Category: William Blake

Posts about my setting of Nancy Willard’s A Visit to William Blake’s Inn

Future me

Posted on by Dale

Remember this post?

I certainly didn’t until I got email from myself today. As promised, futureme.org allowed me to email my future self to check up on me.

So how have I done?

  • shepherd A Visit to William Blake’s Inn to a stage. It would give me great pleasure not to have to be in charge of this, but I know that’s what’s going to happen.
    • Well, we know how that one turned out. Brave attempt, total integrity. No backing.
  • get Lacuna jumpstarted, with its own domain and website.
    • We did that. What we’re doing now is another story.
  • make great strides towards starting and finishing A Day in the Moonlight for Mike Funt.
    • I’m still working on this, and I think I can get a lot of it done by Christmas.
  • compose at least one movement of my symphony.
    • Probably not going to happen, although if I can get a lot done on Moonlight, I might take a stab at sketching a movement out in December, thus making it just under the wire.
  • get the Newnan Crossing 100 Book Club off the ground and functioning.
    • It’s functioning, but not at the level I’d like. Still, it’s functioning.

So what’s my score? One yes, one maybe, one meh, one probably not, one absolute no. I am not impressed.

It’s official. Sort of.

Posted on by Dale

I reported the demise of the world premiere of William Blake’s Inn to the Newnan Arts Commission yesterday. They were completely sympathetic and supportive, but no one suddenly agreed to take on this project.

Still, since Jan Bowyer has been working steadily to bring 25 Scottish kids over here, the question arose, for what? That didn’t seem to bother anyone. They have a year, after all, right? Someone did suggest they could sing “excerpts” from William Blake’s Inn. I suggested they could sing the whole thing, albeit in concert mode. A lot cheaper, indeed, especially if we’re talking a single performance.

Hm, they said. So I cheerfully told them to let me know if they needed copies of the music and departed. I was out of there.

JoAnn Ray did pull me aside and give me a name and an address to send it to over in Alabama, a foundation of her family’s connected with the Alabama Shakespeare Festival. That’s another packet I’m mailing today. The others are to the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra (do they even get unsolicited manuscripts?); the Center for Puppetry Arts; the Lookingglass Theatre in Chicago; and the Sarasota (FL) Arts Council.

Diane has also suggested the Sautee Nacoochee Center up in north Georgia, which I’ll add to my list today.

And I have to get working again. The Outside the Bachs competition is due at the end of the month, and yes, I have to work on Day in the Moonlight at some point. I really really really want to finish that by Christmas.

Any suggestions for a religious text for the Outside the Bachs piece?

Anxiety

Posted on by Dale

I know, I haven’t written in over a week. It’s not as if I’ve been doing nothing. Oh, wait, that’s exactly what I’ve been doing. Never mind.

Well, actually, I have been doing a little. We had the Barnes & Noble thing, of course, and that got me thinking/worrying about exactly where William Blake’s Inn is. Of course, the short answer is nowhere. No one in our fair city is in the least bit interested in being the chair of the WBOC.

Just to make sure, though, I personally contacted one of the best candidates for said chairmanship, who very promptly turned me down (not without praising the work and me without stint.) That’s it, folks. William Blake’s Inn will not have its premiere in Newnan.

I will report on this fact to the Arts Commission on Wednesday, and then I will drop in the mail proposals to various performing organizations around this country.

That’s what I’ve been working on this weekend: cover letters, synopses, printouts of vocal scores, etc., all aimed at specific groups for whom the Inn would be a good fit. After I get a CD label designed and printed, and the CDs burned, everything’s ready to go in the mail.

It is very scary how easy this is. I was done with the Atlanta Symphony and the Center for Puppetry Arts long before lunch yesterday morning. Lookingglass Theater in Chicago took a little longer this morning, because they have very specific things they’re looking for and don’t want a copy of the piece itself, just a synopsis.

But I could really have everything in the mail by tomorrow afternoon. Whoosh, as my email program would say.

And that’s scary. I don’t know why, because it’s not as if I’m using these groups to validate the piece. I know it’s good, and I know it would be a good fit for any of them. If they reject it, as is almost certain, it’s not going to crush my spirits.

I guess it’s because I know by putting the Inn out there, I allow myself to hope that it might find a home. Looking back over the Lacuna workshop blogposts, I was struck by how hopeful we sounded. We were certain that people were working to pull together to form the WBOC. This was going to be a wonderful opportunity for all of us. This time, it would be totally different than the way the arts in Newnan have been dealt with in the past.

Only, of course, it wasn’t. Everyone applauded politely then turned away. Everyone loved the music, everyone thought our staging was cool, no one wanted to work with us. It was that simple, and we should have seen it coming. Well, I should have seen it coming. That’s all I ever saw in the 25+ years I was involved in active arts production in this city: oohs and aahs and brief spurts of interest, can we even count the number of “arts councils” that have been formed here?, but no sustained, organized support. Why I thought it would be different this time, I have no idea.

So dropping William Blake’s Inn into the mail to find its fortune elsewheres is very scary, because I have to commit to hope again. Not to do so would be even more exhausting.

Tale of the Tailor

Posted on by Dale

I’ve been wrestling with the new version of Finale all week, trying to get it to work as expected and/or advertised, so that I could get Blake Tells the Tiger the Tale of the Tailor orchestrated for this Tuesday night thing at Barnes & Noble.

We were asked to sing A Visit to William Blake’s Inn at the opening party for the new Barnes & Noble, so I said yes, and my intrepid octet has been working very hard to re-polish the work. I decided it would be as good a time as any to go ahead and orchestrate one of the two remaining pieces.

However, I didn’t count on the new Finale being such an incredibly opaque piece of software. I will not bore you with all the details, but it has been right up there with working on an actual Windows computer. I have three different Garritan libraries, and none of them were doing what they should be doing, in this case allowing me to notate the strings as playing pizzicato, and they actually do that in playback. Hadn’t been a problem before, but now it was. No combination of libraries or instruments worked. I was halfway through the piece when I decided I had to do something.

I decided that it must have something to do with opening a piece done in Finale 2007, the piano score (which actually had originally been done in Finale 2006) and copying melodic lines over to the orchestral arrangement. So I started a brand new file, which seemed to make the program happy. That was this morning. It took me all morning just to get back to the halfway point, just putting in the music I had already done.

Late in the afternoon, I tackled it again, and shortly before I had to pack up and go to our final rehearsal, I finished it. It’s clunky in more than a few spots, but at least it will work for Tuesday. Parts of it are already nice, but on the whole, I don’t feel I have as much control over the sound as I did with the Finale 2007 GPO. I’m sure the company would tell me that I have a lot more control, but what I’ve found over the years is that having all that control usually means that you are forced to dig deeper into the program’s innards to gain it.

At any rate, here it is.

Day 365

Posted on by Dale

Well, here we are. The end of the experiment. Was I able to be creative every single day for an entire year?

Short answer: of course not, if by creative we mean “producing something new.” Many was the day I had no time, nor the energy, nor the ideas even to commit failure to paper. I knew that going in, needless to say.

At one point in the year I know I expressed envy of those on the web who were doing similar kinds of projects, producing a drawing or watercolor or small oil or photograph every day. I don’t know that I would have overcome my reasons for not producing every day if I had been producing a concrete thing rather than music (my focus for the most part), but it seemed to me at the time that they had an advantage over me. (So why didn’t I just whip out a watercolor those days?)

Would I able to claim that I was creative every day if we don’t mean “producing something new”? Perhaps. As I read Out of Our Minds and skimmed back through some other books like Fearless Creating and Twyla Tharp’s Creative Habit, I was reminded of what I already knew going in, that creativity is not production. It is a process that must include plenty of incubation as well as consumption of material. However, I think I claimed those days.

Mostly what I have found is that I do best when I’m a) on a schedule; and b) on a deadline. If I set aside Sunday mornings and then two evenings a week to compose, then I actually do compose, or at least fail at it. And the days in between, I am thinking about the stuff I’m working on.

The schedule also means I have the time to get in the groove. It takes me about twenty minutes to warm up, so to speak, and to get ideas flowing out of my head. At least that’s the case with composing. Writing, I can do on the fly (witness my dog-walking lyrics) if I’ve set myself a framework. I can spew some music while walking, but it’s all guesswork, since I have not yet achieved my goal of being able to transcribe what’s in my head.

Having learned all of this, I think I’m able now to set up the conditions under which I will be most productive. I may be able to, in the future, modify those conditions, but for now, I know what works for me.

So what did I accomplish this year?

First and foremost, of course, was the completion of William Blake’s Inn. A project that has occupied me off and on for twenty-five years, I was on the last leg of the journey when I started this project: finishing Blake Leads a Walk on the Milky Way. It took me over a month to do that.

Next it was orchestrating the entire work. (I think I may have started orchestrating some of the pieces in order to distract from Milky Way.) This project is not quite finished, of course. I have not yet officially orchestrated The Man in the Marmalade Hat Arrives and Blake Tells the Tiger the Tale of the Tailor. They’re quasi-scored using various instrumental sounds in the piano score, but I don’t have actual orchestral scores for them yet. Unless someone in Newnan, GA, steps up to organize the production, my widget says we have 447 days until opening night, those two items will remain on the back burner.

At the same time, I started the “Highway 341” poem. I used that as a fallback item on days when I didn’t/couldn’t compose, but I haven’t worked on it since shortly before finishing Milky Way. I guess at that point the Inn took over. Well, it’s still a pretty good start, and I can return to it in the coming year. I would have to go back and do some deep thinking, of course, because I’ve gotten it to a point where I would actually have to start writing about the feelings that inspired it to begin with. And those were never very clear.

I also began, last August, noodling around on my symphony. Needless to say, I haven’t given that any thought since September either, but that is going to be my major project this fall and winter: Stephen Czarkowski has asked for it for next summer’s orchestra. Not exactly a commission, but hey, a request is as good as, right?

Also accomplished this year: Lacuna’s workshopping of the William Blake pieces. Very nice, lots of fun, and very very creative. I like working this way. I don’t like working without a permanent home: my van looked like one of those crazy people with all their prized possessions stacked inside. For months. But the give and take of the workshop sessions was invigorating. If the world premiere gets a green light, then I truly look forward to developing the entire scenario in this way.

I learned how to use CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) on websites, and that has been a very good thing.

I adumbrated and fleshed out the 100 Book Club at school. By the end of the year, we were up and running, but not at full speed. I’m looking forward to figuring out how to ramp that up this year. If it works, I will truly have something amazing to share with the educational community: a reading program that challenges our best readers to read thoughtfully and deeply and then to write about their experience.

I wrote The Invocation, which still stands up as valid. In a similar vein, we established the phase successive approximation as our mantra.

I began work on songs for A Day in the Moonlight, sketching out three so far. Once I get school started and am able to establish a schedule for myself, I could finish that by Christmas. Warning: I’m not orchestrating this baby. I’m just providing vocal/piano scores.

I rediscovered my Stars on Snow album of new age music and began to play with some of those files in Logic Express, Apple’s sound sequencer, which I began to learn how to use this summer.

I got inspired and wrote “Dance for double bass duo and marimba” which not only was greeted warmly by everyone concerned but which was premiered at the final GHP concert. I have a recording, but they were playing from the back of Whitehead Auditorium. I’m going to play around with it in Logic and see if I can beef it up a bit.

As a sidelight of “Dance” and the readthrough of Milky Way, I found myself suddenly in demand as a composer. Other than the Symphony, I have two requests for pieces. One of them is a serious request and I’ll work on it this fall. This is a very strange place for me to be in. I’m still sorting through that.

And I made a mug.

Something else got accomplished this year: a very small community of very smart readers helped me out. I’ve been checking out the posts, it’s taking me a very long time to write this, and I come across posts like this one. The post itself is very good, I think, but it’s the comments that blow me away: literate, thoughtful, witty. I like writing for you guys.

Next? I will finish the songs for Day in the Moonlight, and I will write my Symphony No. 1 in G major. That’s enough to be going on with. Of course, if a project coordinator materializes for William Blake’s Inn, then I’ll be back at work on that.

Will I keep blogging? I’m sure I will, although I may not blog every day. We’ll see. Don’t expect anything for a few days, anyway. My study is still unclean from GHP.

Checking back, I noticed that I started this project on August 1. Shouldn’t I have finished on July 31? How did I lose four days? Oh well. I knew that was bound to happen as well.

Day 364

Posted on by Dale

One day to go, but before we get serious, a response to yesterday’s post on copyright and the flux of the Commons, from Jeffrey R. (for “Raline,” we think) Bishop: listen to this. Some of us have way too much time on our hands. As I said yesterday, I’m thrilled that the planet is mashing up William Blake’s Inn. However, if he starts getting rich off of it, I’m going to sue his ass off for an unauthorized derivative work.

Tonight, Kevin McInturff called to chat about a couple of things, but one thing he asked me in particular: do I think that having blogged about my 365 days of creativity has made me more creative?

Yes, I do, actually. It made me more conscious of wasting time, and even though there were plenty of days tagged “not” (39 to be precise, 11% of the year), usually those were days when real life simply left me no time to do any work. The days I actually goofed off were pretty few.

Though my audience was small, you guys were an audience. I was highly aware that you read what I wrote and followed my ups and downs, and that made me determined at least to write every day, whether I had accomplished anything or not. Kevin suggests that those days were often more interesting than the ones where I gloated about my triumphs.

Will I continue doing this? Let’s see tomorrow.

Milky Way (Day 350/365)

Posted on by Dale

At 11:00, I went to the chorus room and worked with the vocal majors on “Blake Leads a Walk on the Milky Way.” They learned it quickly and it sounded good. They seemed to enjoy it and appreciate it.

At 11:30, we moved into Whitehead Auditorium, where the orchestra was just beginning to sightread the piece. There were too many woodwinds, which I gently fixed, and there were issues with the legato-ness of the playing, which I can correct in the score. All the arpeggiation in the cellos was a problem as well.

Other problems for the reading were the multiple time signatures and the players trying to count their rests. Also, Stephen was conducting in 9 or 12; maybe this was helpful for subdividing the triplets, but it was confusing to me and the choir.

In short, we didn’t get a solid reading of the piece in the short time we had available. Still, it was fun to hear an orchestra working on it, and I think they would have been able to knock it out of the ballpark if they’d had the usual Czarkowski treatment of it.

They ended up playing Alex Depew’s “Winds of Autumn,” and it was quite lovely. They were a little further along with his piece than mine, since it was simpler to play. I wish Stephen had it a little more polished, because it would be entirely appropriate to play at Convocation as the concluding piece.

Nearly a mug (Day 349/365)

Posted on by Dale

The mug was fired and ready for glazing, so I made my way to the ceramics studio. One of VSU’s ceramics guys, Michael WhoselastnameI’llgetlater, was preparing to do a “soda firing,” and both Andy and Harry encouraged me to hop into that firing. I would be very happy with the finish, they said.

Even knowing that they would just rather not do another firing in another kiln now that everything is cleaned up and packed away, I trust their aesthetic judgment. I glazed the inside with a basic black glaze, and in it went.

In other “here at the end of all things” news, Stephen will be reading through “Milky Way” with the orchestra tomorrow at 11:30. At lunch, I wrangled an invitation from David to come teach the piece to the vocal majors at 11:00.

I always forget how hectic and tiring the last week is for me. Everybody else is coasting, enjoying the kids, enjoying the evenings, winding things up, and I’m scrambling trying to catch all the events, getting speakers and directories prepared, and endless exit interviews in the evenings.

…and so forth (Day 322/365)

Posted on by Dale

So today I wrote a second verse to “Love Song.” I’m still not sure about it.

I’m also still not sure about the melody at all, especially after hearing the GHP music majors in their Prism I concert play a couple of Piazzola tangos. I may have to steal some of his ideas. I’ve written a more sinuous melody line, actually a very nice tango, but I think the comedy might be served better by a more straightforward vocal line.

Stephen Czarkowski handed out the parts to Milky Way today and said that the players blanched. He seemed delighted. He also encouraged them to ask me questions about their parts. Great: now I get to have my ignorance exposed by gifted 17-year-old musicians.

Anyway, here’s the second verse to the tango:

There’s always been a something about you
(a small equator)
No one else I’ve ever met would do for me
(I must get out more)
I can’t imagine life without you
(I can do that later) or (It might be greater.)
How dare you die and set me free?
(This means war!)

I know, I know. I have some polishing to do.

General productivity (Day 318/365)

Posted on by Dale

I was quite productive today.

I printed the score and the parts for Blake Leads a Walk on the Milky Way for the GHP orchestra and chorus to look over in a couple of weeks. Actually, I printed the parts three or four times. The first time, the page setup was set for tabloid size paper, and it took me a while to figure out why I couldn’t get all those parts to print on regular paper.

Then, of course after they printed, I saw corrections I needed to make: add the part name (e.g., “Flute” or “Trumpet 1”) after the title and page number on second pages and beyond. Otherwise, of course, if the sheets got shuffled, one could not tell which page went to which part without a lot of time-consuming double-checking against the score.

Then I noticed that the combined percussion parts didn’t label the staves with the appropriate instrument, and then I realized the parts would be cleaner to read if I had Finale drop the empty staves out of the picture.

None of this sounds creative in the least, and it’s not really, but it’s donkey work in service of the overall creative effort.

However, I did actually create today as well. I pulled up the lyrics I’d dashed off last week to “The Love Song of Thurgood J. Proudbottom” and began to work on that song.

I extended the intro:

Thurgood:
My love for you is like a… what?
Alexandra:
A rose?
Thurgood:
I suppose…
Alexandra:
Or what?
Thurgood:
More often than not,
I think of you,
though my eyes are usually bleary and bloodshot,
a whole lot,
as my terminally delicious and suspiciously over-ripened
kumquat.
Now let’s gavotte.
Alexandra:
But this is a tango!
Thurgood:
Then make it a mango.

I’m especially proud of the last two lines. Then I set it and the first four lines of the verse to music. Then it was time to go to the Wind Ensemble Concert, and I had to stop for the day.

In other news, I taught the waltz to about 200 kids tonight in the first of the GHP Period Dance seminars. About half left halfway, it’s really too many people, but those who stayed had a great time. It’s always amusing how little these boys understand about dancing with a partner, and vice versa!

At any rate, we made it through the waltz, the polka, and the galop. Next week: English country dances!