Ottevanger's Omphaloskeptic Outpost

[Karl Henning]

Also . . . did this April have 31 days?  (I mean, it may have felt like it . . . .)



Delicious score, this Padma!  I know they all add up, but the dotted notes in the RH of m. 8 (and 39) do have my brain squirming just a little.

@ Karl - yes, it is a bit easier to do in e.g. Sib 3 or 4, where you just click 'staff type change > hidden.' But it is easy in Sib 7 too, once you know how - just select the bars to be hidden and then perform an instrument change on them (by clicking the 'change' icon which is next to 'add or remove' on the Home bar). Select the 'no instrument (hidden)' option.

Terrific!  And the timing is wonderful, because I need to do this both for the clarinet (and now, a viola adaptation) of my Canzona, and for both parts of The Mousetrap.  Thank you!

[Luke]

Also . . . did this April have 31 days?  (I mean, it may have felt like it . . . .)

Oops, did I let that slip through too!! It was very late, that's my excuse. Thanks for spotting it, will clean that up!

Delicious score, this Padma!  I know they all add up, but the dotted notes in the RH of m. 8 (and 39) do have my brain squirming just a little.

That's the kind of rhythmical feature that used to flourish in my music, and I've just let it back in again. I love the fecundity of this kind of rhythmic writing, the way a small uneven feature like these dotted notes can flourish into something else, like a plant growing up against an obstacle, and growing round it and changing its course, natural and flowing and yet unpredictable.... technically it tends to instigate a kind of metric modulation as here. Of course in this case the  four-dotted-notes subdivision of the previous bars (7 and 38) continues into the new bar, and is finally effectively 'tripletised' on the last subdivision of that bar.

Terrific!  And the timing is wonderful, because I need to do this both for the clarinet (and now, a viola adaptation) of my Canzona, and for both parts of The Mousetrap.  Thank you!

You're welcome!

[Karl Henning]

That's the kind of rhythmical feature that used to flourish in my music, and I've just let it back in again. I love the fecundity of this kind of rhythmic writing, the way a small uneven feature like these dotted notes can flourish into something else, like a plant growing up against an obstacle, and growing round it and changing its course, natural and flowing and yet unpredictable.... technically it tends to instigate a kind of metric modulation as here. Of course in this case the  four-dotted-notes subdivision of the previous bars (7 and 38) continues into the new bar, and is finally effectively 'tripletised' on the last subdivision of that bar.

Yes, of course!

[Sean]

Good stuff Luke; very off topic but the princess character in the recent Star Wars films was called Padme, I think after the South Indian myth of Padmavati and Venkateswara, Lukas using a set of Hindu terms including Veda/ Vader, Yoga/ Yoda, the force/ dharma or the Self. Etc.

[Karl Henning]

Oh!  And the pianist I mentioned and I will get together to read in June;  so sometime this month, make sure I have your freshest edition of the Canticle Sonata!

[Cato]

For those who can read music and have the score:

Padma continues Luke's line of brilliant piano pieces: the D major/minor aspect with the triplets certainly does evoke a mysterious atmosphere!  And his work with the pedal is excellent for keeping a Himalayan fog drifting through the piece.  The Bb/B and F/F# notes take the ear into ambiguous happy-sad territory.  And the five-note chords in bars 14 and 18 are as mysteriously delicious and deliciously mysterious as can be.

Note how in general the right hand has music which curls upward in a half circle, while in the left it curls downward in a half circle, the two of them forming therefore a complete circle: e.g.  bars 6-7, 11-12, 15-16, 20-21, 33-34, 45-48 etc. In keeping with the mystical nature of the piece, the idea of an audible circle is most appropriate.

Listen also to the marvelous chord in bar 14 and its variation in bar 49, both based on D#, giving a kind of "double minor" sound to the D scales used throughout.

And if you listen carefully, triplets are everywhere, even when they seemingly are not!     Check for example bars 50 ff. where the triplet phrasing in the left hand is obvious, but follow the notes in the right hand!  The "Gangs of 3" are obvious in bars 50-51, but then watch the 2 32nd-notes blend into the C 8th note, then the E-D-A phrase, then the A-G-F, and then ending with A-G-D, with an echo of 3's in the middle voice in the same hand.

Marvelous music!

[Luke]

For those who can read music and have the score:

Padma continues Luke's line of brilliant piano pieces: the D major/minor aspect with the triplets certainly does evoke a mysterious atmosphere!  And his work with the pedal is excellent for keeping a Himalayan fog drifting through the piece.  The Bb/B and F/F# notes take the ear into ambiguous happy-sad territory.  And the five-note chords in bars 14 and 18 are as mysteriously delicious and deliciously mysterious as can be.

Note how in general the right hand has music which curls upward in a half circle, while in the left it curls downward in a half circle, the two of them forming therefore a complete circle: e.g.  bars 6-7, 11-12, 15-16, 20-21, 33-34, 45-48 etc. In keeping with the mystical nature of the piece, the idea of an audible circle is most appropriate.

Listen also to the marvelous chord in bar 14 and its variation in bar 49, both based on D#, giving a kind of "double minor" sound to the D scales used throughout.

And if you listen carefully, triplets are everywhere, even when they seemingly are not!     Check for example bars 50 ff. where the triplet phrasing in the left hand is obvious, but follow the notes in the right hand!  The "Gangs of 3" are obvious in bars 50-51, but then watch the 2 32nd-notes blend into the C 8th note, then the E-D-A phrase, then the A-G-F, and then ending with A-G-D, with an echo of 3's in the middle voice in the same hand.

Marvelous music!

Thank you so much - to get out of trying to find different words to say the same thing twice, it's probably easiest, here, to quote from the relevant part of the email I just sent you!

Secondly - thanks, once more, for your analysis of my little piece, which as usual both confirms that the things I wanted to be heard are heard, and also delightfully shows me things I didn't know were there. I'm thinking particularly of the 'circles' comment, which connects so strongly to an ever-abiding interest of mine, evident both in things I've said on this thread in the past about my music, and also in my book. I didn't consciously draw these circles into my music but I am delighted they are there!

@Karl - I will get on it, then! Very exciting!

@Sean - that's fascinating, I think I must have known at least some of that on some level (and smuggling the ideas in secretly like that is clever on Lukas's part!) but if so I'd certainly never brought any of it up into my conscious mind!

[Luke]

Not that it matters much, but I've altered the score in the light of the little error in the date that Karl spotted (thanks Karl!) so I'll attach it again here and remove it from the previous post.

[Karl Henning]

Woot!

[Cato]

Not that it matters much, but I've altered the score in the light of the little error in the date that Karl spotted (thanks Karl!) so I'll attach it again here and remove it from the previous post.

My students occasionally want to know my birthday, so I tell them February 31st.   

Sadly, some of them find nothing odd about that date!   

Luke: if you have the opportunity to offer a performance of Padma here, it would be highly appreciated!

[Karl Henning]

For those who can read music and have the score:

Padma continues Luke's line of brilliant piano pieces: the D major/minor aspect with the triplets certainly does evoke a mysterious atmosphere!  And his work with the pedal is excellent for keeping a Himalayan fog drifting through the piece.  The Bb/B and F/F# notes take the ear into ambiguous happy-sad territory.  And the five-note chords in bars 14 and 18 are as mysteriously delicious and deliciously mysterious as can be.

Note how in general the right hand has music which curls upward in a half circle, while in the left it curls downward in a half circle, the two of them forming therefore a complete circle: e.g.  bars 6-7, 11-12, 15-16, 20-21, 33-34, 45-48 etc. In keeping with the mystical nature of the piece, the idea of an audible circle is most appropriate.

Listen also to the marvelous chord in bar 14 and its variation in bar 49, both based on D#, giving a kind of "double minor" sound to the D scales used throughout.

And if you listen carefully, triplets are everywhere, even when they seemingly are not!     Check for example bars 50 ff. where the triplet phrasing in the left hand is obvious, but follow the notes in the right hand!  The "Gangs of 3" are obvious in bars 50-51, but then watch the 2 32nd-notes blend into the C 8th note, then the E-D-A phrase, then the A-G-F, and then ending with A-G-D, with an echo of 3's in the middle voice in the same hand.

Marvelous music!

Just want to add my appreciation of both the piece, and the analysis.

[Luke]

Thanks to both - Cato, I do have a recording that I made of the concert, it is pretty rough because I simply made it through my laptop, so among other problems the harmonic drone/mist/mud is not as audible as IRL. Also, the file size is too big to attach here, but I'm happy to email it to you or anyone else.

Karl, re Woot!!  I have a lot of different versions of the score of the Canticle Sonata, in both PDF and Sib files, and I can't quite remember what my final thoughts about it were, beyond that I wasn't happy with how I had left the development section of the first movement. What I need to do is live with the piece again until I'm inside it once more, so that I can sense where and why the changes are/were necessary.

[Karl Henning]

Very good;  marshal your thoughts, dear fellow!

[Cato]

I can't quite remember what my final thoughts about it were, beyond that I wasn't happy with how I had left the development section of the first movement. What I need to do is live with the piece again until I'm inside it once more, so that I can sense where and why the changes are/were necessary.

An unhappy composer is a creative composer!   0:)

[Karl Henning]

Hah!

[Cato]

Hah!

Heh-heh!   

Our composers here at GMG have all kinds of talent: they do not need a mood to switch on the electricity! 

[Karl Henning]

@ Karl - yes, it is a bit easier to do in e.g. Sib 3 or 4, where you just click 'staff type change > hidden.' But it is easy in Sib 7 too, once you know how - just select the bars to be hidden and then perform an instrument change on them (by clicking the 'change' icon which is next to 'add or remove' on the Home bar). Select the 'no instrument (hidden)' option.

Is there a way to show a staff only in a part?—I need cue staves for the parts . . . and I shy away from using the ossia function, since that seems to create new staves which clutter the panorama view.  Ideally, I want one cue staff, visible only on the part;  and to hide away the empty measures.

[Luke]

I'm not quite sure I understand, but if I do, then what I would do is this: extract your parts from the score as usual and then add an ossia stave above each of them, throughout (i.e. in the parts, not the score), into which you can cut and past your cues from the score. Then hide the portions you don't need, as described previously. That's what I did for the orchestral parts to Elegy ad Ascent, I think. It's annoying that the hidden ossia staves can get in the way, I agree, but this way it doesn't affect the full score, at least.

That's a bit labour-intensive, and maybe there's a better way to do it, but I'm not sure what it would be OTTOMH.

[Karl Henning]

Thank you!  Will give it a go.

[Cato]

If I had two pennies to rub together I'd be able to consider it! Thanks. Though I think I will go to Robin's farewell concert at West Road next weekend. Especially as it's the Gilded Goldbergs, which I love, and even more because Huw Watkins is one of the pianists. I haven't seen him for ages!

Hoerrendous to even talk of it in this context, but The Lamb is probably finished though I may well keep tinkering. It's a piece of saccharine nonsense of course, though it works on its own terms maybe (I hope).

The score: http://www.mediafire.com/?gxg4hpcbu2gvapi

Tell me what you think. Though it's only short I've spent too much time with it and really can't tell. And it's left me desperate to write something truly me (i.e. not softened for the children to sing) and with more bite. Can't wait...

For the newcomers, I have dug into the archives here with examples of Luke's works:

http://www.mediafire.com/download/inyninnzgci/Elegy+and+Ascent+-+almost+listenable+version.mp3