Procrastination?

I've been getting my head together for finals week and grading. It's really just the finals, juries, and a few late entries into the homework assignments, so it isn't so bad. The test is ready except for the photocopying, and juries aren't until Wednesday.

I should start putting some effort into either my SNM commission for next year, or the wind ensemble piece I started this semester, a re-harmonization of Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott. I've got all my materials ready. It's just a matter of some broad sketches and fleshing it out.

Should is the operative word.

Instead, I spent this weekend finally beginning to input and tweak my Symphony No. 2. There is a brief passage I want to fix near the beginning, but the rest will be mostly straight input as well as clarifying some dynamics. I'm about 3/4 into the first movement. (I had started a long time ago when I was trying out a new version of Sibelius.) My Euphonium Concerto is in the same state, although possibly further along, except it needs more extensive revision.

My Notagraphia website has been trailing a coming score to Oyre's Garden for a long time now, and that is what I spent today on. I've converted it from Finale to Sibelius and increased the staff size, so it doesn't need to be printed out on large format paper to be able to read it. There are some minor revisions, mostly making it look a little more like it sounds. Again, I've added and clarified some dynamics. All I have left to do is the front matter, and then I can upload it to Createspace. I'm trying to decide whether it needs new parts or whether I can easily adjust the Finale parts.

I'm also going to tweak the score to Chaos. I'm not happy with the accolades (the instrument names in the margin), so I'm going to improve them, add the front matter and post it - probably at the same time as Oyre's Garden. That's probably an afternoon of work between the two scores, so I should upload them by Christmas, and get to the new pieces.

Saying that, I have a typesetting job on its way, so that might eat into my composing time.

Remembering the Night Sky is now available on Createspace

Remembering the Night Sky (chamber version) is now available on Createspace. Parts are free, if you purchase the score and email me on the address inside the cover page. It will be available on Amazon within the next week.

At this point in time, I don't have a release date for the saxophone and piano version, since it is too short for Createspace publication. I'm considering publishing it with a bonus of Mirage, for solo alto saxophone. That will get me up to the minimum page threshold.

Chaos, for piano and orchestra should go live by the end of the month. I need to come up with some interesting artwork for it.

New arrangement

I've been quiet here, but I've been busy.

Firstly, I think Chaos is just about ready to upload to Createspace, and ultimately Amazon. I've edited the harp part, but I may have one more look through the score before finalizing it.

In the meantime, I've finish an arrangement of Remembering Child for a performance in Syracuse at the end of January (http://www.societyfornewmusic.org/concerts.cfm), and I'm expecting proofs in the mail in the next few days to approve. I'll post an announcement. This the first score with my own digital artwork, and I'm hoping it looks good. I'm not sure about the scaling of the jpeg. I may have to go back to one of their stock images. Someday, I hope I'll be able to supply real artwork for my covers.

I've also set the original version with piano, but it's too few pages to publish on Createspace. It's only 16 pages and the minimum is 24. Front matter takes it up to 18, but that is still 6 pages short. I could publish my sax quartet with it as a bonus, or possibly Mirage, which I haven't typeset yet, but it is only a couple of pages long. It's a solo alto piece with loads of multiphonics, key clicks, and pops. I might consult on it first. Some of the multiphonics are awkward, and I might try to find some notes with smoother fingerings approaching and leaving them.

There are two more works on the horizon. Firstly, I have another piece to write for the Society for New Music - for next season. Also, I've been sketching a wind ensemble piece based on Bach's harmonization and my reharmonization of Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott. I'll give more details on that later.

That Saxophone Quartet ...

... is officially finished - for real, this time. 

A long time ago (in a far away land) Paul Bro asked me to write a quartet for the Chicago Saxophone Quartet. I never got a confirmation from him that they would perform it if I wrote it, nor was there any talk of a commission fee. At some point, I got some ideas and wrote them down. There was enough for a whole movement there, but I never got around to assembling it.

Several years ago, when I was teaching students how to use Sibelius, I gave each member of the class a page to typeset as an exercise in expanded techniques - all but the last page for some reason - either that or the person assigned the last page never turned in the assignment. About a year later, I appended the files together and considered it finished, but I didn't think I liked it enough to try to peddle for performances.

Lately, I have been reorganizing my manuscripts, and ran across it. I figured I had a little time to play with it, and decided to clean it up. I'm not sure I really like the beginning - I need to hear it - it's a style I was exploring in the mid-90s, but I've decided that I do like most of it.

It's not easy. Part of it is very fast (possibly too fast) and there are a number of quarter tones.

It's also too short to publish on CreateSpace - and not close enough to pad it with blank pages. I'm not sure what to do with it yet - add a title page and performance notes to get it up to 14 pages, and then put a 10 sample pages of From Her Husband's Hand and Inner Sanctum? I could put a few pages of Remembering the Night Sky in, too, but that isn't published yet, and I'm thinking of revising it first.

If anyone is interested in playing it, just send me an email.

The New Sibelius

I don't get it. The new Sibelius doesn't really have any significant new features. Yes, there is annotation and being able to write with a pen (on a Surface Pro), but for those who have a mega setup and huge (non-touchscreen) monitor, that's nothing.

You can pay $89 for the upgrade for a perpetual license now. And then another $89 next year, and the following year for "free" upgrades and support. Sounds like $267 to me. I've been using Sibelius since version 1. I don't need support. If they are promising multiple annual upgrades, that's different - and by upgrades, I don't mean maintenance fixes. I don't like the subscription model.

Have they stopped developing Sibelius? Sounds like it. I can think of a lot of things they could fix, but it doesn't sound like they have made any changes in the notation direction.

Until I see a compelling reason to buy it, I guess I'm sticking with 7.5.

Finished!

I finished Chaos today.

Yes, I FINISHED Chaos today. I'll probably have another look through it, and may not publish it for a while - after it has been given the OK by a couple of pianists that I've sent it to. I also need to have a look through the harp part. Some of the tunings may be impossible. (Chilali, do you want to look through it?)

Time to start doing all the stuff I'm supposed to be doing!

Long past due for an update

Chaos is nearly finished. I had a couple of urgent typesetting jobs that meant putting off the final work on the concerto. Over the past couple of days, I've filled the partial gaps. (There were no real gaps, just three places where not all of the material was present.) Today, I've bridged the last one, although I'll put the last few notes in when I key the last section into Sibelius. I've made annotations what to do there.

I have a few small amendments to put in earlier in the piece - in what you might call the second movement, and then I need to sculpt the dynamics.

In any case, I'm now to the 99% mark on the first draft. Sibelius says it is only 15 minutes long, but I think it's actually more like 20, since it said Chaos Theory (the middle section of Chaos, plus a new beginning) was 8 minutes, and it was almost 11.

Once I finish tinkering, I'll send it out to my pianist friends (and acquaintances), including the pianist for whom I was originally writing, in case she is still interested. I'll also send it out to the conductor who commissioned it, with the understanding that the orchestra who withdrew the commission will never play it.

I must also confess, this isn't an ordinary concerto. It's more like a piece for piano and orchestra, where the two are relatively equal. There is too much in the piano part to call it an orchestra piece, and it really needs to be out in front. The second movement is more concerto like, for part of it anyway.

If anyone is interested in taking a look at it, I'd be happy to send a pdf.

Naming

One of my goals over the next couple of weeks is to finally finish the concerto that I was working on when I started this diary.

At that point, if it no longer becomes a diary for that concerto, is this blog over? Of course, I'm sketching a double concerto next, so maybe that will take the baton.

Improvisation I (Labyrinth Set)- Stephen Ferre

Time Knot

I just finished a short piece for the Society for New Music benefit concert in May. It's a study or possibly a movement of a larger piece that I hope to write over the summer.

It's called Time Knot (provisionally), which is an homage to Messaien's Quartet for the End of Time (same instrumentation), and incorporates my Labyrinth Set, devised in the Labyrinth Room at the Marble Collegiate Church in Manhattan. That set was originally for a double concerto, which became an octet, and now a quartet. I may use the same set for the other pieces, but I'll see after I have composed the other movements of this piece.

I can't publish it on CreateSpace because it is too short - only 7 pages (ca 2'). That will have to wait for the complete work. If anyone is interested in it, just send me an email or comment below and I'll find a way to be in touch.

Chaos Theory

Chaos Theory for piano, flute, clarinet, trumpet, trombone, and string quintet is now available on CreateSpace.

Symphony No 3 now availablle

You can buy it on Createspace here. It should go live on Amazon.com in up to 3 days, and on Amazon partners in a week or so. If you have a choice, buy it on Createspace. (I get a larger royalty.)

My proof copy of Chaos Theory is on its way, so that should go live in a week or so.

Chaos Theory

It has all gone very quickly. I have notes in every bar from beginning to end, which means that I have written all the new material that spans the last gap in Chaos as well. Basically, all I need to finish is the typesetting and the reduction of the Chaos second movement material that closes Chaos Theory. With luck that means I'll finish two new pieces in the next couple of weeks - 3 in January 2015.

That means I'm nearly there, so we should be able to start rehearsals on it right away to record it ASAP.

Better get back to it...

Two birds, one cadenza

A day after my last post, I completely changed my mind about what to do for a new piece to record for grant applications. I was looking through my Chaos materials and was thinking that maybe I should write a piano piece. (But wait a moment...) The largest missing section of Chaos is actually a large piano cadenza. Granted, I was almost up to the point where the piano stopped playing alone, but I thought, "Why not compose the cadenza as a separate piano piece and then take the best parts and use them in the concerto?"

That idea didn't last long. It meant writing a whole new piece, which was something that I wanted to avoid. Rather than compose a whole lot of music that I wouldn't ultimately use (something I have done a lot in the past 20 years), I decided to go ahead and write that missing cadenza and the accompanying instruments in a chamber version, then re-score the rest of the middle movement for that ensemble, using the instruments I knew I would have available to record it. All I would have to do would be write a beginning for the ensemble - which I may adapt from another "beginning" that I have never used, but really like, for a piece provisionally named At the Ends of a Double Rainbow. It's just the right length, and I could easily adapt the pitch material to lead into the beginning of the second movement of Chaos, then bring back some of the free stuff as the accompaniment to the freer portion of the concerto cadenza. Not only would it be a strong opening, but a source of material for later in the movement. Not only that, it's almost the identical instrumentation to what I had planned for the chamber version of the movement.

That all ought to give me a substantial movement of 8-10 minutes for piano and chamber ensemble, which I will probably call Chaos Theory, more from its derivation from the Chaos source material than actually Chaos Theory, although this piece will have had a fractal development. First, a wind ensemble piece, then a piano concerto, incorporating a piano cadenza and a chamber orchestra piece. Hopefully, it won't accumulate more, as this giant snowball continues downhill, since I had already planned to use At the Ends of a Double Rainbow as part of a second piano concerto with a chamber orchestra. I can't use the same movement in two piano concertos - can I?

NO.

Let's see what I come up with when I continue working on it today.

Next on the list ...

I sent off my file previews for approval today, so I should be ordering the first print proof of Symphony No 3 tomorrow.

Next on the list is the syllabus for my Eartraining class this term, which won't take long, and then I might have a go at finishing Chaos by the end of next week, just to get it out of the way.

I have decided to keep my next project small. As I mentioned before, I need to record something new to send off with grant proposals. I've decided that, rather than attempt to finish something that I've started, I'm going to arrange my second string quartet for sinfonietta. It was never performed, and may have been unperformable without a conductor anyway. I think it will work as a larger piece, and will at least give me a chance to do something that I have done a lot of lately and can do quickly - and that it orchestrate/arrange. Re-arranging Chaos for wind ensemble is still a possibility, but I'll need to un-make it a piano concerto - and reintegrate a larger woodwind section, while removing the strings. Ultimately, I think it would be too difficult to put together in a few rehearsals, which is all I will have - and it would need way too many players.

I'll post availability of the new Symphony when it happens, probably in a couple of weeks.