54 days: tiny steps

Posted on by Dale

Despite allergies that will not let go, I was determined to get some work done tonight, and I did.

It was not much at all, but tiny steps are better than lying down and whining about only having 54 days left to finish two movements.

For the Lento, I was able to suggest a couple more approaches to thematic development, on paper at least. My problem at this point is that I’ll have to scrap what I’ve got so far in order to use any of the new stuff, because wedging it into what is already there is just not practical. Maybe I’ll just print it out at school and literally cut and paste it into the new configuration.

I keep hearing fully articulated, traditional, organic development at the edges of my consciousness, but not front and center enough for me to be able to transcribe. It’s very frustrating. What I get onto paper is stodgy and strophic when it needs to be fluid. I will persevere.

When I’d had enough of that, I went back to the Allegro gracioso and began to orchestrate in earnest. I got three strophes done that sound very nice. I think I’ll tackle the end next, and then work my way back from there.

I am assisted in this movement by some Johann Strauss scores in Google Books. It’s very helpful to see how he’s orchestrated his greatest hits, even if mine sound completely different.

Still no mp3s.

55 days

Posted on by Dale

No, I didn’t get anything done on the symphony all weekend. Leave me alone.

However, I was struck by an ad on the TV. You may have seen it. In it we are told that “we [the U.S.] didn’t wait…” to be told or shown how to do a string of wonderful things, and now we’re not going to wait before solving the global warming problem.

Okay, I just googled it and have discovered that this is an ad from Al Gore. The mind boggles. How this got out of the brainstorming phase is beyond me, because…

We didn’t wait…

  • …to storm the beaches at Normandy. Actually, yes, we did. Hitler invaded Poland in 1939. We didn’t bother getting involved until everyone else was waist-deep in that particular Big Muddy.
  • …on civil rights. Hello? What??? Then where exactly did all those images of thousands of people clogging the Mall come from?
  • …to put a man on the moon. Well, after Sputnik captured our attention, certainly, we worked our ass off, but until then we had no such ambition.

Sorry, Al, baby, you lost me on this one. Admirable sentiment, but historically illiterate. Abysmally.

59 days: on the road

Posted on by Dale

We’re headed up to Guilford for the weekend, and that means I won’t get any work done on the symphony while we’re gone. I am carrying the score for III. Allegro gracioso with me so I can make notes as I listen to it on my iPod, but I doubt I’ll get anything real accomplished.

Listen to Prairie Home Companion tomorrow night and let me know if I won the sonnet contest.

60 days

Posted on by Dale

I revisited IV. Largo yesterday and just started plugging in some new stuff. You may recall that I had a sweet little variation that I had plugged some weeks ago and wasn’t sure I liked. I still not sure about that, and now it’s got two more bits plugged in after that. I’m creating this Frankenstein of a score, all kinds of crap just stitched together. It’s getting less organic by the minute. But I’m going to try just sticking stuff in there and then taking stuff out. However, my major accomplishment yesterday was to realize an ending for III. Allegro gracioso. I’m not telling you what it is. I can now start orchestrating for real, and you’ll hear it when I’m done. I think it’s going to surprise you.

I’ve been getting The Atlantic for a couple of months now. Some airline that I had a few points with sent me a letter saying I needed to get rid of them, and here were all these magazines I could get for free. So I loaded up: Architectural Digest, The Week, Time, Bon Appetit, and The Atlantic.

The articles are good, usually, but what caught my eye yesterday were the ads. Not the ones up front, the full-page numbers from national corporations that are sandwiched in between the lead articles. No, I finally noticed that the back third of the magazine goes from a two-column layout to a three-column, and the editorial content is shoved to the center and the outside column is given over to advertisement that, taken as a whole, give you a pretty good snapshot of the kind of person The Atlantic‘s ad sales division is convinced reads their magazine. Or at least has convinced these advertisers.

A tour: a book ad for Who’s your city?, by Richard Florida, the man who gave us “the creative class.” Now he’s trying to show you how you, as a member of the creative class, can decide where to live. www.WhosYourCity.com. I smell marketing.

Full-page ad from Oxford University Press with their latest offerings: Fixing failed states: a framework for rebuilding a fractured world, Fair trade for all: how trade can promote development, The bottom billion: why the poorest countries are failing and what can be done about it, How to change the world: social entrepreneurs and the power of new ideas, and In defense of globalization. Sorry, no more books for me.

StressEraser. Grundig shortwave radios. Another book, 10 excellent reasons not to hate taxes, from The New Press, a “short, snappy, essential handbook that counters the anti-tax, anti-government rhetoric that permeates our culture.” Tempting, but no more books.

Gary Weeks & Company, furniture makers.

“The World’s Most Wonderful Enamels: 800 original designs of art, science, and culture. Visit us on your trip to Alaska.”

w. end ave: an e-journal of culture & politics (That was the entire ad.)

Another book: Blessed unrest: how the largest social movement in history is restoring grace, justice, and beauty in the world. From Penguin Books. Sorry, no more books, and also, I must have missed the evidence in my world because I cannot think what this social movement might be.

The HP Printing Mailbox with Presto Service, so you can spam those aged relations who don’t want a computer. (It took me a moment to realize: it’s a color fax machine.)

Some garish rings from John Christian Designers & Craftsmen.

An interesting painting of a tiny figure on a beach, approaching an enormous man, loinclothed and topknotted. THINK BIG: The thief of Baghdad special edition DVD, from the Criterion Collection.

The Bow Tie Club. (We’re getting into the really small ads now.)

SnowLion Expeditions: Bhutan, Cambodia, China, Everest, India, Japan, Koreas, K2, Mongolia, Tibet, Vietnam.

Some more books…

Hats! Panamas, Akubra Hats (?), more, from David Morgan.

Daffodil bulbs. A kik-step! Inuit art. Cruises on what appears to be a three-masted yacht. Upton Tea Imports. Andrew Sullivan.

More books: Harvard University Press, University of Wisconsin Press, Grove/Atlantic Press.

Special introductory price! $19.95 (reg. $39.50-49.50) for 100% cotton pintpoint oxford dress shirt! Paul Frederick Menstyle.

Endless Pool! (I really want one of these.) CoffeeMakersEtc. Grace Rare Tea. The Wallet Pen: now, you always have a pen! (One of Oprah’s favorite things!)

Retire to Fearrington: a charming country village near Chapel Hill, NC, with bluebirds, belted cows, and fascinating people of all ages. (I’ve actually seen billboards for this one.)

And we’re done. There is the whole “emporium” section, where you can find pheromones, Celtic jewelry, handcrafted wooden jigsaw puzzles, 14K gold eagle rings, and cufflinks made from Yankee Stadium seats, but on the whole, I think we now have a pretty good idea of the kind of person who reads The Atlantic.

61 days: more productivity

Posted on by Dale

I was very productive today, albeit not entirely with the symphony. I got the herb garden mulched, I got new life insurance, Marc and I checked out the new parks downtown as performance venues, I did a lot of reading (War & Peace and the Dissanayake), and I almost went to the auditions for David Wilson’s 4th of July play, but I forgot about them until too late.

With the symphony, I did listen to III. Allegro gracioso while I drove around town, but am no closer to an ending.

I decided to work outside the score on IV. Largo, trying, as I’ve said previously, break up the agitato motif and create a workable theme with it. I’ve filled a page and a half with “abortive sketches,” one or two of which show promise. I had to keep stepping back and reminding myself that the theme, whatever it ended up being, had to elicit some kind of triumphant, joyful feeling. I think I’ve got some bits to do that with now.

Part of what helped was also listening to Dvorak’s Symphony No. 8 as I drove around, listening once again to how he did it. (It is also in G major, interestingly.) I pulled out my copy of the score this evening and studied some pieces that had struck me earlier in the day; I’m not sure I learned anything concrete, but that’s my lack of academic training in such matters.

Anyway, I’m hearing some bits more clearly now, and I may go back to IV. Lento tomorrow and see what I can put into practice. No mp3s tonight.

62 days: some productivity

Posted on by Dale

On III. Allegro gracioso, I accomplished a few things, fiddling with orchestration here and there, plus tweaking that big finish strophe so that it repeats. No ending yet, but I’m thinking I need to listen to it about a dozen times to see how it might end. There’s still the threat of a total revamp, from J. Strauss to R., but if it will come, it will come.

I also whacked out about six measures of Fanfare for Double Bass Duo & Percussion. We’ll see about that one.

I also got a sonnet blocked out for Prairie Home Companion’s contest. I’m afraid I’ve worked myself into a couple of rhyming corners, and of course it doesn’t say what I want it to say yet, but I have until Friday to polish that off.

All in all, a good day. But IV. Largo still looms.

63 days: A concept

Posted on by Dale

I got email yesterday from Dianne Mize, my painting teacher from my summer at GHP, a newsletter kind of thing reminding us of her blog, where she posts a painting every day. Not that that kind of productivity depresses me or anything.

Anyway, as I scrolled through, lusting after her work, and her work habits, one of her posts led me to this website/post, and the concept of notan: light and/vs. dark in a composition. For Dianne and Robert, of course, the concept is literal in a visual sense.

But I began to think about notan in terms of sound and orchestration. The more I have listened to symphonic works recently in order to glom how they do it, as George Lichtenberg would fret, the more I pay attention to the clarity of the orchestration. I’ve talked before about trying to avoid the problems that Robert Schumann had in layering too many instruments into a passage; I don’t think I’ve been able to avoid them.

On the one hand, as I’ve listened, the strings are the bedrock of the symphony. They play practically all the time in most pieces, and the violins in unison more often than you might think. On the other hand, sometimes they step into the shadows and allow the other sections or soloists to have a moment in the light.

I’ve got the concept. Where I think I have failed in the execution is in setting up themes in a way that these moments of light and dark occur organically. I still feel as if, in IV. Lento especially, I’m writing too strophically. The fact that I can label each pass through a theme with a nickname means that it’s too segmented. In III. Allegro gracioso, which I swear I’m going to get to work on in just a moment, the name of the game is strophe, although as I mentioned in my earlier post I think I could try breaking those up as well.

Anyway, that’s one of my goals this week is to revisit IV. Lento and see about crushing the thematic material and seeing if something good can come of that.

Now I’m going to work. Really.

63 days: Here we go

Posted on by Dale

It’s spring break for me, which means I have some time off to get some real work done on the Symphony.

Of course it’s not that simple. On Thursday we go up to Greensboro to see Grayson and hear his girlfriend’s junior recital (she’s a percussionist) and see his best friend in Cloud Nine. That means I really have only three days to get work done.

And of course there’s a whole list of other things that have to be done: the garden has to be mulched; the kitchen has to be cleaned, a bigger project than you might think; a sofa table has to be converted into an entertainment center; and finally, I have to figure out how to use that Miracle Putty as seen on TV to repair a whole list of items around the house. I’m sure there are other items that are not on my list. Yet.

Still, I have high hopes for getting III. Allegro gracioso finished this week, unless I start hearing voices again: “…in re: Straussian, less J. Jr. and more R., please…” Only the voices don’t say please, they say, “…or it will never work…”

Here’s a photo of the herb garden: I found thyme, added some spicy basil, and look at all the lettuces! That’s a new thing for me. We’ll see if it works or whether I’m going to be feeding rabbits and chipmunks.

My herb garden, ready to be mulched.

65 days: Gardening

Posted on by Dale

I love my herb garden. It’s right outside my kitchen door, so I have easy access to it. It started years ago as a tiny plot along the wall, with parsley, oregano, basil, and chives, and it’s grown into a respectable plot with a brick path down the middle.

But over the last year, it’s become overgrown with grass and weeds. The weeds are easy enough, but the grass digs in and it’s impossible to get it all out. Also, the rosemary had become overgrown, the parsley had been destroyed by the power company replacing the telephone pole in the middle of the garden (don’t ask), and most everything else was just looking ratty. It was time to take it down.

Wallace Stevens uses a garden in his poetry as a symbol of reality: the universe is chaos, and out of that chaos we organize what we can into what pleases us to call reality. This reality is our garden, and a creative person is one who looks for a way out of that gardem, for more chaos. And occasionally, it is necessary to raze the whole thing and start over.

In our real real world, it is necessary to raze the whole thing and start over. I saved the chives, one of the cilantro plants that had sprung up, and the oregano, although it might have been better to start over with that. I sprayed the whole thing with Round-Up™, tilled it up, busted up the soil, spread some mushroom compost over it, tilled it again, and let it sit.

Yesterday, looking for firewood for tonight’s meeting (I was quite unsuccessful, so any Lichtenbergians reading this: bring firewood!), I was at Wal-Mart, and loath though I am to patronize the place, I impulsively bought most of the herbs I need. They did not have English/common thyme and couple of other things, but I was able to get most of it.

I dithered about getting the plants in the ground, because the clouds were so dark, but again, I could not resist my impulses, and I dug in the dirt. My herb garden is replanted. I keep walking out just to look at it. I love my herb garden.

I love my herb garden because there’s nothing like being able to do any recipe that calls for fresh basil or dill or chives and just walking out the door with my scissors and coming back in with actual fresh basil or dill or chives. I love it because when there are no recipes, just you and the salmon or chicken or soup, it frees you to do whatever is possible. Roasted potato wedges? Just plop some chives, oregano, basil, and thyme in there. Salmon? Whip up a sauce with lime and dill. Playing with a vinaigrette? What’s your pleasure?

I have a couple of cookbooks and gardening books devoted just to herbs, most of which I don’t refer to any longer since I’ve become “expert” in the subject. Perhaps I should set those free.

So what all is in my herb garden? Chives, oregano, marjoram, tarragon, thyme, dill, cilantro, sage, basil, parsley, arugula, and rosemary. I used to try for lavender, but it just wouldn’t grow; it’s too hot here. (The tarragon is “Texas tarragon”; the French variety withers in our heat.) The arugula is new this year, and I suspect it’s going to meet a similar fate. I may plant some bee balm, and if I can find lemon verbena, it’s in there like a flash.

I tried lemon grass, and it grew well, but I used it so little that it wasn’t worth the enormous amount of space it came to take up. Likewise lovage, although I’d love to have some of that again. Mints are seductive, but they do run rampant. I actually planted some last summer, but the garden was so strangled with grass by the time I got home from Valdosta that even the mint couldnt’ survive.

I keep looking at fennel, but I don’t use it enough to warrant planting it. I’m curious about borage, calendula, and savory. Publix had a potted herb called culantro, which seems to be a big-leaved substitute for cilantro. I keep wondering whether garlic or horseradish would work in the garden. There’s always catnip…

Time to go out and look at my garden again.

66 days: a little bit louder now

Posted on by Dale

Squeezed out a little more of the end of III. Allegro gracioso and played around with some orchestration.

Also, for some reason, pulled out a folio sheet of score paper and labeled it I. Fanfare, for double bass duo & percussion. Yes, I decided some time ago to expand last summer’s Dance for double bass duo & marimba into a suite, but why I thought I should even label a piece of paper at this point is beyond me. (Fanfare, Threnody, and Dance, in case you were wondering.)

Anyway, here’s the mp3 of III. Allegro gracioso. Keeping in mind how IV. Lento begins, see if you can guess how I’m going to end III.