Ottevanger's Omphaloskeptic Outpost

[Guido]

Not a million miles from what I was pondering anyway, in fact....

This makes me 

[lukeottevanger]

Good. But don't get your hopes up - the concert will probably feature the Schumann Piano Concerto, so another concertante work might be too much. OTOH, last time I wrote a concertante piece for trumpet which was paired with the Beethoven Emperor Concerto, and that wasn't a problem, so who knows?

More to the point, though, is that I haven't decided myself yet. And I'm putting off giving it any extended thought until time permits. Next week might be an opportunity...

[lukeottevanger]

Beginning to get things down on paper. Lots of ideas, potentially quite good - but only a few pages of notes so far!

[karlhenning]

Excellent! Many is the time where it's just a matter of getting started: all the rest follows.

[lukeottevanger]

Hope so!

Oh, and Karl - that clarinet part is almost done now. It was delayed because it was on my wife's laptop which had a pretty nasty series of crashes last week. But it ought to be completed soon. As I made it I realised that I'd missed out quite a few details of dynamics etc when writing out the complete score, and filling in those, in both score and part, is what's holding up completion. Well, that and work on the new piece!

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

Beginning to get things down on paper. Lots of ideas, potentially quite good - but only a few pages of notes so far!

Good luck with this new project, Luke!

Excellent! Many is the time where it's just a matter of getting started: all the rest follows.

And that goes for composing fiction, too

[lukeottevanger]

Good luck with this new project, Luke!

Thanks! I'm off outside to my makeshift Mahlerian composing shack now 

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

Thanks! I'm off outside to my makeshift Mahlerian composing shack now 

May we expect cowbells?!

[karlhenning]

The Gustav Mahler Composing Tarpaulin . . . .

[karlhenning]

Hope so!

Oh, and Karl - that clarinet part is almost done now. It was delayed because it was on my wife's laptop which had a pretty nasty series of crashes last week. But it ought to be completed soon. As I made it I realised that I'd missed out quite a few details of dynamics etc when writing out the complete score, and filling in those, in both score and part, is what's holding up completion. Well, that and work on the new piece!

I understand entirely!  In fact, there are all sorts of errata to fix on the viola part of The Mousetrap (though Pete's been a real trooper, unflinchingly and uncomplainingly cooperative).  We got a couple of The Evil Pages sounding pretty close to right, pretty close to tempo.  I think that the several biorythms of your clarinet part being ready, and my clarinet being in fighting trim for the June recital, will converge most happily 

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

Mahler's 'Komponierhäuschen' between 1893 and 1896 (Steinbach am Attersee, now on a camping site).

Another one now serves more basic needs...

Although composing is a very basic need, too, for some of us!

[lukeottevanger]

May we expect cowbells?!

You may not.  Bells of other sorts, perhaps, but bovine ones, no...

[lukeottevanger]

Finally, I can upload both a more final version of the Canticle Sonata and a clarinet part for Karl's perusal (and any other clarinetist who want to cast their eyes over it)

[karlhenning]

Very good.

[lukeottevanger]

Any chance to play through it yet, Karl? Does it look do-able (or even readable)?

[karlhenning]

Haven't played through just yet, Luke.  Somehow I'm just noticing a lot of high A (written);  I'm going to sit down with it and play it Sunday evening . . . it's just that kind of week 

Don't know how I missed this (I think I was reading earlier with an eye to the clarinet line subject to the transposition) . . . p8/m121, that tremolo is across the break. Manageable, but at fortissimo is apt not to sound so smooth as it would on a stringed instrument.  Not that it need be changed;  just an advisory.

A few typographic details:

1. pagination seems odd (!) p2 is marked p1

2. bottom line of p1, accel dashes are crowding brackets

3. top of "p1" (actual p2), maybe some cues for the last two measures of the 19mm block of rests in 5/8?

4. p2/m86, something odd's happened to the bracketing (ditto m90, m94)

5. bottom of p2/m126, tie on the A's is crossing stem.

6. top of p4. "echo tone" could be nudged up out of the way of the beam

7. In general, sometimes accidentals crowd stems or noteheads of the preceding note (second line of p4, e.g.), a little visually distracting.

8. top of p6, end of first line, diminuendo hairpin crowds stem of the A

9. top line of p8 . . . may just be me, but I think the B#/D# bits were easier read as C-nat/E-flat (and then with corrective E-naturals);  that will also keep the C-natural-to-A intervals immediately legible.  Your average single-line instrumentalist is going to wonder why, if there's a B# (which can induce panic all on its own), the A's are natural.

10.  p9, end of second line: tempo marking crowds the triplet bracket.

Not that any of that is awfully important.  It's a fine piece, which we want other clarinetists to take a look at, too;  and this sort of 'scrubbing' is a necessary evil.

[karlhenning]

Overall, eminently playable, and I am looking forward to giving this a trot with Kwoon ere long!

[lukeottevanger]

Thanks for that detailed response, Karl - it's good to have a fresh and understanding eye cast over the piece. I'll get to work on the changes when I can, but that may take some time as my wife's laptop is now consigned to the scrapyard and for some reason Sibelius stopped working on my PC a year or two ago. (No matter how often I uninstall and reinstall it....  )

[karlhenning]

Thanks for that detailed response, Karl - it's good to have a fresh and understanding eye cast over the piece. I'll get to work on the changes when I can, but that may take some time as my wife's laptop is now consigned to the scrapyard and for some reason Sibelius stopped working on my PC a year or two ago. (No matter how often I uninstall and reinstall it....  )

Glad to be of assistance, Luke; and I well know the value of having a second pair of eyes comb through a score! Happy to serve you in this capacity;  and I am keen, also, to play this for an audience.

[lukeottevanger]

A bit of light relief this week! My lovely year five class (9-10 year olds) have worked so hard this year that we have some spare lessons to have fun in. So, with some 'help' from them on Monday I gathered some of their thoughts about what they've done this year, and then during spare minutes in the week I turned them into a one-off song full of 'in-jokes' for the class to practise and perform at the informal end-of-year concert. Though its just a simple little thing, I'm really pleased with what I've done - it has lots of little details and coincidences of text and music which have come off very happily. I'll post the score when I've managed to set it into Sibelius, so that you can see the medievalisms, the Marseillaise references and so on in their appropriate places, but here are the words, just for now.

The song is structured on the conceit that whilst most of year five played the 'tarantara-ing' policemen in the school's production of The Pirates of Penzance this year, one of them, Phoebe, who was given the starring role of major general (and carried it off with great aplomb for such a young girl) is still living off her past glories... italics = spoken

Phoebe, coming onstage singing to herself:
'I am the very model of a modern major general...'

Speaking voice, rushing on and interrupting:
No, no, no, Phoebe, we're not singing that anymore. You have to let it go! This song is about what we learnt this year in Year Five

All onstage, to sing:
We're the year five generation,
A group of girls with imagination.
This is what we learnt about this year
(but it's just our interpretation!)

What shall we do first?

History!

1
History was gruesome!
Ordeal by fire and water;
Black Death carried by the rats
And battles filled with slaughter!
We learnt about historic men
And conquests that were seminal....

Phoebe
I was the very model of a modern major general...

All
Oh, Phoebe!

We're the year five generation,
A group of girls with imagination.
This is what we learnt about this year
(but it's just our interpretation!)

What next?

French!

2
In Madame Jones's French class
We've not eaten snail or frog.
She takes the register en français...
And then we walk her dog!
She shows which nouns are masculine
And which of them are femeral...

Huh?

Phoebe
I was the very model of a modern major general...

All
Get over it, Phoebe!

We're the year five generation,
A group of girls with imagination.
This is what we learnt about this year
(but it's just our interpretation!)

Shall we have a middle 8?

Yes! Here we go:

This is our year five song,
Full of words that are much too long,
But that doesn't fill us up with anger -
What can you expect
When he's got a name as long as Ot-te-van-ger?!

3
English (Mrs Wallace-Jones):
We learn to punctuate.
We learn to read and write and rhyme
And never...
Never!!
...never to be late!
We look up funky words
Like 'hieroglyphic' and 'ephemeral'
And
(All, clamping Phoebe's mouth shut) Phoebe was the model of a modern major general!

How shall we finish?

(sung in canon)
That was our year five song,
And we hope it was not too long,
But just so we don't push it too far
Let's slip offstage
Tarantara, tarantara, tarantara, tarantara..... (fade)