Well, this was a surprise. How’d that happen?
(Sforzandos and crescendos are still left largely to your musical intelligence, and cut-offs are still icky. And the last note is cut off. I’m not fixing that at the moment.)
Update
Muddling through
9:45 am
I’ve worked on the opening to IV. Lento-Allegro for about an hour, and I think it’s approaching usability. I left the brass chorale as is, I had considered altering it, I’ve answered it with the woodwinds, and then let the brass have another say. It actually sounds symphonic. And other than the opening phrase, I’ve been able to do without the string section. That’s kind of a breakthrough for me. I guess my orchestration lessons from Dvorak are working.
Now, however, I’ve rounded out the opening, I think. I’ve bruited the main theme enough so that the savvy critic can say, ah yes, I see, and it’s time to move on to the meat of the matter.
The meat of the matter is always the issue, isn’t it? How do I get there from here?
More later.
11:30 am
Wasn’t as hard as I thought. Just repeat a bass/cello motif, round the key up to G major, and launch into the main theme.
There is an mp3 this time, but be advised:* the main theme is supposed to be a solo violin and I was too lazy to wrestle with the computer on this fact, and I don’t know why said solo violin is cutting notes short when it’s not supposed to. So, you gotta hear it under lights, as a character in the musical version of a Rostand play the Marx Bros. version of which I’m supposed to be writing songs for instead of this symphony might have said.
* I went back in at 3:00 pm and wrestled with the computer.
8:30 pm
So maybe you didn’t like the opening. Here’s a new version of the very opening statement.
Update, plus the Good Driver Fallacy
I just checked http://lichtenborgian.org, and the coming soon page is up, but I haven’t received any access info from Noah, nor can I see it in my FTP utility. I’ve emailed him and expect to hear from him as soon as he gets to his computer out in California. And then… then…
So over on the Lacuna blog, Jeff pointed us to a book review in the Times, of Stumbling on Happiness, the main point of which in its applicability to us Lichtenbergians is that humans are an easily deluded lot, mostly by ourselves, and mostly to maintain our happiness.
The author cites the notorious statistical anomaly that “90% of drivers rate themselves above average,” which is usually used to show how self-deluded most people are. Because, clearly, 90% of drivers cannot be above the 50% mark, can they? It’s like, as is often smirkingly said, Lake Wobegon’s children. Or NCLB test scores.
But I have some questions about this much-quoted and much-derided statistic. Could it not be a fallacy itself?
For one thing, what’s the scale of “good drivership”? For the 90% figure to be wrong, there would have to be an objective rating scale of good drivership that would allow you to place all drivers along it. What counts? Accidents? Slamming on brakes? Driving with coffee? Cell phones? Five mph over the speed limit? Six?
For all I know, the original study that created this zombie factoid had such a methodology. I’m too lazy to go find it. But my next question was, were participants in the study asked to rate themselves with this scale, or were they asked to decide where they would fall on such a scale without being given any details? I suspect the latter, which is actually okay as long as then they were asked to fill out some kind of survey which then would place them accurately along the scale.
Because, and this is the important part, I think that the unexamined assumption of the 90% deal is that drivers are distributed across this scale in a normal curve, i.e., 70% of drivers cluster around the 50% mark, and the rest of us are strung out on either side, with very few awful drivers and very few perfect drivers, just like IQ.
However, I doubt that. I think it entirely possible that we are not distributed in a normal curve, but a J-curve, and in fact most of us are better drivers on an absolute scale than not. In other words, while the researchers were applying a norm reference, the real world is working with a criterion reference. Most people quite rightly examine their driving habits and say, “You know what, I’ve never had an accident, and I can’t remember the last time I even slammed on my brakes or went down a one-way street the wrong way. I did cut that guy off on the interstate last week, but he was a bad driver.” And so they rate themselves “above average,” because in fact they are.
Okay, so maybe it’s not a J-curve, which would mean that most drivers are approaching perfect, but I’d be willing to bet that it’s at least a shifted normal curve, with that main 70% clumped around the 80% mark and not the middle.
Damned statistics.
IV.Lento-Allegro, molto agitato
I tried to work on a molto agitato sequence for IV. Lento-Allegro last night, but I wasn’t feeling well for some reason. I know what I want, for once, and I could even hear it in my head, but I couldn’t concentrate. It kept coming out wrong, and the orchestration was absolutely appalling, although I can’t tell whether it’s me or the software. I think I want cellos, but it’s not sounding right, not stressful enough.
Part of the problem is that in order to get the computer to sound like what I want the orchestra to sound like, I have to over-indicate in the score. Real players would look at the command molto agitato and immediately tackle the passage with shorter bowing and stronger attacks on the strings. The computer is not so savvy. (Of course, I didn’t actually mark it agitato, so maybe it’s smarter than I think.)
I often ran into this problem in William Blake. I would have to fill the score with markings that I think would only overwhelm actual players just to get it to sound like I wanted it to.
On the other hand, it never hurts to be specific.
However, nothing was working last night, not the melodic line, not the shape of the thing, and certainly not the orchestration. The trumpets were too loud, it was the wrong key for them to sound right, and the basses were muddy. So I left it in sketches and went to bed early.
Lichtenbergian domain
So what do we want for our Lichtenbergian domain name?
Jeff wants tomorrowisbetter.com, although I’m going to suggest we go with .org (with .com pointing to it).
I have a fondness for thelichtenbergiansociety.org or just lichtenbergian.org, both of which are available.
There’s also crasmeliorest.org, which I’m so confident is available I’m not even going to check.
Thoughts and suggestions? As soon as we pick one, I can have the whole thing up and running in about 48 hours.
IV. Lento-Allegro, main theme sketches
I played with the main theme for the 4th movement a while tonight, with three little variations. One was the theme in the flute with the triplets in the harp. Not quite what I needed, but my goal tonight was to throw things out there and see what happened.
Next I scored the main theme as heard in the Sonatina for the strings alone. That was nice, and rather meditative. Perhaps for the ending, or maybe an interlude, or maybe one of the variations before we hit the big climax.
Interestingly, I took that variation and transposed it up a fifth, an lo! without my doing a single other thing to it, it took on an entirely different character. It was triumphant and soaring, partly because the violins were now in their heroic register, and partly because it was in D major, which can’t help itself: it just sounds heroic. Something to do with the being a good key for the brass back in the day; if you go check all your favorite glorious baroque bits, almost all of them are in D major.
The problem, of course, is that the symphony needs to end in G, the key of the meditative variation. I’ll think about that another day.
No mp3s today.
I worked on my Assignment L.08.01 after that, and I think I have something. It’s not excellent, but it’s there. It’s also fairly NSFW, although you have to squint to figure that out. I’ll post it wherever the Lichtenbergian Society blog ends up.
Sorry.
I couldn’t help myself.
I fully intended to work on a) the three songs from Moonlight that have been occupying me; and b) Assignment L.08.1, but somehow, I sketched out the opening to the last movement of the symphony.
Let’s see if my new plug-in works, allowing me to embed the mp3 file here. (You should see a blue arrow to click on.)
Not bad for a first draft. I know that a real orchestra will balance the brass choir better than I can, so ignore the obstreperous tones of the first trombonist here. I think maybe those low C “oomphs” may need some low brass under them. We’ll see.
In case you’ve forgotten, I stole this theme from my Sonatina Four Hands for piano, and this is where we’re heading. (Some weird tempo stuff going on there, but this was a Finale 97 file that thank goodness Finale 08 deigned to even open.)
Off to pack up Christmas stuff.
Assignment L.08.1
Go here.
Respond. (Yes, with Art, you ninnies.)
We have until Tuesday night. Or 12,000 years, whichever comes first.
Lichtenbergian victim #1
Lichtenbergianism claims its first victim: the setting of the German text of “Song of Solomon” for the Festival European Sacred Music Schwäbisch Gmünd. It was to be postmarked tomorrow, and I haven’t even looked at it. Ah well. Check!
Despite the headway I’ve been making on the Moonlight songs, I had a panic attack tonight coming home from the Masterworks small ensemble practice. I am supposed to be starting the symphony, but I’m going to be behind already, and that scares me to death.
Part of it is of course that it’s the tail end of the holidays, and now it’s time to take all that stuff down. As a matter of fact, even as I type this, Ginny’s downstairs asking for help bringing in all the storage tubs she’s bought. I’ll be right back. Maybe.
All right, so far I’ve lived to tell the tale. But you see the problem. If you haven’t read Leaf by Niggle, by J.R.R. Tolkien, I highly recommend it. In it, a second-rate artist (Niggle) can’t get his work done because of all the duties his society calls upon him to do, plus all his neighbors and acquaintances call on him for favors. Because of all the distractions, even though he knows he ought to be preparing himself for his journey, he never quite gets his painting done. Even though there’s a Faëry ending for Niggle and his neighbor Parish, the overall outlook for Art and Artists is very bleak, even to the point of nihilism.
Ironically, today is Tolkien’s birthday.
I’ve written another verse and a half for “Dream Land,” which makes it way too long, but people can use it if they want. I’ll try to finish that up by the weekend.
I’ve also started “Fedallini’s Catalog,” and I think I have the melody down. I might extend it to a full 16 bars, but I’ll see. Lyrics are sketched and sketchy, so I can try to nail that down in the next few days. I still have to set the intro, but that’s just a matter of making up a wild cadenza for the piano. Fedallini doesn’t sing this song, just speaks it. I may have Thurgood chime in at the end of each verse. Pinke, of course, says nothing. If I’m very clever, I may have him mime some obvious and rude rhyme.
And the Act I finale, “Tear Down That Wall” has begun forming itself in my head. I can at least get that blocked out this weekend.
The problem is, the symphony has also begun forming itself in my head.