students from the University of South Carolina, and LSU. We got to study the rich tradition that is Sacred British Choral music. I highly recommend it. Also, we poked our head into Paris for a second.

Here are some highlights.

Thesis Complete!

After 9 months of work, my thesis project is finally done. It is a 15 minute string quartet that exploits the pitch drift inherent in just intonation, to create a microtonal diatonicism, as the piece constantly develops a single hymn-like theme as it slowly drifts from A major to F major.

While there has been no premiere, and one hasn’t been scheduled, a quartet did a reading of the first five minutes - a sort of proof of concept - earlier in April. You can listen to it below. Hopefully soon I will be able to get the piece a proper premiere. Until then, I will enjoy being done with my thesis. Up next: Graduation.

World Premiere - Clarinet Sonata No. 1

Last week, Steven Christ (Clarinet) and Annie Tindall-Gibson (Piano) premiered my first clarinet sonata at the University of South Carolina. The piece was commissioned by Steven Christ, and we’ve been collaborating on this project since late 2016 - so it was exciting to see it finally all come together.

Songs on the Mortality of Ice

My new piece for chamber ensemble premiered last night as a part of the University of South Carolina's New Voices Concert. The piece was written for the Spark Ensemble.