Type setting is mostly completed…needs some more expression editing and page editing (for printing), but otherwise…
Jul15
Tag Archives: composing
Apr27
Showing Your Work
Sketch and “map” for Mvt. VII.
When I began this blog a few years back, I always intended to make it about more than my creativity in the kitchen. For the next 50 days, I will primarily be posting about composing music (with hopefully a delectable picture of a luscious meal or two). I’ve been working on a piece for nearly three years, and it’s time to pull it from the constant loop of my brain and place it to rest on paper. Don’t get me wrong; I have been working on it – I swear! I have several notebooks full of musical sketches and research. I have multiple first attempts at sections, but only about 1/5 completed. So, I’ve set a due date – June 15th, 2014.
In the meantime, I’ve been reading Show Your Work! by Austin Kleon; a lovely, quick read! In it, he suggests putting your work “out there”, so I’ll be posting photos and some audio (eventually) concerning my new “requiem” for full orchestra, chorus, and cantor based on the wonderful poem The Last Matinee by John Nizalowski. The piece is in seven movements; over the past few months, I have hobbled away time to complete Movement VI (though greatly in need of a rewrite), and have large portions of Mvts. I and II completed. Today, I completed Mvt. VII: “In Buddha’s temple I break forth…” (for double chorus, humming bowl, djimbe, and cantor). Here’s a couple shots of the completed score.
Enjoy 🙂
Jan10
The Day I First Looked Up
My mom used to make toast with PB & J for our breakfast when we were kids.
I spent most of the day reading and basking in the sun in my studio. A friend recently recommended a book about the study of hypnotherapy and past-life regression; and having let it sit on my shelf for a week, I sat down before breakfast this morning to give it a go. I stayed there for three hours, barely stopping to make myself some toast with peanut-butter and jelly (a childhood favorite that I hadn’t thought of in nearly a decade until my mother mentioned it in passing conversation a few days ago). I had forgotten what a joy it is to sit back and read in the middle of the day purely because I can.
I spent most of the day in a contemplative daze, but I have two brief stories to share with you tonight:
I. “You Were the Only One Looking Up!”
I mentioned yesterday the passing of my former teacher, Dr. Francis McBeth. Amidst being a magnificent music theory teacher, Dr. McBeth was a world-renowned composer, scholar, and wit; and despite those labels, he was also down-to-earth, friendly, and had a great smile and laugh.
Though I was never in one of Dr. Mac’s classes, I had the good fortune of being in the Ouachita Concert Band and working with him on several occasions. On one of these occasions, we had spent several rehearsals combining our university ensemble with a local high school’s ensemble to perform his work, Of Sailors and Whales (based on Hermann Melville’s Moby Dick). I was so in awe of this man that I simply couldn’t take my eyes off him while he was on the podium. I went to great lengths to know the music well enough to be able to play that french horn to the best of my ability (which albeit, was not very well) while keeping my eyes diligently on his baton. I had noticed that it seemed he was throwing quite a few cues to my line of sight, which only encouraged me to look up more.
After the performance, Dr. Mac stopped me as I passed him on my way off the stage. “Did you notice that I was throwing every single cue at you?”
“Yes, sir,” I said, trying not to grin ear-to-ear.
“Do you know why?” he asked.
“No, sir.”
“Because you were the only one that ever looked up!” he laughed.
It wouldn’t be until years later that I would stand to conduct an ensemble of foreheads and understand the relief when as a conductor you finally get to connect with a performer eye-to-eye and actually shape music. I never took a class with Dr. Mac, but I remember all the wonderful lessons and encouragement that he offered me over my five years at Ouachita, and I am forever grateful.
II. “Hey! Look Up!”
We are having unbelievable weather here in Grand Junction right now! Earlier today, I was driving through town admiring the view of the Colorado National Monument against the clear blue sky when I saw this teenage boy walking home from school. He couldn’t have been more than 15 but was hunched over as he walked frowning in concentration at something in his hand. As I passed him I finally recognized the object of his attention as an iPad. I thought, “Here we are with barely seven good hours of great sunshine every day for the next couple of months, and you are more interested in what – a movie? a game? facebook? some blog!?!”
I wanted to shout out the window, “Hey! Look up! Enjoy the beautiful day, the gorgeous mountains!”
But I didn’t; I just took in a breath and smiled.
Several years ago, I was walking past a wall of mirrors at work and was so surprised when I turned to see my reflection, that I took a double take. What I saw was a 27-year-old man getting a hunchback. I had a habit of looking down at the ground in contemplation when I walked, but at this moment I realized what my actions were doing to me physically – how shutting people and the world out was destroying my back. I immediately rolled my shoulders back and for the next several weeks made a conscious effort to improve my posture. This meant no more looking at the ground when I walk to work or down the halls. Suddenly, I was seeing the great big beautiful sky and world in all its magnificence in front of me as if for the first time. I was in awe of the sky of my surroundings of my neighbors. I felt like I was “tripping” once or twice a day; as if “Here Comes The Sun” was playing on loop in my brain every time I walked out the door. But the sun had always been there; I just had to look up to see it.
Several years ago, I tried to write about that day I saw my reflection, but never completed the piece. I found it in an old project file earlier today; here it is in its complete incomplete state:
I remember the day I first looked up
How I passed by the wall of glass lining the courtyard
And saw a reflection of the reflection of my essential self
Buried beneath a lonely pile of fear and contempt
How I stopped, turned, looked,
As if I had just caught someone doing an embarrassingly inaccurate impersonation of me
How I turned to continue down the hall
Hoping the mimicker had retreated to the opposite path
And twisting my head slowly – fearfully – to gaze.
I remember the day I first looked up
How I rolled my resistant shoulders back
And leveled my jaw with the ground,
Bringing my eyes away from the institutional floor
How I squinted, blinked, looked,
As if I had stepped into an anomaly of the world I had always known
I’m not sure what “anomaly of the world I had always known” means, but I’m trying to not judge too harshly and remember my words from yesterday. Finally, here’s the magnificent pizza I made tonight with fresh whole-wheat pizza dough from Homestyle Bakery on 7th (so good; so cheap!), genoa salami, and sauteed mushrooms, onions, and peppers. Enjoy! 🙂
Jan9
Being a Bad Artist
Writing through Lunch - Fortunately, I always keep some carrot/ginger soup in stock; I whipped up a quick two cheese quesadilla on 96%-fat-free whole wheat tortillas. Yum!
Today was a lovely day spent writing and reading and listening. I sketched the intro for movement III of my new seven movement adaptation, having completed sketches for the introductions of I & II yesterday. I read about Quetzalcoatl, Ashoka, symbolism in gravestone carvings, and counterpoint theory. I listened to Corigliano’s Symphony #1 “Of Rage and Remembrance” from beginning to end. I watched a delightful documentary on AETN about my wonderful former professor Dr. Francis McBeth who passed away on Friday.
I’ve been so fortunate to be in a great mental place lately making it easy to write. While I know that it is brought on partly by the leisure time that Winter Break has allowed me, I actually think it has more to due with two other factors – blogging and painting.
Over dinner tonight, I was telling my friend Kathleen (El Tapatio, her first time; awesome meal, great discussion!) that I feel like blogging allows me to “brain dump”. It accomplishes for me the same as “Morning Pages” from Julia Cameron’s book The Artist’s Way. The blog allows me to get all the loose thoughts in my head organized and OUT so that I can get to the creative materials. Painting helps me find artistic freedom. I didn’t even know that I didn’t have artistic freedom before I started painting last summer. But when I put forth my creativity in a medium that held know gravity for me – pure child’s play – I saw the absurdity behind worrying about final product before even starting the process.
And for the past six months I have continually asked, “What does this mean for my composing?”
I think it means everything to composing. And acting. And singing. And pottery. And dance. And pet portraiture. At the base of all these “art forms” is “child play” – the essence of creativity. And like a child, I have to be able to enter into art fearless of the outcome and uncertain of praise. I have to simply paint, sing, write to get it out.
Julia Cameron said it best (and I say it ad nauseum to my own students):
“Remember that in order to recover as an artist, you must be willing to be a bad artist. Give yourself permission to be a beginner. By being willing to be a bad artist, you have a chance to be an artist, and perhaps, over time, a very good one….Creativity is an act of faith, and we must be faithful to that faith, willing to share it to help others, and to be helped in return.”
Thank for participating in my daily “brain dump”. I’m so glad that y’all are enjoying it; I certainly am!
from A Year with Hafiz by Daniel Landinsky
Jan8
Math and Scones
I love waking up on a sunny Sunday morning and just laying in the beams of sunlight flooding through my bedroom window onto my bed. I love it even more when the only reason to break through and leave the comfort of those beams is to cook breakfast!
Over the summer, whenever strawberries or blueberries would go on sale, I would buy several packages of each. When I got them home, I would quickly wash them off, and then divide them into freezer bags to enjoy during the Winter. Well, while making scones yesterday morning I remembered that I have pounds of both fruits sitting in the freezer waiting to be enjoyed. So last night I removed a cup of blueberries and placed them in the refrigerator to thaw before morning. They weren’t quite thawed when I bounced down the stairs to whip up some Blueberry Scones, so I took them out of the refrigerator and ran some slightly warm water into their bowl.
Flax, Blueberries, and Sucanat
Part of the reason that I enjoy playing around with recipes and creating my own is because I love math. No seriously, I do – I love math. While sitting at a discussion group in an objective-building workshop this past week, I contested a math-based objective as unnecessarily verbose and unclear (not to mention frightening) with it’s run-on structure and use of words like “algorithmic”. One of my colleagues from a less “abstract” department on campus looked at me as if to say, “Of course the theatre professor doesn’t like the math objective.” Recognizing his thought, I quickly rebutted with “And I love Math; I mean, really. I LOVE MATH!” I think he thought I protested too much.
But its true, I am one those crazy artistic creative types that actually looks at math and recognizes the art within. I may not always understand it, but I recognize its function in my life as being essential. No, I don’t look at equations everyday (or any day, for that matter), but learning about equations taught me how to problem solve. Ultimately, algebra taught me how to cook!
For instance, yesterday morning when I woke up wanting healthy scones with ingredients that I already had in the house, I couldn’t just look at one recipe. Instead, I searched sites and found five or six recipes. Then I compared the techniques being used across the recipes (what do they do the same? what is different? why is it different? what proportions are similar throughout?) and found the aspects of each that I liked (whole-wheat in one, ground flax seed in another, alternative sugar source in another, etc). From there, I created my base recipe and experimented from there.
They aren’t perfect yet, so I should say “will continue to experiment from there”. Yesterday’s batch came out more dense and scone-like; today’s were more cookie-like. The difference between the two was that I tried to incorporate ground flax seed for flavor and good stuff while substituting out more of the all-purpose flour. The result was stickier dough and more cookie-like results. I believe this happened because of the finer nature of the wheat flour so next time if I use flax seed I will substitute it out of the whole wheat rather than the all-purpose.
Its true: I’m an interdisciplinary geek!
Despite its cookie-like texture, it was very tasty – but not as good as the Cranberry Scones yesterday (click here for recipe).
Blueberry Scones
I did a lot of writing today using a similar technique that I use when I am painting – whether its “good” or “bad” or “right” or “final”, just get it down on paper; at least then you have something to fix! I am finally getting through that wall of hesitance, of not wanting to write until it’s perfect. I have finally come to terms that I am not Mozart; what a relief!
Here are the results; I’m pleased.
The Last Matinee 1
The Last Matinee 2
Mom and Me (Nov. 2011)
And finally – today was my Mom’s birthday. I ran across this great picture of us from last Thanksgiving; what a wonderful day that was! I laugh at this picture because it is a great example of how neither my Mom nor I have eyes in pictures when we smile. They simply disappear behind our jolly cheeks. My Grandma Ballard was the same way, and this picture made me think of her, too. It reminded me of stories that she would tell about people throughout the 1940’s being rude to her because they thought she was of Japanese decent (which she was not). I remember as a kid hearing those stories that I thought that was ridiculous – she didn’t look Japanese. But then I saw some pictures from when she was younger, and you could see why people thought that she might have been. Still, its rather difficult to imagine the mindset of that time period. Oddly enough, her birthday was December 7 (Pearl Harbor Day).
Anyway…Best Wishes to my Mama who instilled in me a great love for enjoying great food with your friends. I send out Happy Birthday wishes today with this great poem I read in A Year with Hafiz (Hafiz was a 14th Century Persian poet) marked January 8th. Enjoy 🙂
{and please press “Like” if you did – thank you} 🙂
from A Year With Hafiz by Daniel Ladinsky
The Alchemist's Kitchen 
