Tanka of the Day ~ This old coat of mine

    
This old coat of mine
    smelling of stale cigarettes
        with its torn pocket
    a reminder of my youth
        and many forgotten sins. 
   

   
(July, 2015)

Haiku of the Day ~ The squirrels in my head

     
The squirrels in my head;
         running and jumping around.
    "What was I doing?"
    
    
(December 2014) 

Haiku of the Day ~ Listen to

    

Listen to 

    naught but emptiness

        and silence. 

   

   

(January, 2013) 

  

Haiku of the Day ~ In the afternoon

                   
In the afternoon
     metal ants with round black feet
             creep down the freeway. 
         
        

Score of the week: “the darkness between the stars”

     

This is a tone poem for String Orchestra and Solo Bass Clarinet in which I tried to invoke the darkness/void/loneliness of deep space; out where there is nothing. 99.9999+ percent of the universe is an empty lonely place.

while I was writing this piece I imaged myself floating in the darkness of deep space billions of miles from any other being, billions of miles from even just another object, with just the faint dots of stars everywhere in the black void.

Score and MP3 at: http://www.scoreexchange.com/scores/35987.html

Score of the week: Impression No. 1

   

First of a set of five Impressions. Impression of what you ask? That is up to your mind and ears to decide.

Listen to this piece in a calm and quiet spot.

Close your eyes.

Let the music take your imagination on a trip.

Score and MP3: http://www.scoreexchange.com/scores/147406.html
 
    

Score of the Week: The Heat Death of the Universe

An atmospheric piece for  solo bass clarinet (plus effects) using a limited number of pitch classes in its composition.


You Tube: The Heat Death of the Universe
Score and MP3: The Heat Death of the Universe

Score of the Week: Forgotten Thoughts

  

Forgotten Thoughts

A laid back 12/8 groove featuring a soprano vocalise followed by a harder 4/4 middle section and finishes up with a return to the 12/8 groove. Ten minutes of sounds and textures that go nowhere.

MP3 and PDF Score: Forgotten Thoughts
                 

Score of the Week: Impression No. 2

Impression No. 2

Second in a set of five Impressions.

Impression of what you ask? That is up to your mind and ears to decide. Listen to this piece in a calm and quiet spot, close your eyes and let the music take your imagination on a trip.

Score and MP3
    

Out, Damn Spot!

Sometimes I just get these crazy ideas stuck in my head and I have to get them out of my head and inflict my madness on the world. This piece is one of those ideas, a perverse genetic mutation with the potential to offend even the deaf.

I have describe it as Schoenberg and Shakespeare visit Compton.

Out, Damn Spot! (MP3)

Currently there is no score as only 80 percent of the piece was written in Sibelius. The other 20 percent was done in Sonar and has not yet made its way back into Sibelius.

Other People's Squirrels

    
 Well after my last update I started to veer off the path. At first it was only to down load updates and patches to my existing software. That then morph is a short bit of time searching for Freeware VSTs, and that was not too bad as I was continuing to sketch out ideas for the fourth movement. But on Friday I decided to open up the first project I ever did in Sonar 5 way back in 2005 [What Ever]. That is when the first squirrels arrived. I decided to redo the entire piece in the newest version of Sonar Platinum and the updated Garritan JABB libraries. That initially went well, but then Saturday arrived.

   Saturday was the day my Mother and Sister was holding their big annual charity Tea Party and the last couple of years my Wife and Daughter have gotten into helping  with it. Additionally I was on call for work. Saturday the the other people's squirrels arrived. 

 First I need to run last minute errands with my wife to get flowers for the tea party. No big deal you think? Well you do not understand the enormous amount of time it takes my wife to pick out flowers (and I do love her very dearly). Once that was done and the flowers dropped off at my Mother's place I need to shuttle my wife back home and the plan was to then have me shuttle the Daughter back to my Mother's place and that would have worked, except it takes her like 15 minutes to get out of the house. Still not a real problem except I get the page (text message technically) from work.

 So I have the leave the wife a daughter to their own designs and go into my room to fire up the computer to see what the issue. As I was doing that the Wife and Daughter take off to my Mother's house and leave the Granddaughter in the house with me. Soon the Granddaughter is yelling at me because the dog is going crazy and I have to deal with it instead, luckly just then the Wife was back and I could get back to work. But I consider everything a packed up my stuff and drive into the office.

 A couple hours later I had everything resolved and left the office. The Tea party was in full swing, buy because of the hot weather I need to pickup extra bottle water on my way there. To cut to the chase. The rest of the day was spent bouncing between the tea party and the office (I got another shorter call later) and just simply waiting on my family. I think I was finally able to roll into bed at one AM.


  Since then I spent most of the week working on the new mix of “What Ever” and it is almost finished. I made what I call a raw recording of the piece to listen to for a while before finalizing it. The good news is I am back working of the second movement of my new piece. But as for the fourth movement I have decided to step back from it for a few days as I am not longer happy with the initial ideas I had and I might end up taking it in a completely new direction. So unless the evil squirrels rear their heads I am focused on finishing the second movement and getting back to working of the first movement.


   May your days be squirrel free.


Ursus Demens
                 

No Squirrels Over the Weekend

           
Well I was able to keep focus this weekend. After re-configuring my main display on my computer to use HDMI I moved the VGA connection to a second monitor and now have a nice two display system to work with now.


I then spent most of the weekend setting up and mixing the second movement of my new multi -movement piece I talked about on Friday. I am no where near maxing out my new system, but I know there is no way I could load this project on my old system.



As for the piece itself; it is coming along very nicely and  I am very happy with the way it is sounding. If I stay on track I will soon be back to working on the first movement.    

Me and My Squirrels

   
As usual I find myself going down yet another random track instead of staying focused on one thing. My work on my new ballet got side tracked when I decided to finish my set of five impressions that I had put off when the idea of the ballet came to me. So with the impressions finished it should be back to the ballet, no? No. I started on a new multi-movement piece as soon as I have finished mixing impression number five. I have already finished the second movement and the third movement is 98 percent done. The first movement, which I started first, is about 50 percent done. And the final last movement is only an idea in my head. Only time will tell if I stay on track with this beast, or go chasing some other squirrel next week.
           
             

Impressions No. 1 to 5

  
A set of five impressions

Impression of what you ask? That is up to you and your ears to shape. Listen to this piece in a tranquil and quiet spot, close your eyes and let the music take your imagination on a trip.

All five impressions in one continuous recording:

https://soundcloud.com/ed-w-sharpe/impressions-no-1-5

Impression No. 1 Score & Recording

http://www.scoreexchange.com/scores/147406.html

Impression No. 2 Score & Recording

http://www.scoreexchange.com/scores/150755.html

Impression No. 3 Score & Recording

http://www.scoreexchange.com/scores/151773.html

Impression No. 4 Score & Recording

http://www.scoreexchange.com/scores/165384.html

Impression No. 5 Score & Recording

http://www.scoreexchange.com/scores/167156.html

 
 

   

Squirrels Everywhere I Look

               

So I am in the process of finishing working on Impression No. 5 with the hope that I can mix it over the weekend. But. As I am sitting here eating my lunch I got an idea for another large project and spent half of my lunch starting to sketch it out. Only God knows if I will get back on track with Impression No. 5 or spend the next weeks working on my new idea for a new piece (lets not even mention that I still have the Ballet to work on).

So Many Squirrels

               

I spent most of Friday night working and revising Impression No. 5 and I now feel that it is at least 95 percent done; just need a few more listen through and we should be ready to start mixing. Impression No. 4 is waiting for its final mix down and I should had finished it this weekend, but I did not. After working most of Friday night on polishing No. 5 I spent the rest of weekend distracted by squirrels and got nothing more done. Maybe tonight.
                     

Impressions of Squirrels

 

I continued with writing Impression No. 5 last night.  I would say that I am now about 90 percent done with it.  All of the notes are down on the page, it is now a mater of cleaning up the notation, working on the small things, like dynamic marks.  Still need to finish mixing Impression No. 4.  Squirrel!

                  

More Squirrels!

         
In my last update I stated that I had been putting off mixing of my piece Impression No. 4 for some time now. One of the reasons was because I had no idea for Impression No. 5. (The Impression series was originally conceived as a set of seven pieces, but was trimmed to five by the time I finished Impression No. 1.) So I knew I would be writing an Impression to finish the set off, I just did not know what form it would take.


I truly expected to work on and quite possibly finish mixing Impression No. 4 last night, but as I listen to the first four impressions at lunch on Wednesday Impression No. 5 bloomed full born in my head. So instead of working on the mix for Impression No. 4, I spent most of the night working on Impression No. 5.



Who knows what will distract me tonight!  

Haiku of the day

         

The squirrels in my head

running and jumping around

what was I doing?

Ballet Idea

I had the following idea for a ballet.

If you have time can you take a look at the following outline that I have created for a possible ballet. any feed back is welcome, good or bad.

Ballet – Outline – Title?

Scene 1: Curtain rises
  on a barren and desolate landscape, the full moon slowly rises over the distant barren mountains.

Scene 2: A group of grotesque demons enter and begin a wild a chaotic dance.

Scene 3: A young and nubile girl is doing water ablutions in an oasis in the barren land. Small strange and grotesque (reptilian?) creatures stand a watch over her as she does her ritual cleaning.

Scene 4: The small creatures begin to cavort and dance as the girl meditates (with her eyes closed) under the small waterfall that feeds the oasis.

Scene 5: Something startles the creatures and they scurry about before hiding behind various rocks that surround the oasis. The Girl remains undisturbed in her meditation, her eyes remain closed.

Scene 6: Enter the demons with their chaotic dance; at first they do not see the girl. Their dance comes to a sudden stop when they she her sitting under the waterfall.

Scene 7: They begin their chaotic dance against before rushing towards to girl to seize her. But they are unable to reach her as some invisible barrier shocks and burns them when they get too close; her eyes remain closed, her expression is one of peace and calm.

Scene 8: Frustrated the demons storm off. The girl opens her eyes and comes out of her mediation. Standing she beings to stretch and warm up (Katas ? [形]) as if preparing for something. Her small grotesque creature companions begin to do the same.

Scene 9: The demons return; they mock and taunt the Girl and the small creatures but do not approach them, the girl stands still immune to their taunts. The demons stop their taunting and scurry to one side their eyes downcast, as if they where afraid.

Scene 10: A large demon, “king” of the demons enters and approaches the girl. The takes up a defensive stance as if she is expecting to be attacked. The large demon is startled by the invisible barrier surrounding the grils that shocks and burns him, but it only a minor hindrance and he pushes through the barrier and attacks the girl.

Scene 11: As the girl and the large demon engage in combat, the small creatures and the other demons also begin fighting each other. Many of the small creatures and demons are seriously wounded or killed. The girl and the large demon inflict serious wounds on each other. Seriously (mortally wounded?) the girl lands one last blow on the large demon that destroys him; banishing him from the world. The few remaining demons flee in terror leaving their wounded and dieing comrades behind.

Scene 12: With her remaining strength the girl attends to her wounded companions; the small creatures. Pouring her power into them she heals all of them, even restoring ones that seem to have been killed. With her healing of the last creature she lays down right side, her head propped up by a smooth stone and apparently falls asleep.

Scene 13: The small creatures form a circle around the girl wait for her to awake. But it soon become clear that she will not awake. So the small creatures slowly begin to pile stones around and on top of her making a rough burial mound.

Scene 14: After the mound is finished, the creatures leave one by one. The full moon now sets in the distance west and the sky is filled with stars.

===   END   ===