Henning's Headquarters

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

Previous topic - Next topic

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.


karlhenning

QuoteOkay . . . the Sibelius file has now 'caught up' with the MS. . . .

Although I had always intended rather a busy bass flute 'driving' the overall section, while working on the harp 'thrumming' for the last section, I 'thought' a tempo only related to the harp.  So, now that I've composed the flute 'monologue', the tempo is too fast . . . an easy adjustment, really.

Another adjustment required by everything now being 'in place' was, the ending needed a bit more 'relaxing/expansion', I thought.

karlhenning

In the inaugural post of the latest anti-modernist thread, there is the following citaton:

Quote from: Kyle GannIt's not that the late 20th century didn't produce great music. Any era that can boast Nancarrow, Feldman, Ashley and Scelsi can hold its head up with the best. But while bad 17th century music is merely dull, and bad 19th century music is tediously grandiose, the late 20th century's bad music was pervasively ugly, pretentious, and meaningless, yet backed up by a technic apparatus that justified it and even earned it prestigious awards. Twelve-tone technique -- the South Sea Bubble of music history, to which hundreds and perhaps thousands of well-intended composers sacrificed their careers like lemmings, and all for nothing -- brought music to the lowest point in the history of mankind. Twelve-tone music is now dead, everyone grudgingly admits, yet its pitch-set manipulating habits survive in far-flung corners of musical technique like residual viruses.

Gosh.  I probably tinkered with pitch-sets a fair deal in stars & guitars . . . .

toledobass

I think you should write an encore piece called Blues Harp....


karlhenning

Quote from: toledobass on April 06, 2009, 11:10:22 AM
I think you should write an encore piece called Blues Harp....

For double-bass and vibraphone, I think, Allan. You game?  8)

karlhenning

(Dropped the last edition of s&g, may get a fresher one back up tonight.)

karlhenning

#946
And here goes.

sul G

Well, as I said before, this looks fantastic - it has all the makings of another Henning Hit. And seeing the whole thing confirms this feeling in me. Such a glorious, and gloriously simple, combination of instruments, and, as I said before, the musical imagery looks perfectly judged. [continuing to be jealous at your ability to speak with both clarity and sanity in your music!  :) ]

One small question? Why have you chosen individual bar lines for the two staves of the harp part, rather than the usual single continuous line spanning both?

karlhenning

Thank you for your kindness!  And for your (not at all unkind ; ) question!  I didn't choose . . . at least, when I set the document up, I chose the two instruments, but I didn't do anything specific viz. barlines in the harp grand staff . . . how may I amend that?

sul G

Odd that they came out like that! The default ought to be the normal 'across two staves' line (it always has been for me!). Anyway, if you click at the bottom end of any barline in the upper of the two staves, you ought to be able to drag it down to meet the one directly underneath; at which point all its fellows should follow suit. Which last feature makes things like this nice and easy, but it's a little annoying when for some reason was does want only barlines of choice to be joined

karlhenning

Sounds an easy fix, and I shall eagerly put it in place when I get home this evening!

Had a quietly wonderful experience last night.  Maria and Irina came upstairs to hear [what the PC can make of] the piece.  There have been many times when the 'playback' has been such a poor 'portrait' of the piece, that when the girls have made the occasional objection to a bit of music about which I was not (actually) suffering any particular doubt, I have been in the delicate situation of hearing perfectly reasonable, intelligent, and artistic objections, yet seeming rather obdurate and unyielding, as I claimed that, really, I think the piece is all right, but there are some 'wrong impressions' given out by the playback.  And then subsequently, the girls would hear the piece played by actual musicians, and they conceded that I hadn't been merely pig-headed, but that the pieces were fine.  (This was the case with 'pre-performance playback' of both Out in the Sun, and The Mousetrap . . . the latter especially suffering from mechanized 'realization'.)

So when the artists in my life took the time last night to come up and listen, again, to a 20-minute 'noise' out of the PC, it was impressed upon me anew how patient they are with this sort of experience.  We talked about a few things, all three of us, and they wanted to go back and listen to a couple of passages with a slight modification . . . and the two of them together agreed on a couple of minor changes.

Force of habit inclined me to dig heels in, but I stopped and waited.  It's only happened perhaps a dozen times that someone has commissioned music from me, in the sense of offering money in exchange for a piece of certain specs.  And I thought, in those cases, I've given people a degree of 'say' in my music in exchange for something material (and nothing untoward in any of that, from either side of the transaction);  in all cases, the result has been music which is in all essentials just as I wished to write it.

Well, here I have two fine, accomplished and experienced artists who uncomplainingly give me their time to listen to imperfect pinball-machine 'snapshots' of sometimes quite long stretches of music.  Am I going to shut them down, brush aside their request, where I should pretty much say "Sure" to [a reasonable suggestion from] a fellow who has offered me $250 for a short choral anthem?

The process of being sought out for feedback is no 'fun' for them, if they're always wrong, and if Karl is just going to keep everything the way he's first jotted it down anyway.  But from my perspective, more importantly, what's the harm in entertaining a reasonable (and artistic) suggestion?  I've been writing enough, that I hardly have the need to bolster my ego with any requirement to preserve all particulars of a score as "mine, all mine."

Besides, I am really enjoying the greater flexibility of, and overall the reduced 'flight-time' required by Sibelius.  (One diary-ish aspect of my blog which I am taking both instruction and enjoyment from is, the beginning of this piece is fixed in the calendar . . . and I am both pleased and astonished that I have gotten to this point – the point of Practically Done – in such a short span.)  Incorporating the suggestions will not involve anything approaching the name of labor.

So:  Maria and Irina have doubts about the broad pace of the very first section.  And they may be right.  My own sense of it is, fine, fine . . . but then, I've also been listening to Feldman a fair amount (and that first section in particular is a nod to Why Patterns?)  Since the rest of the piece, after all, does Very Different Things . . . perhaps that degree of breadth in the beginning needs consideration.  In all events, I entertain the idea that this section can withstand either tempo.

They also wish 'an event' at the start.  Now, this is something which superficially looks like Red Pen, change this bit utterly.  And I might smile, and bid them patience at the beginning (though such a long piece is already a bid for patience, one may say).  But when they made this request, I realized that a lot of my chamber works in the past several years start out quietly.  A rut?  A rut!  Maybe.  Far from Red Pen, I actually took that suggestion as a comradely slap on the cheek.

Anyway, I'm very happy with the suggestions, and (along with taking care of the harp barlines) I shall see to those tonight.

Largely, I hope to make good progress on the all-new Sibelius file of Bless the Lord, O My Soul tonight.  Importing the XML file from Finale made for an apparent mess . . . .

Going to St Paul's at lunchtime, as word on the street is that they're singing my Nunc dimittis for a Blessing of the Oils service.

Maciek

Not that these threads are not interesting in themselves. But watching the exchanges between you, Karl and Luke, makes the experience even more fascinating...

karlhenning

This composer is laughing . . . a task at the office kept me from leaving early, so I got to the service about 15 minutes after the start. I check the bulletin, and my piece is still a good deal further along. Discreetly, I do manage to figure out how to operate the digital camera to record video. The service follows the bulletin line by line — until they reach my Nunc dimittis . . . they don't sing my piece, some fellow sings a soulful solo instead, very nice, of course . . . the choir file past me downstairs, and a soprano who knew me says, "Oh, did you know your piece was in the service today? I hope you didn't come here just to hear your music. I think Ed just chose too much music."

Cato

Apparently Divine Forces wanted you in that church for a good laugh!   0:)

Concerning the opening of Stars and Guitars: I have also wondered about how those long notes for the harp might resonate with an audience, but given the meditative nature of the piece (Stars: long and faraway and moving slowly) I think - if given a chance - everything will come together (in the way my mental ear has put the score together).



"Meet Miss Ruth Sherwood, from Columbus, Ohio, the Middle of the Universe!"

- Brian Aherne introducing Rosalind Russell in  My Sister Eileen (1942)

karlhenning

That laugh was indeed good for the soul!

karlhenning

Quote from: sul G on April 07, 2009, 03:35:58 AM
Odd that they came out like that! The default ought to be the normal 'across two staves' line (it always has been for me!). Anyway, if you click at the bottom end of any barline in the upper of the two staves, you ought to be able to drag it down to meet the one directly underneath; at which point all its fellows should follow suit. . . .

And bingo!  Just as easy as suggested. Yow!

karlhenning

More detail, more (nearly) finished.  I think I can show it like this to the players.

karlhenning

Quote from: springrite on April 08, 2009, 07:29:03 AM
Now we expect some Satie-esque composition titles out of you.  ;D

The title that came to me last night (before my Satie binge) was Scholar Glare.

Cato

Quote from: k a rl h e nn i ng on April 08, 2009, 07:32:31 AM
The title that came to me last night (before my Satie binge) was Scholar Glare.

Sounds like my main teaching technique!   $:)
"Meet Miss Ruth Sherwood, from Columbus, Ohio, the Middle of the Universe!"

- Brian Aherne introducing Rosalind Russell in  My Sister Eileen (1942)