Since we have another full evening, I knew I wouldn’t have enough time to do anything real today, so instead I’ve gone back and taken the SoftSynth orchestration of 1. William Blake’s Inn for Innocent and Experienced Travelers and converted it to the GPO version. It’s a bit glitchy because of my poor laptop’s memory issues, but it’s a nice setting.
Category: music
Creating something every day for 365 days: the music
More Wise Cow (Day 70/365)
And I wasn’t through with it. I went back and listened again and worked to lighten the opening up. I added a measure at the beginning and stripped the strings out of the first bits, just leaving the muted violas to move into the woodwind motif at the end of the phrase.
Is the marimba the right instrument for the bass line? I may try a muted cello. It’s just that with the synthesized orchestra, there is not the delicacy that I know a live player could attain. (Just listen to the way the violas just shut off in the first three measures, ack!) Right, Stephen?
At any rate, here’s the updated mp3 of 7. The Wise Cow Enjoys a Cloud. It’s still not playing the rallentando at the end, and the Adagio should kick in on the harp’s glissando, but I can’t seem to make the tempo changes stick.
Wise Cow (Day 69/365)
I’m not sure I’m through with this one. This is 7. The Wise Cow Enjoys a Cloud. It was one of my earlier “experimental” pieces, the experiment being that I wanted to see if I could do away with that iambic beat in the music, just erase the barlines, as it were.
As it happens, I literally erased the barlines in the piano score. What I’m still not sure about is whether I’ve gotten the delicacy I need in the scoring.
Fire (Day 68/365)
11. When We Come Home, Blake Calls for Fire is the first of the William Blake’s Inn poems that I ever set to music, in 1983, if I recall correctly. It’s remained one of my favorites, so I began to worry that it would not fit any more: it comes right after 10. Blake Leads a Walk on the Milky Way, the last one I composed. Twenty-something years of composition separate them, and their styles might seem glaringly dissimilar.
Not to worry. As I orchestrated it this morning, it came alive all over again. I remain proud and a little thrilled. Here are the score and mp3. The mp3 is a little messed up in the forte section: my laptop’s age and lack of memory and speed make for some glitches in the recording process. They’re small, however, so though you may notice them, I think you will have no problem being swept away.
Sunflowers (Day 66/365)
I didn’t think I’d get anything done today, since Thursday is not normally a working night for me, and since my father-in-law is in town for a visit (and the Shubian’s Rift premiere Saturday night), but I had some time to work, so I skipped ahead to 8. Two Sunflowers Move Into the Yellow Room.
Again, this is a bit of a cheat, since when I more or less scored it when I wrote it. Still, transferring it to GPO sounds and deciding exactly which instruments to assign where was not nothing.
Tonight’s puzzle: see if you can tell what my own questions are about how I’ve scored this. I have some, so it’s a fair question. Herewith, the piano score and the mp3 of Sunflowers.
For staging purposes, I think it’s too short, but it would be perfectly easy to insert a dance sequence between the two verses. It’s one of the loveliest pieces in the whole work, so it would be nice to hear the melody a couple of more times.
In other news, you probably need to head over to http://www.nanowrimo.org/. I mean, after all, it’s not as if it’s 365 days of commitment, you know. I’d do it, but I’m busy.
An Early Breakfast (Day 63/365)
Hey, it’s Monday night, and yes, I had Masterworks Chorale rehearsal, but guess what? I got some orchestration done this afternoon beforehand!
In fact, not only did I orchestrate 6. The King of Cats Orders an Early Breakfast, I orchestrated it twice, so now you get to compare and tell me which one is better. One has a piano, and the other doesn’t.
In both, I’ve used a clarinet to stand in for the vocalist, because he’s a capella for the first half, and the mp3 just was silly, with trumpet fanfares then seconds of silence. The clarinet sounds dumb, but at least you’ll know what the King of Cats is singing.
So here’s the piano score, the mp3 with piano, and the mp3 without piano.
The ones of you who have been paying attention have noticed that I’ve skipped No. 4 and No. 5 in our sequence. So sue me. 4. The Sun and Moon Circus Soothes the Wakeful Guests is almost done; I just want to even out some of the last part of it. 5. The Man in the Marmalade Hat Arrives involves a whole battery of percussion, up to and including a ratchet, and I hate dealing with percussion in the sequencer. Ick, ick, ick.
A tiny change (Day 60/365)
Actually, this was another of those “life of glamor” days, where we attended the reception for Françoise Gilot and the renaming of the gallery at the Centre in her honor.
Still, every little bit helps, and today I fixed the harmony on that one transition in “Milky Way” that has bugged me, and probably everyone who had heard the piece. It’s the one where we’re moving into the Rabbit’s plaint that he’s getting cold. In the sequence of far-ranging chords that come after the main theme, we originally land on E major. This time, we hit E minor for the Rabbit. The problem was that chord between the E minor chord and the Rabbit’s entrance in E minor. Now, you might think that this was easy enough, just back off to B7 or something and come back in. But that didn’t really work for me.
So I played around and ended up going from the C minor chord in the far-ranging sequence into an F# min6 (who knew?) instead of a G# minor and dropping the entire “resolution” measure entirely. I think it works a lot better.
update later: I tinkered with the bass line and now it’s a B9. I’m getting so adventurous.
ASO (Day 59/365)
This life of glamor I lead is eating into my orchestration time. Last night I went to the Atlanta Symphony (accompanied by the lovely Marc). They played Vaughan Williams’ Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis, and it was gorgeous. They also did VW’s Symphony No. 5, which was a bit of a muddle. But mostly they did Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 5, “Emperor,” and it was stupendous.
These days I find myself using concerts as quick lessons in orchestration: how’d that effect work? What about that combination? Don’t forget that texture. And so forth.
Last night, the scoring technique that jumped out most at me was the use of muted strings in the scherzo of the VW 5th. Very subtle effect, and I’m thinking it’s one I need to try when it comes time to orchestrate “Milky Way.” If I don’t forget.
Nothing, really (Day 58/365)
I was prepared to finish up “Sun & Moon Circus,” but I got dragged to a social event for a Chinese delegation, where I had some interestingly frank discussion with the coordinator of the program. He kept looking around while we talked.
Still, it’s not like I’m not working on the project. I have a CD of all the piano score arrangements of the entire work, and I’m listening to it in the car, getting in my head the kinds of orchestration I want before I sit down to do each piece.
At this point, I have to brag about one of the pieces, “The Wise Cow Makes Way, Room, and Believe.” It’s really nice. Here’s the mp3 and the piano score.
I also had a lovely idea for staging of the end of “Milky Way.” The poem ends with Blake handing out stars to everyone, but “a handful of dirt to the rat.” The basses speak that line, then the coda sweeps up and out into the night sky. The other members of the cast continue their walk, but the rat is left alone downstage. As the music fades, a star comes within reach, and he reaches up hopefully for it as the lights fade. Good, eh wot?
Sun & Moon Circus (Day 57/365)
I worked on the orchestration of “4. The Sun and Moon Circus Soothes the Wakeful Guests” tonight, but it’s not ready for public viewing yet. Still too clunky, in my opinion. Perhaps tomorrow night.
The problem is smooth, musical transitions from one section to the other, and the growing fear that the music I wrote many years ago no longer matches what I think the poem is saying. I will have to revisit the scoring to see if I can couch the melody in orchestral terms that make sense.
Here’s a fun game: go download the score on the Wm. Blake’s Inn page and see if you can tell what I’m shooting for. Then, when I post the mp3, see how close you came to matching me. Or, to put it another way, how far off I was.