The family’s still here, and so I’ve devoted my free time to them. (And the blog was down.)
Category: Creativity
Creating something every day for 365 days
And then nothing (Day 323/365)
Alas, with the family in town, I use all my spare time being with them and not working on anything creative at all.
However, we did go to see the Peach State Summer Theatre’s production of Cabaret, starring our good friend Bailee DesRocher as Sally Bowles. None of us had actually ever seen the stage production, only the film, and I must say I was surprised at its structure. It’s just a musical comedy, and it was chock full of songs that are totally not memorable.
The performances were good; the voices were very good. I was kept interested in what was going on, and I did not squirm in embarrassment. Bailee, it goes without saying, was riveting as Sally.
I think where the production left me unthrilled was in its execution of that “musical comedy” problem. We (as a society) are long past the point where you might tilt a production of Cabaret into the warm cuddly area of Sound of Music. The Emcee, played by a talented, but to my mind miscast or misdirected, Matthew McGee, is not your friend. The bonhomie of his welcome cannot be sincere or untainted by poison. If we accept his invitation, we must, like Cliff, be in over our heads, and that danger must be present in some way in his beckoning arms, and it must be deliberate on his part. A smirk is no longer enough; it must be a leer.
It was that kind of subtext that I thought was missing from the show. It may be that this is part of producing such a louche piece in south Georgia, but you know my philosophy: if you can’t honor the author’s intent, pick another show. Might I recommend Good News instead? It’s a valid, fun piece of theatre, you can reuse the costumes from Thoroughly Modern Millie, and you won’t have to worry about whether the KitKat girls should clutch their breasts or their clavicles.
…and so forth (Day 322/365)
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.
And so on… (Day 321/365)
Another little bit (Day 320/365)
I wrestled a melody out of the rest of the first verse of “The Love Song of Thurgood J. Proudbottom.” I also finished that one line that used to go And… something something something. Now it’s And in my dreams you float above me.
The accompaniment/harmony is only sketched out. Yes, I know, if I were a real composer, it would already be there. I’m exploring new territory here, the musical show tune, and its harmonies are unfamiliar to me. No, I’m not kidding. Remember that I have no formal theory training; I have to intuit what I’m doing.
45 days to go.
A little bit (Day 319/365)
A little bit here and a little bit there.
During the morning, I taught the minuet to the string players and had a nice chat with them about why knowing this kind of thing should inform their playing. (I also dropped off the parts for Milky Way at the same time.)
In my afternoon break time, I pulled up the tango and looked over what I did yesterday. Not bad, although of course the computer cannot play the recitative in any way but straight time, so that will rely on the interpreter. I added accompaniment to the first phrase, and it was very nice.
Here’s my problem: it seems too easy. The melody for the thing just plops onto the page, which makes me suspicious. Have I already heard this somewhere? Is this somebody else’s melody that has wormed its way out of my subconscious? The accompaniment certainly does not seem familiar, but the melody flows like an old friend.
Either I’ve gotten very good at this, or I’m a plagiarist.
General productivity (Day 318/365)
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!
Milky Way (Day 317/365)
Ah, the first Saturday of GHP, when everyone curls up into a fetal position after lunch and recovers.
After a brief recovery, and after cleaning up the apartment and putting everything away, I decided to get some work done, and I chose to work further with the way Finale 2007 deals with parts. I found that I could edit the individual parts within the program, and that’s what I worked on all afternoon.
Later, after supper, I put everything away and went up to the dance. Every Saturday night the RAs stage a dance on Langdale Circle for the mouselings. There’s a different theme each week; this week it was the Twins Dance. Dress like someone else and come together.
Many halls decide to come all alike, so it’s not much twins as clones sometime. Still, it’s a very joyous occasion. The children, like us, are exhilarated that they have survived the first week, and they’re ready to celebrate.
Some images:
- The hall that came as their RA, complete with bushy black philosophy major beard. (Even the RA was wearing a felt version of the real thing.)
- Another hall that came as their RA, with open white shirt with upturned collar, and a lavender flower tucked behind the ear.
- The RA who came as Georgia Hall, complete with little red roof hat.
- Two boys in their hall’s uniform of wife-beater and jams, who did not seem to realize or care that they danced with each other the whole time I was there.
- The group of boys (again, dressed as their über-preppy RA) in the distance, clearly dancing “in secret”: they were practicing for their entrance.
- The RA who came as a bag of M&Ms, and all her girls were the M’s.
- The song “Barbie Girl,” whereupon all the RAs on the steps of Georgia Hall turned their maglites on their dorm director, Barbie, a beautiful petite blonde, who makes no bones about her brains, her beauty, or her athleticism, and who immediately took center stage.
- The sheer exuberant immortality of youth as what was clearly a majority of the students on campus danced and jumped and sang and hugged and talked their way towards hallcheck and lights out at the end of their first week of GHP.
Last day of goofing off (Day 316/365)
No, honest, this is it. From here on out, I will have something to show for most days. Probably.
It’s the Friday of the first full week of GHP, and the faculty always celebrates in the lobby after minors. (The fact that we actually have to work Saturday morning is irrelevant.) It’s great to see everyone relaxing, snacking, talking, and in general having a great Pan-Dimensional Mouse of a time.
There was nothing on the calendar for the evening, which meant that technically after supper I should have had hours and hours to sit down in my apartment here and work on something. But you know what? Celebration of a task well-accomplished is too important to shut down.
Not only that, but for me to have come into my apartment and closed my door in order to get work done would have been seen as a serious exclusion of my happy faculty. Some would begin to worry about me, damned blues, while others would have been offended that I didn’t care to party with them.
I might have left my door open, but that’s the sign that anyone is welcome to barge in and meet/talk/play. I’m one of those people who take a good 20 minutes to get into the flow, and who among us believes that flow would happen with intermittent interruptions of happy faculty?
So I bagged it all and had a good time with my faculty. Tomorrow is another day, and I know that the happy faculty will either be going home, going to a movie, or taking long naps. I can work then, after I take my nap.
A concert (Day 315/365)
Yes, I’m behind. Yes, this is being written two days late. No, I have no excuse other than working 6:00 a.m. till midnight trying to smoothe out the little roadbumps that are inevitable when starting up this program.
On the creativity front, I at least got to attend the GHP faculty recital, a splendid affair that might have been on the long side, but at least it in the “too much of a good thing” category.