Cello sonata, mvt 3, take 7

Posted on by Dale

I actually made real progress last night, although it’s no longer than it was before.  I decided to do the old pull-back-then-build-higher trick, so I sliced off what I wrote last week after the run up to the high B-flat and brought it way down.  Now it’s taken a turn for the purely tonal, which is fine.  Sounds more relaxed, though it’s not really.  I also decided to give the pianist’s left hand a rest for a few measures…

III. Andante (Elegy): mp3

My plan is to forge ahead this week and this weekend and try to have the whole thing done by the end of this month.  Because I actually have other projects facing me.

One of which is not, alas, Christmas Carol.  Paul Conroy, in a pinch over their Christmas Carol this year, called as I was pulling out of the airport parking lot Sunday night: would I allow them to produce my old script/score?  Of course, I said, providing I have the time to reinvent the sound files.

The problem was that all the files were old midi files, unplayable on any software I now own.  I would have to 1) find them; 2) convert them into Finale files; 3) clean them up (many of them were actually played in by my unreliable fingers, so they get converted with all kinds of thirty-second note lead-ins and general messiness); 4) reorchestrate many of them to fit the new instrumentations available to me; 5) learn how to export them to some sequencer so that all those vamps in the Graveyard Scene and the Finale can work—all before rehearsals have to start.

Alas, I failed at step one.  I cannot find the files.  I know I had them on the last two computers I owned, so why they’re not on this one, I have no idea.  This means that I would have to build everything completely from the original score, which is an appalling mess.  The overture was never written down; it went straight into the sequencer.  I futzed with many of the pieces in the computer and never printed them out.  I would be hard pressed to get this done by next November.

Still, I began to run through the music in my head, and you know what?  It’s still good.  Hardly anything else I wrote from 30 years ago still stands up, but Christmas Carol does.  For those of you who remember it, think of: “A Reason for Laughter,” “Cratchit’s Prayer” (aka “The Gag a Maggot Song”), “20 Questions” (with lyrics by Marc Honea), “Ignorance and Want,” “People Like Us”, and the Finale.  ::sigh:: Good times.

Maybe next year, as we say in Sondheim.

Cello sonata, third mvt, take… let’s call it 6.

Posted on by Dale

I know, it’s been forever. I’ve been busy. And afraid. I’ve been busy and afraid. I decided a while ago what I wanted to do to this last movement, and now I’m at the point where I have to by god do it. Very very scary.

Anyway, I worked tonight. I had already lopped off the pastoral interlude bit, and recently added the three measures of the ending. Now I had to start hammering out where it went from where I lopped it off.

It’s off to a good start, I think, although it’s not elegant. And where it peters out is awful. I’ve left it for the moment, so enjoy its awfulness while you can. It won’t be here when you get back. Maybe.

If you choose to listen to it now, be advised that when it cuts off, there are two measures of rest, and then the ending as it stands now. See what you think.

III. Andante (Elegy): mp3

A new song cycle

Posted on by Dale

I had an evil idea tonight in Masterworks Chorale rehearsal.

The men were singing a Stephen Foster song, “Gentle Annie,” and I was struck by the excessively maudlin nature of the lyrics. They were revolting. “Thou shalt come no more, Gentle Annie,” etc. Also too.

The whole thing reminded me of Emmiline Grangerford in Huckleberry Finn and her odious “Ode to Stephen Dowling Botts, Dec’d,” which I will now quote in full:

ODE TO STEPHEN DOWLING BOTS, DEC’D

And did young Stephen sicken,
And did young Stephen die?
And did the sad hearts thicken,
And did the mourners cry?

No; such was not the fate of
Young Stephen Dowling Bots;
Though sad hearts round him thickened,
‘Twas not from sickness’ shots.

No whooping-cough did rack his frame,
Nor measles drear with spots;
Not these impaired the sacred name
Of Stephen Dowling Bots.

Despised love struck not with woe
That head of curly knots,
Nor stomach troubles laid him low,
Young Stephen Dowling Bots.

O no. Then list with tearful eye,
Whilst I his fate do tell.
His soul did from this cold world fly
By falling down a well.

They got him out and emptied him;
Alas it was too late;
His spirit was gone for to sport aloft
In the realms of the good and great.

Well, you asked for it by coming to this blog.

Anyway, I made a mental note to find this poem and print it out. I made an actual note in my iPhone: Huckleberrry death poetry. And that’s when it hit me. Wouldn’t that be an awesome title for a short song cycle? Huckleberry Death Songs.

Emmeline Grangerford died too young to leave behind more than the one ode, alas (and yes, that was an allusion and a joke.) But fortunately, the woman Twain was parodying has left behind several volumes of the stuff. See for yourself. And there’s tons more: Julia Moore, the Sweet Singer of Michigan.

Would this not be wickedly awesome? Some warped kind of Stephen Foster choral fest… Hm…

That concert, by the way, is October 23. It’s a Civil War Sesquicentennial thing, chock full of the usual suspects. Should be at least fun to listen to.

A world premiere

Posted on by Dale

Score one for me. Last Thursday, in Valdosta State’s Whitehead Auditorium, Maila Springfield and her husband David had their faculty recital. On the program: “Six Preludes (no fugues),” written last summer expressly for Maila.

Maila Gutierrez Springfield was the staff accompanist for many years at GHP, and she is a goddess. Warm and supportive personally, she is a phenomenal pianist. I was in the chorus room for one large rehearsal when she inexplicably hit a wrong note—the whole room gasped and we had to stop. That Maila could ever play a wrong note was simply unthinkable.

Several summers ago she asked me to write something for her, David (jazz trombonist), and their friend Joren Cain (saxophonist) to play when they toured. Needless to say, I have not wrapped my head around that combination yet. But I kept her in mind, and in June of 2010 something made me start writing. I blogged about it after the fact, so I don’t have a post exclaiming, “I know! I’ll write some preludes!” but I suspect it was having been at GHP to help Marcie get started in the role of assistant program director for instruction and being with Maila at some point that week.

Here’s a pretty irony: last Thursday, I was engaged in tidying up my office, i.e., exploring notebooks that I had moved from my old cubicle to my new one and determining whether I needed to keep them (mostly not: manuals for software no one has owned for ten years, that kind of thing), and I came across a Georgia Music Educators magazine from 2002. (My predecessor, Joe Searle, was a musician.) I flipped idly through it, thinking maybe Joe kept it because he was in it, but I didn’t see any reference to him or to GHP.

However, I did see two things. Follow this chain carefully: Maila asked me to write for her after hearing Stephen Czarkowski (of cello sonata fame) butcher a reading of “Blake Leads a Walk on the Milky Way” with the orchestra; “Milky Way” is sitting now on the desk of Dr. Tim Seelig, waiting for him to have time to look over it (and then, nice man that he is, trying to figure out how to tell me that it’s not to his taste); Tim Seelig was the director of the Turtle Creek Chorale in Dallas; and there, as the highlight of the upcoming GMEA convention, was the Turtle Creek Chorale and a fabulous headshot of Dr. Seelig. Cool!

But in the back of the magazine, under University News, there was the announcement that Maila Gutierrez Springfield had been hired by VSU as staff accompanist and piano instructor. This was Thursday morning. That evening, Maila premiered “Six Preludes.” ::cue Twilight Zone theme::

So how did it go, this world premiere? I haven’t heard the performance yet—Maila had hoped the University would select her recital for web streaming—but they didn’t, but she reported Friday morning that the piece was the audience favorite. Many were astonished that I was a composer—I am such a shy, retiring bastard—and expressed an interest in hearing more of my music. Whether she’s just telling me that to make me feel good or whether it’s a wonderfully true fact, I appreciate the sentiment.

I’ve asked Maila to send me a CD or a DVD of the concert. I’ll let you know when I get it.

Now, on to the cello sonata!

My apologies

Posted on by Dale

Look at this, I haven’t blogged in a month! I was going to call this post A Shame and a Disgrace, but that’s the title for another post I need to write.

I don’t really have an excuse, except that my brain is too full to let any of it out. And part of it, of course, is stuff that I don’t need to be letting out on a blog. Blogs are not diaries, people, not if you’re smart. But I’ve sworn an oath to do better.

So let’s start with the tree crashing into the labyrinth.

Previously, you will recall, the dead tree gave up the ghost after a storm, and after letting it lie in state for a day or two, I cut it up and put it over on the woodpile. Then not even two weeks later I had a Sunday free and clear. It was so free and clear that after I took care of a couple of chores, I was going to go sit in the labyrinth and read all day. Bold, radical, that’s just the way I roll.

I came downstairs from my study to let my lovely first wife know that I was heading out to the labyrinth for the day. Our den faces the back yard, and as the words were leaving my lips, a noise came from before and I saw a complete third of the neighbor’s pecan tree crash into the labyrinth.

Of course we tumbled straight downstairs and out to see what had happened:

Huge. Well, there went my free and clear Sunday. I went to change into my work kilt and get started clearing it away.

Step one, for those of you have have never had to do this kind of thing, is to strip away all the branches and leave the trunks. That’s not hard at all, of course, and becomes an analytical kind of puzzle, especially with an enormous tangle like this one.

Here’s the result:

It’s actually kind of easier to see how big the tree was when you’re just looking at the main trunks.

Habitués of the labyrinth will have noticed that the tree crashed right onto several areas where there was stuff that should have been smashed: the south point, the west point, Apollo, a candle stand, more than a couple of clay pots, the bells and lamps in the small oak tree, ferns, that kind of thing.

Nope:

Not one thing was damaged in the least, except for the stand for the lantern. It was bent slightly and was easily hammered straight. Apollo was knocked off his stand, but as I said on Facebook at the time, that’s good for him every now and then, amirite?

The fence right under the tree was dented, but even the bamboo fencing simply bent and didn’t crumble. It was really odd.

As I cleared away the limbs and prepared to whip out the chainsaw to hack up the trunks, I discovered this:

Completely undamaged. Truly bizarre.

By the time I was ready to whip out the chainsaw, my neighbor Joe showed up with his chainsaw as well. He had stopped by first thing in the morning because he had been outside and seen the tree fall, too. Now he was back to help, and I appreciated the assistance. (Especially after we did some maintenance on my chainsaw and managed to reinstall the blade backwards, rendering it temporarily useless.) So mostly Joe cut and I hauled for a while, till Joe had to go home and do other things.

I continued on my own (this was after lunch), and by late afternoon:

Take that, Nature! It’s all now firewood, an honorable end in the labyrinth, fuelling the flames of meditation and philosophical discussion.

As to what caused it to fall, who knows? The tree is perfectly healthy, as was the huge limb itself. Pecan trees have an inconvenient habit of shedding anyway, and this limb had grown all the way out over the labyrinth, plus was loaded down with pecans—I spent a lot of time raking and bagging hundreds of the things—so maybe it just got too big to sustain itself and cracked off.

The task itself was actually kind of pleasant, since my goal for the day had been to spend it in the labyrinth anyway. So there’s one thing I’ve been up to.

Cello Sonata No. 1: II. Adagio

Posted on by Dale

I think I may be done with the second movement, Adagio, of the cello sonata. I swore that I was going to get it done this weekend, and I have. At least, I have filled in the gap between what I tinkered with in July and the final four measures. I don’t know what else to do with it.

As I mentioned before, playback is problematic with this piece, since there’s a section where the cello drags behind and the piano maintains a steady beat. If you look at the score, you’ll see copious instructions to the players on now to manage that. The computer, of course, just plays it all as if it’s in perfect alignment.

I know that the asynchronous playing works because I got two students to read through it this summer. They were puzzled, if polite, and I think they thought it was too easy for them to be bothering with. No matter: what I thought I heard in my head actually works, and of course it’s easy, it’s a break for the pianist between the first and third movements, which are pretty relentless.

So here it is:

II. Adagio: score [pdf] | mp3

Now to finish the third movement. Not today, of course. But soon. Soon.

Sad news from the labyrinth

Posted on by Dale

The Dead Tree is dead.

I had noticed when I got home from GHP that it had sagged quite a lot. I had to trim it so that I didn’t gouge my eyes out walking the labyrinth in the dark. I figured it would go with the next storm, and it did.

It’s lying in state until tomorrow, when I have to do some maintenance back there in preparation for a Lichtenbergian gathering this weekend.

It was a beautiful thing, stark and unforgiving. Even my lovely first wife, who generally doesn’t go for metaphorical landscaping, thought it was beautiful.

In other news, I think I’m going to replace the bamboo reed fencing with actual bamboo fencing. More privacy afforded, don’t you know.

A pretty thing

Posted on by Dale

In adherence to my Lichtenbergian oath (did we ever come up with one of those?), I have been avoiding working on the cello sonata since I got the first third written earlier, and today I decided to look through some of my older music files. I came across the Mass in C.

This is something I don’t think any of you have ever heard. I wrote this probably more than 20 years ago, and I know we had one readthrough at First Baptist one afternoon, and I think I remember that Denise Johnson and Julie Aagesen sang the solos in the piece I’m sharing. Other than that, it’s never been performed.

Nonetheless, I opened some of the files this afternoon and discovered that they still held up. They’re very simple harmonically (I toyed with subtitling it Missa simplex, but that was kind of icky so I stopped), and I may have to revisit the entire work at some point. There are some clumsy bits that I know enough now to fix.

The Benedictus in particular is quite lovely. Score [pdf] | mp3

Enjoy. Disclaimer: the file was sucked up into Finale 2010 from a very old file, and none of the dynamics or tenuti or anything subtle came with the notes. It’s pretty raw. Try to hear it under lights.

(I’m also avoiding the Welcome Christmas Carol Contest deadline, August 8, a setting of some text for men’s chorus and English horn. Someone should write me a text. I’m thinking an elfin kind of piece, sort of playing against the stereotypically lugubrious nature of the instrument. In fact, now that I’m writing this, I remember that I had in mind an idea for a kind of ballad to one’s beloved that involved the Yule. I knew I should have written down those fragments. Garn.)

Your iDevice and navel lint

Posted on by Dale

This is not a real blog post, but I’m not going to return and create an account on all the online forums I visited yesterday just so I can tell everybody how to fix the problem. With any luck, anyone searching the intertubes for the problem can find this post and avoid a lot of foolishness.

Short version: Sunday night I plugged in my iPhone to recharge it, back it up, and generally update it. (Yes, Turff, I’m looking at you.) I got this mysterious message that a USB device is drawing too much power, and in order to protect my computer, it was shutting off the USB device, i.e., the iPhone.

Well.

It would charge in the wall, and no other USB device prompted that message, so I went looking online. There was all kinds of guessing going on, including the astounding comment that “Apple technicians seemed unaware of the issue.” Excuse me? Who did they think put the error message in there for this eventuality? Guesses about trashing the .kext files or something (only, later, the same commenter said, oops, don’t do that, because that will permanently disconnect your keyboard, which is also a USB device on your laptop. Who knew?) and other such feckless posturing abounded.

I took it to the VSU Bookstore today, where they allowed me to hook the phone up to a MacBook Pro there, same message, so it’s the phone. My computer lab instructor Josh Marsh said that his Mac guru friend swabs everything with rubbing alcohol when confronted with issues like this, so I went off and bought some, plus some Crayola paintbrushes with which to administer the isopropyl.

I turned the phone off and swabbed it. That turned the phone back on, so I turned it back off. In peering into the power plug area, I noticed that the base of the area looked, well, not smooth and metallic. I took a pin and carefully stroked the base, and lo! wads of isopropyl-soaked navel lint emerged.

Eww.

I worked at it further, using the pin and a X-acto blade, carefully, oh so carefully. Enormous amounts of navel lint covered my desk, covered it, I tell you. Then I plugged the phone in, and presto, it worked.

The reason I even thought about the navel lint solution was that the same thing happened with the earphone port. I had lost the left channel in my earphones, and I finally noticed that the plug was not pushing all the way in, and in fact seemed to push back out. I went digging (carefully, oh so carefully) with a safety pin and dug out enough navel lint to form a small cat.

Tomorrow I shall drop by the VSU Bookstore and let them know of the solution. I imagine that real techies don’t know this problem because a) they probably don’t keep their iDevices in their pockets; and b) they buy a new one so often that they’ve never seen the navel lint problem.

So, future Googler from teh future, you’re welcome.

Update: I spoke too soon, I think, because the USB message returned. Now I think it has something to do with confusing the USB sprites by hotplugging my piano, my printer, and my phone into the same port. Specifically, it seems to be the keyboard and the phone confuse it since they both draw power directly from the computer.

Fortunately, I am of an analytical and inquisitive mind, my newfound blueness notwithstanding, so I wondered if my earlier success was caused not by navel lint removal but by having to print something previously. I plugged in the printer, printed something, and lo! the phone was OK.

This has not occurred before because my printer at home is networked wirelessly. Here, the DOE’s computer is USBed to my laptop. Both it and the phone have to be plugged directly into the laptop to be seen. The keyboard can go through a USB hub, but even that has to be plugged in. (My graphics tablet occupies the other port permanently.)

Anyway, problem solved. We hope.

The herb garden

Posted on by Dale

You may remember the herb garden:

 

So young, so fresh…

But then…

The dill plant that ate Newnan. It’s taller than I am and may weigh more than me for all I know. And who knew lettuce would grow tall if completely unharvested? And then there’s the cilantro all going to seed. I could harvest that and call it coriander.