Henning's Headquarters

[Karl Henning]

Sketched out another few measures on the bus (not too many measures, was a curiously efficient commute in to Boston this morning).  So, I kept on at the fifth down . . . but now I'm wondering if I shifted away from E/D# too soon.  Not sure if this question means altering what's now on the page, or if it means doing something a bit different here, on the ground . . . .

[Karl Henning]

I think I am learning something, or, really, seeing with undeniable clarity what I have suspected at some level:  that at reasonable, normal levels of rest, I just naturally compose more.

Yesterday, I only added perhaps three measures to № 3.  This week, I seem to be fending off a cold which the dear missus seems ready to share with me, so I phoned in sick to the shop yesterday . . . resulting in a very good night's rest last night.  And this morning, I tore back into work on № 3, adding a breathtakingly swift 8mm.

I think I am just going to have to reduce my hours at the shop.  My art requires it.

[ibanezmonster]

I think I am learning something, or, really, seeing with undeniable clarity what I have suspected at some level:  that at reasonable, normal levels of rest, I just naturally compose more.

Yesterday, I only added perhaps three measures to № 3.  This week, I seem to be fending off a cold which the dear missus seems ready to share with me, so I phoned in sick to the shop yesterday . . . resulting in a very good night's rest last night.  And this morning, I tore back into work on № 3, adding a breathtakingly swift 8mm.

I think I am just going to have to reduce my hours at the shop.  My art requires it.

So I guess you can understand me now even better... 
The next time I write something, it'll have to be on days where I'm off or don't have to do much- having only 2 or 3 hours during the day and then having to work the rest of the day just doesn't cut it (does not help concentration at all). Actually, every single thing I've ever written was written like that.

Either that, or free up your weekends enough to where you can just write all weekend...

[Karl Henning]

Some more work on N° 3 while riding the T. I could see a number of different ways to go with the piece from here (which I think a positive) ... but I think the road taken a good 'un.

[Karl Henning]

Refreshed by two good nights' rest, my rides on T to-day, from Harvard Square to the MFA, and back, proved signally productive — I may just be done with N° 3 now. Will try to see to plugging it all into Sibelius tomorrow.

[Karl Henning]

Done.

There's a bit of an alternation game that gets set up in mm.7-8.

A. That got sort of lost as I kept sketching, and B. I found that some later passages could do with some relief. Bringing back that idea both brought in that relief, and gives either player some more breathing spaces (also a form of relief, to be sure).

Bringing that into one passage, particularly, expanded the piece two measures from the MS.

I like this one even better than the first two . . . so I guess this is the good thing.  Should I go back to the first and second?  No, leave them be, leave them be . . . .

[Karl Henning]

I've got a fairly good idea for [what was going to be] the fourth piece, only as my head lay on the pillow last night, I thought of a new idea for another number, which we'll do first . . . .

Also, I am remembering that I need to finish that there Cello Sonatina.

[Cato]

We know what some of you are thinking, if you have seen the score of #3: is Karl Henning trying to generate some sort of microtonal effect        with all those minor seconds???

Nah!   

[Karl Henning]

Such effects may just possibly result . . . .

[Karl Henning]

Drew up a rough draught of the A section of № 4 on the bus this morning . . . I need to audit the rhythmic values ; )

[Karl Henning]

One prefers to put one's best foot forward, of course; but I thought I'd post a draught page where I got it wrong.

Even before actually listening, I was thinking of listening to the Ockeghem Missa prolationum . . . and a little predictably, I was set to thinking about times past when I've played games with rhythm durations. And (no surprise) that gave me ideas for № 4.

For the 'A' section, then, I decided to write a kind of rhythmic canon. Part 1 would consist (mostly, to be explained presently) of 22 notes; Part 2 would take each of those 22 notes' rhythmic duration, and subtract one eighth-note value – and would therefore come in 11 quarter-notes after Part 1.  In addition to the 22, though, I whimsically decided that I would add four eighth-notes, strewn individually here and there, which would be exempt from the serial deduction – that is, there would simply be four eighth-notes added to Part 2, too, in the corresponding places.

Now, my mistake as I was draughting this out on the bus yesterday morning came in, at m. 12 (fifth measure of the second system) in Part 1, where I incorrectly 'finished' the measure with a quarter-rest (ought to have been a half-rest).  I had gotten to the end of the third system in Part 2 before I divined that there was a mistake; and my initial eyeballing did not discover the mistaken rest.

Pitch-wise, my initial idea was also canonic: I thought I'd try an inversion in Part 2, though I was prepared at the outset to 'wing it' if the inversion didn't work out.  My first attempt at a fix, though, was to transpose the inversion; thus, when I saw that the second note of m. 6 in Part 2 would be the G an octave below the eighth-note in Part 1, I went back and marked the initial F# "+4 / B-flat" (hence the apparently awkward "tie" in m.5 connecting F-natural to the 'correction' of A).

I think then that I must have made a mental mistake . . . thought that keeping true to the inversion resulted in a pitch duplication in m.8 . . . but the eighth-note would be D#, and the half-note, C# . . . that actually looks good.  So I may sort that out and employ it for the balancing A' later in the piece.

In any event, when I found that I needed to put in a little work, anyway, to correct the rhythms, I returned to the idea that the pitch canon should be made strict, i.e., that I should find an inversion, or a rotation, which would do what I wanted contrapuntally.  Hence the 22 "measures" after the double-bar in the fourth system.  Of course, because of the "mensuration chase," the pitches will not align like this;  and I think I have decided to stick with this transposition of the inversion, 'even though' there is a unison D# which results in the new measure which corresponds to the second measure of the present third system. (As in a certain passage of The Mousetrap, I actually like it when the turning gears sometimes light on a unison, or octave.)

[Karl Henning]

And now on this morning's bus I toyed with the modifications for the return of A . . . I think I've managed to err again, another tiny error, which puzzles the will ; )

[Cato]

There are such things as "happy mistakes" which lead us in terram incognitam and off the map of our intentions.

[Karl Henning]

'Tis true that I have been thinking of these errors as part of the fun of the process.

[petrarch]

'Tis true that I have been thinking of these errors as part of the fun of the process.

Ah l'écriture. Wasn't it Boulez who said something along those lines?

[TheGSMoeller]

'Tis true that I have been thinking of these errors as part of the fun of the process.

Ah! Great to read this, I just wrote some music for a friends app that he designed, and made a mistake at one point with switching eighth rests and eighth notes for several instruments, what first sounded a little chaotic now sounds like all the voices getting out of sync and then right back together after several beats.

Enjoying reading your thoughts, Karl. It's great to get an insight into someone else's comositional process.

[Karl Henning]

And now on this morning's bus I toyed with the modifications for the return of A . . . I think I've managed to err again, another tiny error, which puzzles the will ; )

Licked that error . . . ready to move on.

Separately: A useful site.  (Today I have a wider tie than I normally wear, and the knot I always use doesn't quite suit . . . this site taught me a new knot.)

[Karl Henning]

Had a nice "non-business" dinner with my buddy & fine musical colleague Paul Cienniwa last night.  The Tealuxe closed up on Newbury Street, but a new sushi place has opened there.  It's actually been an awfully long time since Paul and I just sat down and gabbed, the two of us over a meal, so this was a particularly nice oasis in the midst of the pre-holiday madness.

[Karl Henning]

. . . One fracking chord? . . .

If the chord fracks, sound it!

[madaboutmahler]

I would love to hear some of your work Karl, could you possibly upload some audio samples? I've looked in a variety of places, including your blog, and couldn't find any... Very interesting posts, so am glad that I have joined the thread!