The Minneapolis Rag

I have been away for a while from my blogs. Sorry, the election just held my attention too much. Before I left my blogs to their own devices, I did upload this "Minneapolis Rag" to my website, but I never posted a link to this blog.

I'll add a bit more to this entry later about the song.



[ Link ] to The Minneapolis Rag

Microtune, #3, Fanfare for an unsettled night

I'm having an unsettled tonight. Nervous energy lashing out in odd directions. Angry at nothing. Cranky just to be cranky.



[ Link ] to Microtune, #3

Big Band Swing on Pandora

I have a new toy: Pandora Radio. Finally I can create a radio station that plays Baroque Choral, Big Band Swing, Billy Joel, The Beatles, among others. Right now I'm listening to Side by Side sung by Anita O'Day.

Sometimes I think I was born at the wrong time--I love this music. But I love working on computers too much to have been born during the Big Band era. Actually this is the music of my parents. Both of them drew up during the depression and came of age in the 40's. Maybe it was something passed on through the genes or through the songs they hummed to me.

The other thing I've found is that this is great music by which to write code. Something about listening to the winds and writing Java just fits.

CD Review: The Grapes of Wrath / Live from the Minnesota Opera World Premiere

Amazon.com: The Grapes of Wrath/Live from the Minnesota Opera World Premiere: Ricky Ian Gordon, Grant Gershon, Deanne Meek and Brian Leerhuber: Music

I want to like this opera. I love Ricky Ian Gordon's music. His Bright Eyed Joy is one of my favorite CDs that I have listened to over and over again.



I have now experienced the opera 3 different ways: I was lucky enough to see a dress rehearsal. I also saw a full performance during the initial run at the Ordway. And now I have listened to the entire CD. Although I love much of the music in Grapes of Wrath I find that I enjoy the individual parts of the work. The whole does not move me the way I wish it did. My biggest issue is with Michael Korie's libretto. It is WAY too long. Also the mixing of the stylized dust bowl speech patterns with the operatic singing does not work for me. And diction is an issue--at times I can't understand what is being sung and at other times it is too perfect for the dialect of the text.

Any yet, there are moments. The opening chorus of "The last time there was rain" and the death of Noah as he sings "I can be a help" stand out for me.

With the material presented on this CD I hear the potential of a wonderful American Opera, but the story telling needs to be tighter. That being said I am still looking forward to what Mr. Gordon writes next.

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Microtune, #6 (Call)

Call. As in "a call". As in "the call". As in "a calling".



[ Link ] to Microtune, #6

Alleluia, version 1

Alleluia

It feels right that I'm working on a piece of music with this title on a Sunday morning. I am a Cradle Catholic. As I get older I find I am exploring outward from that base in a way that I can best describe as Freelance Monotheism (to borrow a phrase from Karen Armstrong). My religious experiences and musical experiences are tied. And when I experience music that is transcendent the word that comes to mind is Alleluia.



The mixing of music and religion is not a new idea. I do not expect that if someone enjoys music I write that they have a religious experience. (I may hope, but I don't expect.) When I let ego go (which in my understanding seems to be the truest root of most religions), what is left is a desire to find communication, or using a great "Catholic" phrase: Communion, with God.

With this piece I want to take a journey. It was originally written for piano and quartet or small choir. The mp3 realization I've done here is very straight forward. What I want to do next is work on orchestrating it. As such I will be publishing a number of versions of it to this blog (intermixed with other music as well). I want to work on my technique of orchestrating for electronica orchestral soundscapes (EOS?)

So here it is: Alleluia, version 1.

[ Link ] to Alleluia, version 1.

Music and the Geek: MP3 tag command line editor

This morning my inner geek has gotten the best of me. I want to upload a new mp3 file to The Note Head, but I need to edit the mp3 tags first. I hate using the GUI for this because I want the tags to be consistent. When I type them in myself I am way too prone to making a mistake.

So I'm searching Sourceforge for a good mp3 tag editor. I want to be able to script the set up of these tags. I found something called lfid3, but is also requires a library called id3lib. So I'm working through the magic of doing the build on cygwin.

None of this has much to do with music except for the end result. Still I find it fun to work through the technical issues of doing this.

What are you listening to?

What music are you listening to? I'd love to hear of suggestions (or better yet links) to music to listen to. Thanks!

Blessed are the Merciful

There are some things I write that I find I cannot leave alone. Wendy reminds me from time to time that I should be writing more new music. But then I find I don't feel like I'm quite done with an older piece.

Blessed are the Merciful is one of those pieces. It was originally written for choir and did get a performance. But then it has sat on my hard drive. Looking back at the piece now, while I like the actual melodic lines, I'm not happy with the setting of the text. So I thought I would try to orchestrate it.

Now that I have Garage Band and the Symphony Orchestra Jam Pack, I have some better sounds to work with. Still there are places where I want a more legato line and the realization of the score is not doing that for me. I still think there are some really interesting moments in this version. But I'm still feeling my way around Garage Band and how to make things sound better.



[ Link ] to Blessed are the Merciful.

Microtune, #4 (Fanfare for Change, yes we can!)

Writing a fanfare I think is one of the best things to do. The older I get the more important I think it is to just let go and do things that you enjoy. A fanfare should capture that feeling. It should also have a sense of the anticipation and hope of what is to come.

This has been a two week period in which the word "Change" has been thrown around quite a bit. I, among many people, feel that it is time for change-in our national outlook and in Washington, DC. So with that in mind I decided to call this one "Fanfare for Change, yes we can!" (And yes, I am an Obama supporter.)



[ Link ] to Microtune, #4

Microtune, #2 (The hand held game)

After listening to one of my previous microtunes, my friend, Boris, asked me "Is this micromalism..?" I think he might be on to something here. We've had Minnmalism--now is it on to Micromalism? In an age where most communication is cut into small packets to be sent as a TCP/IP message across the World Wide Web, perhaps this is to be expected? I don't know.

I do know that this Microtune #2 makes me think of one of the hand held games that my sons play. We're in some kinda of crazy jungle and we have to jump above rolling balls in order not to be flatten by them.



Link to Microtune, #2

And yes, sometimes technology is a pain...

Today I've been cleaning up this blog a bit. I wanted to add a few more microtunes I've been working on and such. Unfortunately I found out there was what looked like a bug in Firefox 3 that meant the audio players I'm trying to embed in the posts wasn't showing up. So I checked Internet Explorer, and it was working there.

Sigh...

Wouldn't it be nice if there was just one way to play back a mp3 file. As it is I think QuickTime needs to be downloaded on the system for these players to even work.

Oh joy. oh bliss.

Now back to music things.

Microtune, #9 (The dying bassist)

Here's my next microtune. For some reason, when I listen to this it sounds like the bassist isn't doing too well, and in the end, just kind of dies off. There is something silly about this, and I like that.



Link to Microtune, #9

Microtune #10

I'm back to my mircotunes. Here's a small dance number--sounds like something I could use as the basis for a whole piece.



Link to Microtune, Day 10

Tune of the Week

http://tinyurl... my tune of the week. (mp3 file)

Renaming

I got tired of the name "Compositional Workshop" today. The new name is "The Note Head". Probably fitting. Sometimes I think I think too much about notes. (Just from the phrase "I think I think" you can probably figure that out.) So--I'm a note head--some one who does a lot of thinking about notes.

So let's see where this goes.