String Quartets for Christmas, vol. 2; NeverWinter mod

I've just finished a set of five arrangements of carols for string quartet and uploaded them to SibeliusMusic.com. They have a quick upload to availability turn around and I've already sold one piece in just five days of putting up my page, so I'm hopeful I'll get a little more action going this way.

A Neverwinter mod called "Moonlight Path" asked a few composers, including me, to write a bit of music for the game and so I'm plugging away at some sketches. The first is for a village where the music needs to imply safety and quiet. My first effort was a little too happy, so I'm trying for something with less movement in it. Did I mention the coders are in Scandanavia? I love the internet.

SibeliusMusic.com

I found an easier way to distribute scores that are unpublishable for one reason or another by major publishers: SibeliusMusic.com. Things to enjoy (besides my lovely music, of course): a large variety and number of scores (over 40000 at the moment), and active and chatty community of composers, nicely organized personal websites, and ease of presentation and distribution.

I submit to MusicNotes.com, a digital sheet music publisher, but they don't accept everything because it really needs to generate income for them. SibeliusMusic runs on the model of composer-as-customer with upgradeable services, etc... Typical but not unfair. I think I like it-- I've posted over a dozen scores already and hopefully will have some encouraging results.

New Track, Christmas Quartets, HTML fun

I posted a new track that I wrote as a possible replacement for a temp track that needed to be replaced in a one minute film. Another composer beat me to the deadline (at least, that what I believe happened) so the director didn't use my track. It sort of works as a one minute piano concerto even though some of the pauses carefully timed into the track have no visuals to make sense of them.

Three new Christmas carol arrangements for string quartet have also "appeared" in the last week and are available for purchase (I email pdfs). I sent them to musicnotes.com to see if they are interested. I should create recordings of them for demos, but I don't feel like working on that right now. Hopefully the first page of the full score available as a tif will be enough for a taste of each piece.

I dipped into HTML and JavaScript for the first time in many, many months. I saw a very nicely set up site owned by David Johns, a composer for games that has a nice sense of color and especially timing. I was impressed and inspired to improve my own work. And to add a media player to my film music page so that visitors could hear more than one piece playing over and over in the background. The page now has a custom made "skin" with four simple controls to use to navigate a short playlist. Fun. Thanks, David!

A NeverWinter modder contacted me to write for his game modules, but he must be busy because he didn't return my last email. I think this is common in young programmers-- lots of time spent writing code and playtesting, and less energy for putting together a package of images, movies, etc. for composers and others who need to see their work.

In other news, I'm working on "The Lord of the Rings Symphony" by Howard Shore with the GR Symphony Chorus. I knew there would be lots of screaming of scales and endless held chord clusters, but I didn't realize from the recordings (which I know too well) how artless the writing is. The effect works in the context of the movies, but other composers could have done a better job, I think. HS thinks chords and fingers with a little color thrown in. This lead in this case to lots of superfluity (I'm tempted to pun) and unfinished editing. Ah well, the symphony organization will make lots of money on this one.

Katrina; Clara Barton

I can't add anything of any significance to all that has been said about the disaster, so I just offer my useless feelings of sadness and what money I can through the aid agencies. My wife is the principal at a local Catholic school where they have just taken in the kids in a family (or two?) displaced by the hurricane. This is the right thing to do. The upper administration is trying to control the process, but they seem to have proven time and again that their heads are in the wrong place and so I wouldn't trust them to be terribly helpful. This seems to me to be a parish community-level missionary endeavor and should be handled that way.

In my professional life, I seem to be getting pieces published more regularly, which is nice. Rob Child is working on Clara Barton, the last I heard from him, so hopefully this job will indeed come through and make up for the income loss of not teaching in the music department at Aquinas College this year. I miss the students and the subjects, but I don't miss the across-town drive four days a week.

Some local church music directors got together last week to hear compositions for church use by area composers. There were five of us presenting and I heard a lot of nice pieces, some of which I absolutely sure I'll use. I wasn't terribly well organized in that my samples were shrunk to save on paper (20 pages down to 4 legal size double sided-- but wait, who cares?) whereas others gave out much better looking presentations of their work. I don't pay enough attention to image, I guess. Still, the music doesn't care what it is printed on as long as it is readable, and the audience gave a good reading of mine and everyone else's stuff. I think the things I contributed that had the most impact were psalm settings that borrowed idioms from spirituals and jazz-- I believe that the psalms of lamentation are particularly suited to this emotional style of writing and this was born out in the response to these compositions. We'll see if the publishers like them or not, I guess.

I see Ophelia is threatening Florida-- looks like some more lamentation may be in order.

Antietam-- Done; Funk-- begins

Rob Child is almost done with Antietam: The Boys in Blue and Gray (ABIBG), part 2 in a series of documentaries on Civil War battles. The music is in and the production is being converted to high definition before being released in November. I believe PBS will be distributing this since they had success with the first installment. I'm glad that Rob found me and likes my work-- not only do I enjoy it, it is becoming something of an addiction. Addiction probably isn't the right word except that like a smoker reaches for a cigarette out of habit of mind and muscle, my mind is standing ready to score the next scene-- I feel a little on edge like I'm supposed to be doing something and I'm not. This happens every time I finish a project, but usually it is just a couple of days. This is lasting much longer. Hmmm...

You can hear a couple of samples on my Film and Music page.

I have more work to do on my studio (helpful comments appreciated)-- a third computer/synth needs to be added, a set of decent monitor speakers (Mackie HR624 or HR824 depending on finances), and the necessary equipment/cables to put it all together. I may be moving to a new house reasonably soon, in which case, I will be looking for a room that has studio potential (room for a big piano, can be made very quiet). We'll see. As long as the projects keep coming, I will invest in this addiction/obsession.

On a completely other topic, I am an avid reader of comics like Doonesbury and Dilbert, since like so many others I've become very interested in politics and the pervasiveness of the business model since the late 80's. The last couple of strips, however, deal with college accreditation, a subject also close to my heart. I think accreditation is practically hokum, but to be fair, I don't have many examples to base this judgement on. In any case, Troudeau asks who would want to attend a non-accredited college, to which my mind quickly reponded "Juilliard students". The exception that proves a rule or the contradiction that points another way? I think the latter-- Juilliard is non-accredited (at least, according to my sources) because everyone knows it is a good school, which corresponds with my experience that schools with some need to prove themselves seek accreditation. Dilbert is closer to my heart on the accreditation/certification issue-- you hold a zillion meetings, distribute copies of mounds of documentation, and then fill a great big honkin' binder with made up position titles, job descriptions and procedures to get a flag or stamp of approval. I can certainly accept standards in definitions for the manufacturing and financial sectors, but in a university? What standard is there to use to measure literature, mathematical exploration, scientific invention other than the usual one-- create, publish, criticize, and then teach others to do the same?

Ah well, I'll climb back into my music box.

The Death of an Audio Card

The death of an audio card was like this: first it lagged the whole machine just a little, if lag can be a transitive verb, then it started eating up half the CPU time, lagging the computer a LOT. Yesterday, my Aardvark audio card got its tongue stuck in its last ant hole and couldn't get it out-- no MIDI, no audio, nothin'. I went online to see what was happening at aardvark.com and discovered that the company has disappeared. I googled a bit to pick up any traces of advice on what I might do, but all I could find was a sad little petition dated a couple of years ago asking Aardvark to release the sourcecode for the cards, presumably so that people could make them work properly. Sigh. Of course this happens right in the middle of a project, so I'm using the old fashioned method of writing, playing at the piano, and guessing what it will sound like. In addition, I think that everything, including video, runs off the clock in the card, and so this is why nothing synchronizes anymore-- the video plays in high speed. Ah well, a temporary setback-- the new card is already on the way. I hope it doesn't have any trouble in my aging computer.

A last note-- I will stay away from name brands I don't recognize. Aardvark was a small company making a very nice product and so I bought it, BUT I had my first warning when it took forever for them to come up with a driver to work with the then-new Windows XP. The person handling my phone call when I was grumbling about the non-compatibility with XP was very unprofessional. I should have returned the card right then. Now I know two symptoms of a company at high risk for evaporating-- small staff and volatile support techs.

Back from Italy

I've been very busy the last couple of months working on Antietam and preparing a small choir for a tour of Southern Italy.

The trip went almost without incident and the incidents didn't really affect us at much at all. I posted some pics at a photo-share site-- some of these I pasted together for panorama views of some especially scenic sites. The concerts were varied and interesting. The first was probably the best of the formal concerts, in a small church in Pescara (S. Francesco). The Mass preceding our concert went overtime, so we started a bit past 9 pm. As is usual for these things, the audience started somewhat small and grew as people who heard the music outside wandered in. No one applauded after the first several pieces, so I just made a full turn and smiled after the third group at which point the audience applauded with some enthusiasm. It turns out that my proofreading of the program failed in that I somehow missed the fact that the groupings of the pieces wasn't indicated. After that first bow, they applauded more often, though I can't recall if it was after every piece or not. One benefit of all this was that the program was about 10 minutes over an hour long and that was plenty for our voices and my energy.

The program was:

I
O Quam Gloriosum - Victoria
Tu Es Petrus - Palestrina
Cantate Domino - Pitoni
Mass in A minor - Canniciari

II
Jubilate Deo - Mozart (?)
Ave Verum (a cappella) - Mozart
Thou Art the Glory of their Strength (a cappella) - Handel

III
O Salutaris hostia - Rossini
Locus Iste - Bruckner
Beati Quorum Via - Stanford
Lift Thine Eyes - Mendelssohn
Heilig - Mendelssohn

IV
Ubi Caritas - Durufle
Ave Maria - Biebl
O Magnum Mysterium - Carl Wiltse (local composer)

V
Don'tcha Weep, Sweet Mary
Wondrous Love - Parker/Shaw
Precious Lord (men only) - Ringwald
Steal Away - Hogan
Good News, Chariots a-comin'

I think that's everything.

The second concert was less formal and followed a Mass in Perugia (or a nearby suburb). We didn't know what to expect and when we arrived we were disappointed to learn that they didn't want to hear classical music. Ouch. So, we sang most of the last group for the outdoor Mass (definitely not our best acoustic!) and they were happy. They called their music "gospel", but it sounded to be like the urban folk of the 60's. However, it was well attended, largely by younger folks, and the musicians were a male guitarist and a female singer/cantor. A young woman was called out of the assembly to translate most of the homily for our benefit-- she was put on the spot and so was very nervous, but she held her own negotiating the two languages. After the Mass, a young women came up, spoke very good English (better than the translator at Mass), and expressed her appreciation of our singing. It turns out she is a classical guitarist (and probably could have blown the chord chomper out of the water) studying conducting at a nearby university. Sheesh. During this time that I'm speaking with various members of the parish, watermelon is being served and it seemed that almost everyone stayed for fellowship. I was pretty sure that they didn't want to hear our program, so I let them know that I didn't want to force them to listen to music they weren't interested in and that that was OK, no problem. However, we were prodded into singing for the promised half hour informal concert and I said that was fine, but was there any way we could use the church? No, too hot in there. I asked again, saying we were used to the heat and the kind of music that we sing does better inside, so they showed me into their modern building which turned out to have shiny, beautiful marble floors and stone walls and ceiling. (There was also a cool chapel-- the door was about 4' high and was doored by a round stone that could be rolled in front of the entrance to the side.) It wasn't a huge church and I suspected this might be the most perfect venue we would see on the trip. We assembled in front and, without any audience except what we brought with us, we started singing. The acoustic was astoundingly wonderful and we had some of our best renditions of our repertoire that evening. Within minutes of beginning this mini-concert, the crowd moved inside and listened attentively. Their applause was exceedingly enthusiastic (which makes me wonder what they think of when they hear "Classical music") and then simply rapturous when we repeated the Spirituals and gospel set. Who knew?

The third concert was in Perugia in one of the town-center meeting halls/ auditoriums. The room was live, but not special. We had just eaten a huge meal, it was especially hot, andsince it was late in the tour, many were very tired . It took us several pieces to reclaim our energy and perform well. The concert was OK, but only good in the last half.

The fourth event was Mass at St. John Lateran in Rome. The church is of course very special but was a little large for our ensemble and we were seated behind the huge altar, so there was no line-of-sight to the assembly. Still, they had mics up which apparently worked perfectly to make it seem, according to one of our groupies, that a choir of angels was singing unseen during the Mass. Cool. A young woman who explained that she was a member of a 60-piece orchestra and chorus in the area was very complimentary of our expressive singing (one of my primary goals-- I spend a lot of rehearsal time fussing about this). The Monsignor who presided at Mass sent a messenger after our first piece and said we could take pictures with him after Mass. I guess he either liked us or just forgot to say so before, heh. In any event, I was expecting this to be the least pleasant experience because I had heard that guest choirs singing in Rome were often cut off in mid-piece in order for Mass to continue in a timely fashion. Nothing like that happened, thankfully, and I carefully chose music (from our very short approved list) that would fit well. A very lovely, actually.

That's enough for now. Back to Antietam. Rob Child has shown me another "treatment" for a project they are asking him to take on. More work for me, I hope!