Ottevanger's Omphaloskeptic Outpost

[greg]

Elegy, which had been fine in rehearsal, suffered from a lead violin full of nerves, who started his simple solo a half a bar early, which makes a difference at this slow tempo - the next page or so was taken up with the players trying to reorient themselves.

Ouch!
I can't wait to hear the rehearsal... especially that piano pedal stomp. 

[sul G]

Ouch!
I can't wait to hear the rehearsal... especially that piano pedal stomp. 

That isn't audible on the recording, really - the piano was at the back of the hall and so, like some of the percussion, the stomping doesn't come out well. In any case, during the rehearsal, which is in general the better take, I didn't want to pump it too hard and damage it before the Beethoven concerto was played! When I really went for it it worked nicely, though!

[greg]

Oh, that's okay. Next time, you could buy another piano and make all the people who missed the performance pay for it. Just use a contract.

[sul G]

Yes, that sounds workable! 

[karlhenning]

What a good neighbor! Didn't want to mess up the pedal for the Beethoven! 

[sul G]

She needed it more than me! The piano was once very nice - an excellent Steinway. But despite being tuned that morning, it had already slipped a little, and the tone up top was not always very good. This didn't affect my piece, but it did spoil things for her a little.

[karlhenning]

How goes the splice, lad?

[sul G]

Slowly, slowly...

[Guido]

Faster, faster!! 

[sul G]

Festina lente

[greg]

Faster, faster!! 

, we need another master!!!


hmm just remembered that saying. Is this something everyone knows, because I only remember it from all the way back in kindergarten, on the tire swing. 
(and surprised i even remember it in the first place)

[Guido]

never heard it.

[Maciek]

Oh? I thought it was a typical tire swing saying.

[Maciek]

Don't you just love how this always inevitably happens on Luke's thread?

[Maciek]

It's because Luke has so many fans who eagerly await his appearance days on end. And when he doesn't show up for a very long time they... well, get bored. And start chatting idly to pass the time.

That's my theory.

[greg]

Oh? I thought it was a typical tire swing saying.

Really? So you're saying you've heard it before?

Don't you just love how this always inevitably happens on Luke's thread?

The more you make us wait, Luke, the more we'll derail your thread. 

[sul G]

  Derail away, fellas - you know that I'm happy for the thread to provide an arena for OT merriment!

I'm not deliberately taking a long time over the splice - and please don't expect anything wonderful when the file does appear. It's simply that the registered version of the editing software that I'm using is on my wife's laptop, and it has a few useful functions that the non-registered version (on my PC) doesn't. So my access is rather limited. Also, I do have a job to do and children to take care of - so far, I've only managed to give about an hour to the splicing!

Listening over, though, there are some bits which are OK, but a few sections which I won't be able to make anything good of no matter how I splice. It's odd, because these are bits which I thought sounded OK in the hall...

Whilst we're all waiting I suppose I could fill you in on anything of interest that happened in the outpost's temporary closure....though there isn't much. I composed another little carol for the girls at my school to sing at Christmas, and they did a pretty good job. I like this one; it has a deliberately childlike simplicity and gaucheness (no complex dynamic markings etc). As I write this I'm getting a bit concerned because I can't find the recording I made, which wasn't too bad.... I may have to ask them to sing it through once more for me next week.

Actually I wrote two little carols, both in quick dashes on consecutive days. (They are both modal, in very simple ways - the first uses a F major scale, but isn't in F, the second a C major scale, but isn't in C; both, for some reason, end with a low C# in the bass). The second one is the one I wrote for the girls, the one they sang. Here's the score of both.

[sul G]

Apart from that, not much happened. There were all the rehearsals for Elegy and Ascent, which, if I'd been here, I would have kept you updated on. But no more. I expect to compose more in the spring - as I've said before on this thread, that's often when things start up. In fact, it's a nice morning outside, one of the first of the year round here, and I can almost feel the urge to sprout a few more notes begin right now....

The piece I was talking about cryptically before I left - White Modulations - didn't get done (well, two or three pages did). But I still want to do it. It's a really nice idea, I think, too good to let go. I may have another go at it soon. But there are plenty of other things I want to do too.

[karlhenning]

Derail away, fellas - you know that I'm happy for the thread to provide an arena for OT merriment!

You are a princely host!

. . . Listening over, though, there are some bits which are OK, but a few sections which I won't be able to make anything good of no matter how I splice. It's odd, because these are bits which I thought sounded OK in the hall...

I'm sure you were not hallucinating.  The difference that can settle in between how one heard the performance in the hall, and how a recording's 'profile' takes shape . . . bah!

. . . which must explain for others my fierce devotion to my friend Shauna, who did the recording for the June recital.  Though my mind knows that it is knowledge and experience rather than magic, she made the first recording of any performance of my music which faithfully depicts the event.

[sul G]

I think I may be hallucinating, though, Karl - when I first listened back to the various recordings I'm sure there were things in them that aren't there now, and vice versa too! But something almost listenable is gradually emerging, in spite of all that.

Hey, just for completeness' sake, here's the church where the girls sing at Christmas. It's our school church, St Peter's, Riddlesworth, literally 10 meters from the school itself, though this photo doesn't show much of that:



My classroom, btw, is the ground floor, right hand side of this photo: