Stuff happens and life is and it just repeats.

On the music front I (still) have a couple of pieces in various stages of completion. I have just finished entering a piano piece from my college days (when Reagan was in the White House) into Sibelius.

It is now available at http://www.sibeliusmusic.com/cgi-bin/show_score.pl?scoreid=98848

I also have a piece for Jazz octet that is ready for upload as soon as I write the program and performance notes.

And I still have not finished the program notes.

My finial work in progress is a piece for soprano sax and others. Others include both electric and upright bass players, piano and vibes, plus a large assortment of percussion. The piece is build on unceasing drones, ostinatos, pointillistic percussion and quarter tones. The current working title is is “Morning Prayer”, but my wife does not like that title, so maybe I will change it.

Well I have been distracted by life and other pieces so I have not worked on this since my last Blog post.

Last month I got a Midi controller (a 61 Key M-Audio Axiom). But I have been too busy to really play with it.

And I am still too busy to play with it much, but I do know how to program the knobs now.

The main thing going on in my life is working hard on the house. The last week of December was spent putting in a new floor in 90 percent of the house. Long days those were. My one knee has still not recovered, I think and old softball ligament problem was aggravated.

I continue to work hard on the house.


Well I hope I can keep this Blog going with regular updates even as stuff happened and life is. Well I have to go, I have things to see and people to do.

Ursus Demens

Stuff and Life:

Stuff happens and life is. I check in and see I have not posted anything in almost a month. Life is and is subject to the second law of thermal dynamics.

On the music front I have a couple of pieces in various stages of completion. I have just finished entering a piano piece from my college days (when Reagan was in the White House) into Sibelius. I will upload it soon for your enjoyment and ridicule.

I also have a piece for Jazz octet that is ready for upload as soon as I write the program and performance notes.

My finial work in progress is a piece for soprano sax and others. Others include both electric and upright bass players, piano and vibes, plus a large assortment of percussion. The piece is build on unceasing drones, ostinatos, pointillistic percussion and quarter tones. The current working title is is “Morning Prayer”, but my wife does not like that title, so maybe I will change it.

Last month I got a Midi controller (a 61 Key M-Audio Axiom). But I have been too busy to really play with it.

The main thing going on in my life is working hard on the house. The last week of December was spent putting in a new floor in 90 percent of the house. Long days those were. My one knee has still not recovered, I think and old softball ligament problem was aggravated.

Well I hope I can keep this Blog going with regular updates even as stuff happened and life is. Well I have to go, I have things to see and people to do.

Ursus Demens

Thought of the day:

Never enough time.

Za Frûmi

Musical Inspiration of a different species.

“Influenced by the Uruk-Hai and their language ...”.

“Za Frûmi is melodic mood music from a dark fantasy setting. Centered around a wayward group of orcs, ... Deep flutes, rythmic drums and atmospheric ambience combine ...”.

Something a bit different.

Za Frûmi
http://www.waerloga.com/zafrumi/


Ursus Demens

A rough and in the raw N.J.G.

First release of N.J.G. is now available. A rough and raw MP3 recording in now available.

Listen to N.J.G.

I have begun working on a slightly altered version of N.J.G. which I think I will call N.J.S.G.

PS: N.J.G. & N.J.S.G. do stand for something, but I will leave it for you to guess what.

Ursus Demens

N.J.G.

First release of N.J.G. is now available. Right now all that is available is the score and midi playback through the scorch browser plug-in. I hope to have a MP3 within the week. We will see.

N.J.G.

PS: N.J.G. does stand for something, but I will leave it for you to guess what.

Ursus Demens

New MP3 and N.J.G.

Kiyone's Mood.

Well I have posted (actuall it was posted on the 27th) a preliminary mix of my tune Kiyone's Mood to SibeliusMusic, the MP3 file is here. Be warned it is 11 minutes long and 15 Mbytes in size.

Yesterday I wrote another tune for the same combination of instruments. I pretty much finished the entire piece in one day. Just need to do a bit of proof reading and cleaning up before I post the score. The current preliminary title for the piece is N.J.G.. Like Kiyone's Mood it is a model jazz tune, but in 5/4 meter.

From the program notes to Kiyone's Mood:
Kiyone was not sure how long she had been walking when she found the bar. It must have been several hours, she calculated, the street lights having come on without her noticing. It was a dark night, a cloudless and moonless night, only the brightest of stars were visible through the city lights. Like a cheap detective novel, the night mirrored her mood. Only three of the tables in the place were colonized as Kiyone made her way to the end of the empty bar. Just the type of place she needed to drink the night away. Sitting down she gave the bartender a single command, "Scotch!"

Ursus Demens

My current writing process

I am very old school having started composing long before the advent of personal computers. So almost all of my pieces begin on good old fashion manuscript paper, a pencil and a small drafting triangle. All my preliminary work is done “manually” and is done away from the computer and the piano. [I do not write at the piano.] I also have a pad of graph paper for making notes, sketching abstract ideas, instrument placements and any other ideas. I also have a set of ten pens in ten different colors, and a set of ten high-lighter pens in ten colors that almost but not quite correspond to the the ten regular pens.

Once I have the basic material worked out, depending on the piece and my mood, in greater or lesser detail I input the music into Sibelius. One the piece has been entered into Sibelius editing and polishing of the piece beings, this is a very iterate process, usually proportional to the length and size (number of performers) of the piece. While some editing (changes) occur in the initial inputting of my sketches into the Sibelius software most occur after the initial data input. My usual method is to print out the score and go sit down with it away from the computer. With the score I being to “edit” or polish refine the piece by writing all over page with my colored pens, highlighters and my pencil. Once the score is all marked up I then sit down at the computer again and enter all of my edits. Only after this initial first edit do I turn on the speakers and listen to the piece through the Sibelius Playback. After this another score print out is made and the whole editing process is repeated. This process is repeated as many times as needed. As a side note, I usually save the Sibelius score with a new version number in the file name for each iteration. I also tend to put each piece in its own sub-folder.

Once I am done with these editing iterations I end up with my final score that I will publish for performers and from which I will extract parts. At this point I consider the piece complete.

This is however not the end of the process. Now begins the process of “recording” the piece, but that is for another post.

Ursus Demens

A Question.

A question for all the composers out there. Why do you compose?

Ursus Demens

Finished

Well I kept my focus and finish my recoreding of my Fugue:
Fugue in E minor is now available for viewing and listening.


Ursus Demens

Regained Focus

Well I have regained my focus and have returned to working on my recording on my Fugue in E minor. As I have said before it is a labor intensive bit of work that has to be done for a recording/rendering. So far I feel I have finished with the Violas and the Cellos in shaping all of there dynamics. All I have left are the two Violin sections and the Basses. I am inclined to work on the Basses next, but I probably should work on the second Violins next, working my way form the inside voices to the outside voices. Once that is done all I will have left is how to get the convolution reverb set so that I can get some depth of sound. So much too do.

Ursus Demens

Discipline

Or should I say my total lack of discipline. I have finished writing my Fugue in E minor and have begun working on a recording of it. This is a very labor intensive process, so what do I do? I begin on writing another piece, a bit of fluff piece. Sort of a folk-rock piece. What the hell am I thinking? I need to be finishing the Fugue in E minor and proofing the parts, but no I am start working on some thing completely different. And do you remember? I started the Fugue in E minor while I was working of the recording to Kiyone's Mood. if what I needed as a little time away from the Fugue what didn't I go back to work on Kiyone? Lack of discipline, I say. Or some sort of deep seeded physiological need to avoid actually finishing something. That or I am just lazy.


Mood of the day: Wistfulness, yearning, with a hint of sadness and lost, but muted.


Ursus Demens