Let’s see: since Friday, an administrative staff meeting for the country’s premier gifted summer experience; author signing at the new hotspot in Senoia; dinner for eight; dress rehearsal and performance of Fauré’s Requiem; and today, taking the herb garden back down to the dirt. But no symphony.

I’ve been listening to it, but I haven’t had blocks of time to sit down and do anything with it. And I’ve been in one of those phases where it’s not sounding very good to me. It’s not light and celebratory in any of its sections, and it needs to be. It doesn’t sound organically inevitable in its development, and it needs to. It’s too thick, too heavy, where it should be transparent.

One of my problems is my increasing awareness of how badly Finale is translating the sound. I went back to listen to some of William Blake’s Inn, and it doesn’t sound bad at all. It’s almost as if I need to stop using Finale 2008 and go back to 2006.

I don’t know. I’ll get back to the music tomorrow night.

A brief update. I played around with the orchestral sounds to see if anything made a difference in the strings’ response to dynamics, but to no avail.

Here’s what I worked on tonight. Don’t take it as final, because it’s just blocked out, and it sounds that way. It’s the new bit from yesterday, but orchestrated. Herewith the mp3.

We have guests this week, so my time is not very concentrated on the symphony, which is very worrisome actually.

But tonight I was able to get in a couple of hours of work, and I think I got the minor agitato section mapped out. I’ve been very bold with the harmonies, which means that the more I listen to them the more I’ll try to smooth them out. I’m going to try to guard against that. Here’s the mp3, the new bits unorchestrated.

I also did some fiddling with some orchestration here and there, but probably nothing you’d notice.

There are real issues with the instruments not following the dynamics. I have almost given up trying to figure it out. There’s one more idea I might try involving the master mixer; perhaps I’ve set it too low for the instruments to play a real forte, so it maxes out at mezzo forte or something. But I’m betting that’s not it.

I worked all morning, then drove to Lenox to find a tux shirt. On the way I listened to my latest efforts, and these are the notes I scribbled on the way up and back:

• + bassoon to RR echo (ended up not necessary)
• stronger minor [chord] after duet (it’s a major chord; see below)
• extend duet? (not yet, but I may still)
• + woodw to 2nd [building phrase] (not today, but I will)
• downbows on 2nd [building phrase] (done)
• string pad for duet? (haven’t tried it yet)
• A major m. before D7 m.? (did that, it worked)
• continue Eng. horn to B (did that, it worked)
• alt. up and downbow on 3rd [building phrase] (done)
• extra E major m. [after duet] (did that, will double-check it)
• 1/2 notes for Grandiose brass [chorale] (tried it, discarded it)

And with that, my next bit of work will be the minor agitato section: extend that and get us back to the Grand Recapitulation of the Rachmaninov Ripoff™ theme.

You may recall a gentle, wistful version of the agitato theme. I think that’s actually going to be the coda of this whole thing: a lullaby to put it all to bed, only with one final chordal sequence to swell to double forte, of course.

If any of you like that part that follows the Grandiose Bit, where the agitato theme enters in G major in the strings with staccato brass, speak now, because I think it’s going to go away. Personally, I think it sounds silly, and with the variations I’m ringing on the Rachamaninov Ripoff™ theme, I think I can head straight into the clarinet statement of the agitato theme.

I have a widget counting down the days to GHP and hence to the day that I might be reasonably expected to turn over a score to Stephen Czarkowski for a summer performance.

It now says 100 days and some odd hours/minutes.

Feh.

I know, I’ll begin a hysterical daily countdown post. Sort of like the 365 project, only really really neurotic and probably not as entertaining, unless you like watching a fellow Lichtenbergian melt down.