Black Black White is named after our cats, Jetta (black) and Bruce (black and white). In fact, you can see them on the cover artwork.

As kittens, they would chase each other around the house with boundless enthusiasm. They seemed to find joy in absolutely everything, and I decided that kind of exuberance deserved its own composition.

This piece began with the melody. As I played those opening notes, they immediately brought to mind Jetta and Bruce at play. Once I had the melody under my fingers, I wanted every phrase that followed to be just as memorable—something you could easily hum or sing.

The chord progressions are intentionally familiar, drawing from the kinds of pop songs many of us have heard on the radio from the 1960s right up through today.

I experimented with several different keys before settling on G major. I enjoy beginning the melody in the lower octave before repeating it an octave higher. That jump gives the piece the sense of lift I was looking for, much like two playful kittens suddenly racing off in another direction.

Unlike several of my other compositions, Black Black White never changes keys. It stays comfortably in G major, with only a brief visit to the relative minor, E minor.

For the development section, I returned to my fingerpicking roots with a call-and-response conversation between the chords and a pentatonic scale riff. Before the main melody returns, we spend a few moments in that E minor landscape.

The introduction is built around a bright G6/9 chord paired with a pentatonic riff, and it returns at the end to bring the piece gently home, finishing with a ringing open-string harmonic chord.

Every time I play Black Black White, I can't help but picture Jetta and Bruce chasing each other across the floor, reminding me that sometimes the simplest moments in life make the best music.