Ottevanger's Omphaloskeptic Outpost

[karlhenning]

Wherefore "wart" thou, Luke?

[lukeottevanger]

You mean where? Based at 43°34'36.96"N 3°05'01.27"E And very nice too, as you can guess!

[greg]

As long as it's not a Brittney Spears theme used as a subject for a fugue, we're okay....

[lukeottevanger]

....damn, where's that delete key?.....


If only you knew, Greg, if only you knew....

[greg]

AHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch/v/tgDcC2LOJhQ

[Guido]

the set operates under the working title The Wart of Fugue.

Lol! Welcome back.

[lukeottevanger]

AHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch/v/tgDcC2LOJhQ

Ravishing! I played my fugue # 7 through for the first time this morning; it's a little more Shostakovich-y than this rather JS Britney number, but of course that's because the subject is Berlin's angsty epic Take My Breath Away. My # 12 is more Bach-like (especially the countersubject); in that one the subject is Europe's The Final Countdown.    Holiday fun, what can I say? My brother, brother-in-law and I had great fun thinking of the cheesiest possible subjects....

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

AHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch/v/tgDcC2LOJhQ

Thanks. I enjoyed that!

[karlhenning]

Holiday fun, what can I say?

Live the dream, dude!

[greg]

in that one the subject is Europe's The Final Countdown.   

[Guido]

How about Spice girls Wannabe for cheese - you could assign the rap with pitches like in Different Trains. Or maybe, failing that, one of Andrew Lloyd Webber's gorgonzoloidal offerings.

[lukeottevanger]

The thinking was to stick as much as possible to 80s one-finger synth hooks and riffs, with their 'I'm a keyboard wizard' reek of pretentiousness. For instance, the 'Crazy Frog' Axel F theme makes a good fugue subject, I must say.....

I didn't manage to stick entirely within this remit, however. Not when the seductive 90s charm of Aqua's Barbie Girl were suggested by my sister-in-law. That makes a corking subject too....

[lukeottevanger]

I ought to emphasize that since coming home I've been paying attention to the real job in hand again, I'm glad to say.

[Symphonien]

The thinking was to stick as much as possible to 80s one-finger synth hooks and riffs, with their 'I'm a keyboard wizard' reek of pretentiousness.

Have you seen this? A hilarious parody of that sort of thing, and of the Eurovision Song Contest!

[lukeottevanger]

Truly inspiring! Thank you so much!  Though I spotted that the keyboard players - one of them, anyway - used more than one finger on each hand, which makes them a bit flash and virtuoso, I think.

[karlhenning]

Soon we shall need to reflect on the majesty of Alan Zavod's "volcano" keyboard solos, I should think . . . .

[Guido]

The thinking was to stick as much as possible to 80s one-finger synth hooks and riffs

Will that be a performance direction for the first statement of each fugue subject? Might actually make some a little tricky!

[lukeottevanger]

Work continues on the orchestral piece (which is really two pieces, about five minutes each). Very close to finishing it now, at least in the sense of having continuous music from A to Z. I'm in the W or X region now, I suppose  No doubt there will need to be a long process of editing and revising, as with the Canticle Sonata, but somehow I don't have many doubts about anything I've composed so far, which wasn't entirely the case with the Canticle doodad. So maybe the editing won't take so long.

Sibelius's MIDI playback being so shoddy - don't get me started! - I've taken a very long way round in order to create a more satisfactory mock-up. Recipe as follows:

1) Copy full score into new file
2) add new instrument lines for places where Sibelius can't cope well with e.g. widely differing dynamics between two parts on one stave or where it has previously assigned the wrong sound
3) Extract parts
4) edit parts further
5) save parts as audio files
6) open audio files in wave pad editor
7) fine-tuning: fade-ins and fade outs; reverb where necessary; changing dynamic envelopes etc. etc.
8 ) combining all constituents parts into one mix

and of course many other niggly little problems on the way. But the results are much better than I expected, with the usual provisos. Hopefully I'll be able to post the reconstruction and the score in the next few weeks. 

[karlhenning]

Splendid, Luke, splendid! 

[karlhenning]

All is sorted out, Luke, and I'm rolling my sleeves up even now.