Squared Away

Dreamt I went to a Lebanese bistro in a strip mall called The Shopping Off-Center, and the house specialty was “lamb chowder.”

– Porridger’s Almanack (Breakfast of Ganglions)

I sit on a man’s back, choking him, and making him carry me, and yet assure myself and others that I am very sorry for him and wish to ease his lot by any means possible, except getting off his back.

— Tolstoy

I finished the Sibelius file of the Square Dance, Op. 72 today. I need still to review the parts before I can send them to Bruce.  Clarinet I certainly needs proper page turns. But that drudgery can wait. As it is, I am pleased that my desk is now ready for the Kerouac piece. For which, really I need to start with settling the text. That task is on the docket for 1 July.

From the Ministry of Antiquities

Q: When is your wardrobe exhausted?
A: When you wear fatigues.

– Postcards From Red Squirrel Trail

Baby’s on fire: better throw her in the water.
— Brian Eno

In 2003 I composed the clarinet quartet (3 soprano & bass) Square Dance, my Opus 72. At that time I was still using Finale. In combing through the electronic files, I did not find any Finale file, nor PDFs of the parts. I was rather relieved to find a PDF of the score, lest the piece be lost. I have been recreating the score in Sibelius, and planning to have it done by month's end. I had best get a move on.

Belated Report

Any affinity for Nefertiti, Tintin?

– Postcards From Red Squirrel Trail

Shall we take ourselves seriously? Shall we think we are so mature?
— Frank Zappa

Well, I actually finished The Lungs on Friday the 25^th.
That is, I finished composing it. The layout of the score needs rather a bit of work, for which I doubt I shall have time this side of the Triad concerts in November. And of course, I anticipate no need for the score before then.

I need at some point this summer to compose a piece for Triad plus flute as a collaboration with my colleague (soon to be our colleague) Peter H. Bloom.

Pulmonary Progress

 

Too early for twirly?

– Postcards From Red Squirrel Trail

I think it doesn’t matter to him anyway. He’s just satisfied to wander around and forget things.

— Jack Kerouac. The Dharma Bums

There have been four phases of my work on the third movement of Karl’s Big (But Happily Incomplete) Map of The Body:

Phase 1: In which I earnestly intended to start writing it. This phase began pretty much on the point when I wrapped up The Heart, at which point I thought I was dubbing Movement 3 The Noggin, and I already knew the initial anacrustic gesture with which to set it in motion. This phase lasted months. I knew it would not last forever, but for a while that was all I knew for a certainty.

Phase 2: In which I at last set up the Sibelius file, plugged in the snare drum anacrusis, and learnt that (at first, anyway, the movement would be in a brisk 5/4.  This phase lasted perhaps 3-4 days.

Phase 3: In which I built out the percussion intro to the movement. This phase lasted two days, by the end of which the movement did not quite run 40 seconds.

Phase 2: In which I finally find that I have well primed the pump, and work began in enthusiastic and positively-reinforced earnest.

Per my musing here (on April Fool’s Day),  I am aiming for six minutes for The Lungs. With today’s work done, the movement is just shy of half-complete.

Trending back towards normal

L’enfer, c’est les autres (Hell is other people)
— Jean-Paul Sartre, Huis clos (No Exit)
’Cuz there ain’t no one for to give you no pain
— America “A Horse With No Name”

Last night, my church choir had their (our) first rehearsal since March of last year. Just want to report how great that feels.

Separately, here is the Jacksonville University Choral Union’s February 2021 performance of the Op. 170 № 1

Centimetering Along

 

It isn’t talking to yourself,
if you address your parakeet, right?

– Porridger’s Almanack (Breakfast of Ganglions)

Nobody knows whether we were catalysts or invented something, or just the froth riding on a wave of its own. We were all three, I suppose.

— Allen Ginsberg

There is now 35" of the third movement.  Progress too inconsiderable to bother reporting? Maybe. Fact is that between the oppressive heat, and my ‘recovering’ from Friday’s PT, I am happy that the piece is advancing, even if it only outpaces the glacier.

Erm, at Last

 

I think I could never grill a gorilla.
But, a few questions, I might ask politely.

– Porridger’s Almanack (Breakfast of Ganglions)

Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal; bad poets deface what they take, and good poets make it into something better, or at least something different.

— T.S. Eliot

As I finished The Heart at the end of March, I have been “meaning to start” work on the third movement for months. Friday is PT day, so I perforce spent the afternoon resting. Upon re-verticalizing, I have managed at last to set up the Sibelius file for The Lungs (I shan’t say that I got started on the composing, although I have indeed input what in my mind was always the opening gesture of the movement.) I only discovered today that the movement begins in 5/4. Now shall I resume taking the remains of the day easy: Proper work tomorrow, and the determination to have the movement—and therefore the Symphony—finished by July.

Today’s Modest Work

 

Wreckage & unbeknownstage.

– Postcards From Red Squirrel Trail

If they give you ruled paper, write the other way.

— Juan Ramón Jiménez

This afternoon I finished my arrangement of “O Waly Waly” for the HTUMC choir for use this month (It will also serve, warmed up, for All Saint’s Day.

This evening I rather amused myself. I learnt today of a call for orchestral scores. As the call said they would consider pieces for string orchestra as well, I felt that I wanted to submit the string choir version of Misapprehension. Why not, right?  The call specifies that the piece should be 6 - 12 minutes in length.  The mp3 of Misapprehension runs 5:58.  Not wanting to submit the piece such that it was just possible they'd disqualify a piece whose MIDI realization falls just shy of 6' (which would be stupid. Because any actual performance would “breathe” and run longer (but when you may not be counting on a colleague’s consideration, and one can rely on the lack of imagination in bureaucrats)— I inserted three mm. in the middle, so that the new running time of the mp3 is 6:06.  The insertion is not merely unobtrusive, it is positively organic.