I’m home alone, and after giving up on a glacial Onegin (Ralph Fiennes and Liv Tyler), I was flipping through channels. I stumbled upon Disney’s High School Musical 2. I threw up in my mouth a little. I stopped flipping through channels and turned off the television.
Category: Creativity
Creating something every day for 365 days
Musings
I was minding my own business today reading the NYTimes, when all of a sudden, in the center fold double-page spread, was a bizarro ad for Microsoft’s Zune.
My first thought was that this was pretty cheeky, a full-color double-page abortion the day after Apple announces its new iPod lineup. But then I began to look at the thing carefully.
Here it is:
You will notice the creases. Yes, I had to take a photo of it. When I went to find the online ad, it didn’t exist.
One would think that after all these years of Microsoft displaying absolutely no, and by “absolutely no” I mean none at [insert explicative of choice] all, design sense, I would be inured to such horrors. After all, this is the company that parodied itself with deadly and hilarious accuracy, and still didn’t learn. (And when they don’t parody themselves, others are more than willing to do it for them.)
Look at the thing. About the only mistake they didn’t make was to include the brown one. My mind is bending in painful shapes trying to get a toehold on how to explicate this thing.
Okay, it’s some kind of foul garden with noisome zuneplants popping up. But what’s with the concrete/sandstone monstrosity in the middle? (Photoshop hint: just because you can add textures doesn’t mean you should.) They’re shaped like periscopes of some kind. Why?
And what does WHOLE NEW NOISE mean? It doesn’t even show up on the Zune’s official website.
This does, though:
This is the header in the News section. (I poked around a little bit to see if I could find the foul garden ad. I couldn’t. There was no mention of WHOLE NEW NOISE.)
I swear to God, all I thought of when I saw this was, “Sweet Jesus, the man bought a Zune and now the zombies are going to get him! Squirt, man, for the love of God, squirt!”
Back to the ad.
One starts to notice details:
What’s with the swallowtail, and is that a passenger pigeon?? Meanwhile, behind the masked-out wheat field, masked-out birds flee into the garishly rising sun.
Over on the other side…
…a Zune (maybe that’s the brown one) is being airlifted out of there by a rather cancerous-looking bunch of balloons. Or maybe it’s arriving. The narrative is hard to discern here. One thing’s for sure, the Zune sure can balance: there are only two rope/string/twine thingies suspending the platform on which it sits.
Finally, one’s eye is drawn to the center:
The lone bonsai in the middle sports a pinwheel. Um… OK.
The rest of the flora? Three fungi, and are they not poisonous ones?, and what looks to be a bromeliad, a comfy kind of houseplant, to be sure.
The jaws gape and the brows furrow. What is this about? What is anyone supposed to read into this feckless attempt at whatever this is an attempt at?
My contempt for poor Microsoft is well known, of course, but heavens to betsy, this is just plain incompetent, even for them. WHOLE NEW NOISE? In what way? The Zune is not a new product, nor are these new models. Apple introduced new models, Bill, not you. (Apple’s also about to release yet another update to its operating system, Bill.)
Has anyone seen any TV ads tying into this WHOLE NEW NOISE/Rappaccini’s garden motif? Can you imagine Apple running a print ad like this? And then not coordinating it with the website? No, of course you can’t.
What now?
It’s always an odd feeling to finish a piece, especially when it has to go in the mail, because then it really is finished. I had sketched out another ending to “Sir Christémas” on Thursday night because I wasn’t exactly happy/sure about the ending you’ve all heard. At that point, I couldn’t even hear the difference (although they were totally different in structure), so I invited an untrained but opinionated audience (Ginny) to tell me which one she preferred. She liked the original, so into the mail it went.
So no going back, at least in terms of the VocalEssence competition. If When I don’t win, then I can turn around and tinker with it all I want, of course.
What now? It was ironic that on Thursday, an email arrived from the American Composers Forum alerting me to all the competitions out there. There’s one from Salem College in Winston-Salem for harpsichord music, due November 1. You can write either a solo piece or duet, any instrument; I’m thinking trombone. There’s a contest for the Sybarite Chamber Players in NY (gotta like the sound of that group), a string quintet. That’s due November 30. And then there’s the Millenium Chamber Players in Chicago, up to eight players to be drawn from a string quintet, wind quintet, trombone, percussion, and piano. That one is due November 15. Hm. What to do?
I guess I could do all of them, on two week cycles. That would be fun to read about, wouldn’t it? Three major works in a month and a half? (They’re all supposed be at least 10 minutes long.) I could cheat and start to work on them now, of course. There’s always Maila’s request for something for her, David, and Joren, too, and the symphony. Don’t want to wait too long on that one, do I?
It also has occurred to me that I might actually officially orchestrate Blake Tells the Tiger the Tale of the Tailor for the September 18 performance. That might be a good way to play with the new Finale 2008, which now has choral sounds with the Garritan Personal Orchestra! (You will have noticed that I didn’t install this thing in the middle of “Sir Christémas.”)
What’s that, Mike? Oh, you’re back from Africa and want to know what progress I’ve made on Day in the Moonlight? Selfish bastard.
Sir Christémas: last chance
I think I’m done. I had about an hour this afternoon between getting home and having to come back to school for open house, and I just hacked out the ending. I resisted doing a flat da capo ending, but whatever I tried that was new and different just sounded lame. Finally I just gave in to centuries of tradition: end the thing the way you began it. I threw in some senseless interesting modulations every half measure just to make it sound a little different, and I think it’s done.
Last chance to kibbitz: PDF score and mp3 for your perusal. Tomorrow morning it goes in the mail.
Sir Christémas: nearly done
So close, so close! I worked hard tonight, cutting and pasting, listening for that inner camera (how do you like them synaesthetic metaphors?) that would show me what the final piece should sound/look like.
I think I’m done except for the ending, and I know what it should be. It’s just late now and I think I’m going to deal with that tomorrow night. That way it’s still very, very shiny when I pop it in the mail on Friday morning.
If you like, here are the PDF score and the mp3. (The mp3 is pretty big, so be forewarned.)
It’s not too shabby, and it’s actually fun to sing. I can hear a lot of subtleties that the computer is just not getting but that a chorus and celestist would, like in the third verse, which should be as gentle as possible and probably slower than I have it marked.
There are a lot of blank measures at the end, so a lot of dead air at the end of the mp3. I’m not fixing it tonight.
Sir Christémas, et al.
It’s early Sunday morning, and I’ve been slogging away at Sir Christémas, always mindful that it’s got to be in the mail on Friday. I’m in that phase where it’s just dreck. I’ve posited a “Sing Nowell” interlude between the verses, but right now it’s just clunky and bad. I hate this.
Part of the problem, of course, is that I have no clear idea of the piece in my head. I couldn’t transcribe it even if I were capable of such a thing, because it’s not there. I’m just machete-ing my way through the randomness of the universe, hoping to hack out a path that makes sense. Right now it doesn’t.
In other news, it’s time to release Grayson into the wild again. Last year, you may recall, it was quite traumatic as we took him up to Guilford and left him. For us, of course; he was quite pleased with his new habitat and missed only his cat.
I’m a little better this time. I’m not freaking over what I will do without him. This year, all my angst is over whether or not he can survive auf Deutsch, since after lunch we’ll drive to Hartsfield-Jackson International and put him on a plane to Munich. For the semester. Ach du lieber. Ich beunruhige mich daß er hat der Sprache zur Genüge nicht gelernt.
I’ve given him a map of Hofvonstein and asked that if he can he go to our capital of Waldkirchen and take a couple of pictures. I’d love some pictures of Löwenhof (which the Austrians apparently call Bad Leonfeld), but I think it probably looked better when Karl Magnus was alive.
Sir Christémas: first verse
Continuing my organic exploration of the text of my selected carol, “Sir Christémas,” I have arrived at the end of the first stanza. I think.
I decided that the opening, though delightful, had about reached the limit of human tolerance for tinkly triplets. Dotted quarters, offset with syncopated figures in the bass, were called for, I thought. That led naturally into a slow setting of the first line of the first verse, “I am here, Sir Christ(é)mas,” followed by quiet little “trumpet calls” on the next line, “Welcome, my lord, Sir Christ(é)mas!” Not bad at all.
Actually, I had blocked out the melody in the basses of the first line last night, but when I listened to it tonight it sounded like a natural extension, a response, to the intro, and it needed to sound like an opening of a stanza so that when I repeated it, the audience would recognize it as a signpost, as it were. I changed it to more strong sound.
I double-checked the next three verses to see if my structure could be applied to the first two lines of those and still make musicosyntactical sense. I think it can. With a moderate amount of force.
The last line of the trio I thought needed something a little crescendo-y, so I took that ascending chromatic line at the end of the intro and used that. I’m not sure about it, but it’s a place holder at least.
My plan at this point is break into a pointillistic “Nowel, Nowel!” after each verse, modifying each with different chromatic lenses and with different coloristic strategies in the celesta. Wow, that actually sounds like I know what I’m talking about. Wait, I do know what I’m talking about. Wow, that actually sounds like I could intentionally effect that about which I know I’m talking. Or something.
::sigh:: Just listen.
Sir Christémas: a little more
I’ve hammered out the rest of the little prologue: “Who is there who singeth so, Nowel?” That’s not as involved as it sounds, since it’s only two more measures. Still, in a very organic kind of way, I’m letting the music evolve. I have that tinkling opening motive and the descending thirds of the chorus to play with now, so that’s something, and I’ve added an upward run through all kinds of chromaticism.
Next, like tomorrow night, I have to work on a body for the thing: what are the outlines of the verse? It’s got to be solid enough to bear repeating for the four verses, and I’d like it to be recognizable, i.e., so that if I interpolate the “Nowel” sequence in between, the audience will hear it anew when it returns. Sounds like I’m working towards a rondo form here.
I found an NPR broadcast of the 2003 winners. Very pretty, and very typically “choral,” with all kinds of mellow blendings and suspensions. I’m sure we’ll hear similar kinds of things this year. I’m betting lots of starry music, and lots of lullabyes, so maybe mine will stand out as all kinds of different.
Sir Christémas: so far, so good
I had pulled together several texts last night which I found on The Hymns and Carols of Christmas, a pretty exhaustive site.
If you’d like to second guess me (other than the hundreds I didn’t even look at), here’s a list:
- http://www.hymnsandcarolsofchristmas.com/Hymns_and_Carols/a_a_a_a_nunc_gaudet_maria.htm
- http://www.hymnsandcarolsofchristmas.com/Hymns_and_Carols/child_divine.htm
- http://www.hymnsandcarolsofchristmas.com/Hymns_and_Carols/little_children_wake_and_listen.htm
- http://www.hymnsandcarolsofchristmas.com/Hymns_and_Carols/sir_christmas.htm
- http://www.hymnsandcarolsofchristmas.com/Hymns_and_Carols/wrapt_in_the_silence_of_the_nigh.htm
- http://www.hymnsandcarolsofchristmas.com/Hymns_and_Carols/yule_days.htm
- http://www.hymnsandcarolsofchristmas.com/Hymns_and_Carols/sleep_my_little_jesus.htm
I really liked the Yule Days one, a kind of out-of-left-field version of “Twelve Days of Christmas.” (Thank you, Scotland.) But the accompaniment for this year’s competition is, as I mentioned yesterday, a celesta, very dainty and very quiet. I’ll set “Yule Days” for a more raucous accompaniment.
So which one did I pick? “Sir Christmas,” which is a little odd, since I think the text also suggests a more raucous setting. I know that we did one at Newnan Presbyterian that was a whole lot of fun and very hard on the choir and organist both.
Still, I’ve made a good start. I began by opening “Ginny’s Valentine,” a piece I did for Ginny one year when I forgot to do anything else, and assigning the celesta to it. Limited range, the celesta, especially in the Garritan Personal Orchestra version. I guess they only did the four-octave instrument, because it doesn’t have the range indicated by Anatomy of the Orchestra. The SoftSynth version, of course, has no range limits at all, since it’s synthesized and not sampled like the GPO. Also, if you will recall, SoftSynth has choral sounds while GPO does not, although the new Finale, arriving next week, is supposed to include new GPO choral sounds.
After I played around with getting a feel for the instrument, I opened up a new piece and just began playing with notes.
And here’s the first six measures for you to listen to. Just playing, and a long way to go with a non-metrical text, especially in a week and a half, but a good start.
Some random thoughts
My plan is to begin working on music in a fairly serious manner tomorrow night; it will be the start of my fall push. You may remember how I have realized that I work better with a schedule, so I’m devoting Sunday mornings and Tuesday and Wednesday nights to composing.
What will I be working on? I got email today reminding me that the deadline for the Welcome Christmas Carol Competition is next Friday, so I think I’ll see if I can knock something out for that. I should do some work on A Day in the Moonlight, but Mike’s in Africa for a while, so it’s not as if he can check up on me.
The challenge this year is to set a carol for SATB chorus and a five-octave celesta, which apparently is a big deal. (Del Mar’s Anatomy of the Orchestra says that four octaves is in fact the norm.) This is the instrument that plays (and indeed was first heard) in “Dance of the Sugar-Plum Fairy” from Nutcracker. It’s a very quiet instrument, played like a piano, unable to be heard above much of a mezzopiano.
Again, as I mentioned I think in May, finding the text is the hard thing. Maybe after I finish musing this post.
Last week, Diane Mize, my painting instructor from GHP so long ago (we have a mutual pact not to mention that number of years ever again), sent me an email from one of her favorite creative bloggers, Robert Genn, a painter. Like me, he recognizes that there are particular times of the day when he’s most apt to work spontaneously, but recently he came across an idea he shared in his biweekly letter (explained and subscribable here.)
The idea is to perform one more creative act before turning out the lights. Tiredness contributes in a way one does not expect. Casualness and the feeling of “something extra” make their mark. A lackadaisical twenty-minute afterthought becomes a creative bonus.
He talks about it being a way to use up extra paint, in his case. I’m wondering how I might do this. My creative times are in the evening anyway. I work best when I have specific times set aside, and I usually quit precisely at 9:00 unless I’m really burning through material. So an hour later, would there be “something extra,” or would it be just thoughts based on what I’ve already done? Again, I’d benefit more if I were able to jot down things I heard in my head in any kind of accurate way.
Genn makes it sound as if one is to return to one’s workspace, but “before turning out the lights” implies bedtime to me, especially since I work nearly up until that time anyway. Perhaps I could have some kind of bed-journal. This keeps sounding like yet another Moleskine notebook. Ah, well, if I must…
Yesterday, we went to the High Museum to see the Annie Leibovitz exhibit. It’s easy to be overwhelmed by an exhibit like this, not just through the sheer volume of great stuff that you have to assimilate before your legs give out, but also of the sheer greatness of the mind you are encountering.
Leibovitz was an enormous force in photography. Her celebrity portraits were witty without being gimmicky, and were often sumptuous. Her photodocumentary works were stark and powerful. Her “informal” photos, of family and such, were as carefully selected as her other work.
Much of her work stays with you, indeed, much of the exhibit one would have seen before when it was first published, but the portrait of Daniel Day Lewis especially intrigued me. Having such a handsome subject always helps, I’m sure, but I keep remembering the richness of his attire, the layers, the vest, the shirt, possibly a scarf or cravat, the greatcoat, all dark-colored and tumbling about him. He sat in near profile to us, his legs crossed elegantly away from us, and looking out from the dark background. It was somewhere between a dark Renaissance portrait and a Regency rake.
Of course, it is very hard not to regard the output of such a great mind as this as a rebuke, or at the very least, a challenge in several ways.
First, it seems to challenge you to respond to the art, to the mind; to know, to appreciate, to understand what the artist has accomplished and to embrace it, not only the polished result of a lifetime of seeing and doing, but the struggle of that seeing and doing in the result you see before you.
After looking at Daniel Day Lewis for some time, do I know him better? Of course not; that’s a fallacy of Vanity Fair readers everywhere. But I do know Annie Leibovitz better. I see her ability to see Lewis in terms that will reveal him to the viewers of this portrait. Despite her claim elsewhere in the exhibit not to be able to produce decent work in a studio, the Lewis portrait is a masterwork of sensuality and chiaoscuro.
This great work is of course a challenge to one’s own meagre doodlings. It’s a challenge to produce, to meet Leibovitz on her own terms, to explore and push your boundaries as she pushed hers, failure is not an option, even it it seems clear that it really is the only option. You want to play as well as she has.
::sigh::