Henning's Headquarters

Started by BachQ, April 07, 2007, 12:21:26 PM

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karlhenning

#660
A few hours of work, actually largely presentable . . . .

[ old version of score 'detached' to save forum space ]

karlhenning

#661
More work on the bus this morning;  the piece is taking some turns I hadn't strictly foreseen, but then, there is room in the 'plan' for such things.

[ old version of score 'detached' to save forum space ]

karlhenning

Johan, the opening of The Angel Who Bears a Flaming Sword is a fleeting allusion to Tristan, if you like  ;)

J.Z. Herrenberg

Quote from: karlhenning on September 29, 2008, 06:37:41 AM
Johan, the opening of The Angel Who Bears a Flaming Sword is a fleeting allusion to Tristan, if you like  ;)

I already noticed it when I saw the earlier version, but didn't want to ask...  ;)
Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination and life to everything. -- Plato

karlhenning

Quote from: Jezetha on September 29, 2008, 06:40:08 AM
I already noticed it when I saw the earlier version, but didn't want to ask...  ;)


It hadn't occurred to me earlier  ;D

J.Z. Herrenberg

Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination and life to everything. -- Plato

karlhenning

I was really thinking the two trumpet (fanfare-ish) gestures, here slowed down:  ascending major sixth;  ascending perfect fifth.  And 'joining' the two non-tonally (i.e., not in any accord with Common Practice) via a minor second.

Somehow this morning, as I was listening to the sound-file, I heard the 'connection' with bars 3-5 of the famous Prelude (and although the cellos keep descending to an F#, there is a D in oboe II & bassoon I, of course).  Although, I probably had Shostakovich's many allusions more immediately in my ear  :D

karlhenning

Well, either I'm on the right tack, or I am hopelessly out of it.  I've listened some four times in immediate succession to the sound-file of piannerfied trumpet, and I do like it.

Must be the Wagner reference  8)

J.Z. Herrenberg

Quote from: karlhenning on September 29, 2008, 07:26:44 AM
Well, either I'm on the right tack, or I am hopelessly out of it.  I've listened some four times in immediate succession to the sound-file of piannerfied trumpet, and I do like it.

Must be the Wagner reference  8)

Some Bayreuth magic always comes in handy.  ;)
Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination and life to everything. -- Plato

karlhenning

#669
A friend in No Carolina asked to see some of the MS., so why not tack it on here, too?

The bottom three staves are what I wrote this morning on the bus.

Viz. the crossed-out, incompletely-notated final bar of the fourth staff from the bottom: the crossings-out were actually my first task this morning. The half-note C and the six unstemmed noteheads following it, I had actually scribbled while standing at Harvard Square on Friday, waiting for Maria to finish waiting on her customer at the boutique. The pitches of those six noteheads are faithfully preserved in this morning's first bar of proper work (start of third staff from the bottom), but then, that D# which begins the second bar? I had no idea on Friday, that that was where I was going with that.

karlhenning

It's got, I think, a sort of Erik Satie sipping Cointreau at the Apocalypse vibe.

lukeottevanger

I take it you know Satie's Sonnerie pour reveiller le bon gros Roi des Singes (lequel ne dort toujours que d'un oeil), for two trumpets  8) 8) 8) 8) :


karlhenning

I did not know it, but am delighted to make its acquaintance, and I thank you, Luke!

Août has always been my favorite French month-name.  I wonder if the air was especially close that August?  ;D

karlhenning

Must be making progress with Sibelius;  to most of my questions, answers have been found (many thanks to Luke), and the Sibelius file has 'caught up' with my MS.

Not that the piece is done yet, no . . . .

karlhenning

Word has come from the trumpeter (who has seen the first two pages now):

QuoteI'm liking what I am seeing so far! The random pianissimo high Cs are a bitch, but overall, good stuff!

M forever

"Random" high Cs? What an insult. Does he not see the genius logic at work behind the notes?

karlhenning

If that's the harshest insult tossed at me, I'll consider myself well ahead of the game  8)

I think, M, you're reading overmuch in that adjective;  but I appreciate your swift defense of my pitch-world probity!

greg

Quote from: karlhenning on September 29, 2008, 05:49:18 PM
If that's the harshest insult tossed at me, I'll consider myself well ahead of the game  8)

I think, M, you're reading overmuch in that adjective;  but I appreciate your swift defense of my pitch-world probity!
What a graceful post!

I just finished reading through it from beginning to end with guitar......... I'm often surprised at the choice of notes you have. Very distant-sounding strings of notes are pulled together with such little spacing..... you go from a line that sounds almost Mixolydian to another line that's purely atonal..... but you keep on mixing it up. Even at the end, you have a sus2 chord outline, which i don't recall playing much (if at al throuhg the piece). It seems like you have "everything" in there, in terms of harmony. And I've seen this before with your scores. Is this just how you work sometimes?

As for the high Cs, they're almost like a motif themselves, since they seem to come from nowhere and just hang on, but they're kinda "developed", because each time I played those Cs, they sounded complete different because of context!  :o ;D

M forever

Quote from: GGGGRRREEG on September 29, 2008, 07:40:48 PM
I'm often surprised at the choice of notes you have. Very distant-sounding strings of notes are pulled together with such little spacing..... you go from a line that sounds almost Mixolydian to another line that's purely atonal..... but you keep on mixing it up. Even at the end, you have a sus2 chord outline, which i don't recall playing much (if at al throuhg the piece). It seems like you have "everything" in there, in terms of harmony. And I've seen this before with your scores. Is this just how you work sometimes?

Yes, it is. It is all just totally random.


Quote from: GGGGRRREEG on September 29, 2008, 07:40:48 PM
each time I played those Cs, they sounded complete different because of context

Or maybe your cheapo guitar simply doesn't hold its tuning? Real men don't play the guitar anyway. Real men play the bass.

karlhenning

Quote from: GGGGRRREEG on September 29, 2008, 07:40:48 PM
I just finished reading through it from beginning to end with guitar......... I'm often surprised at the choice of notes you have. Very distant-sounding strings of notes are pulled together with such little spacing..... you go from a line that sounds almost Mixolydian to another line that's purely atonal..... but you keep on mixing it up. Even at the end, you have a sus2 chord outline, which i don't recall playing much (if at al throuhg the piece). It seems like you have "everything" in there, in terms of harmony. And I've seen this before with your scores. Is this just how you work sometimes?

I do like 'blurring categories' harmonically;  it's perhaps a sort of concrete application of the questions we've raised various times in the past:  'atonal' obviously means "other than Common Practice";  but is there really such a thing as "atonal"?  Is it a question of 'sonic gravity/attraction', and therefore is the composer at liberty to 'manage' varying degrees of that 'gravitation'?  Are the question and nature of the importance of that 'gravitation' creatively negotiable?

Quote from: GregAs for the high Cs, they're almost like a motif themselves, since they seem to come from nowhere and just hang on, but they're kinda "developed", because each time I played those Cs, they sounded complete different because of context!  :o ;D

It's a simple device, but it surprises you with how different the same musical "fact" can sound.  I became a bit more compositionally 'alive' to this partly by listening to (say) Feldman, and partly by thinking of painting, how the same article from our daily experience (an apple, a watermelon, a crystal goblet) can look, not merely similar to the object in my hand because it is obviously a representation of it, but can "appear" different.