Category: Seven Dreams

Fireside additions

Posted on by Dale

I think it’s absolutely insane to compose in the morning and then get out to work in the labyrinth after lunch when the day is at its hottest.  Don’t know why I do it.

At any rate, I’ve been slogging away at putting down flagstone around the fire pit.  I’m about 80% finished:

It’s going to be a nice touch.  Going barefoot won’t meant stepping on unexpected gravel any more, if by “barefoot” you mean “with no clothes on” and OF COURSE I DON’T MEAN THAT WHY WOULD YOU SAY SUCH A THING EVEN?

Those who visit on a regular basis will be relieved to see that I am leveling out the area on the right, where it’s still a pile of dirt.  No more feeling as if you’re falling over backwards.  Well, not from the horizontality of the chair, anyway.

It looks as if it’s going to be one more trip to the flagstone store, and then I will be done with that project.

Still struggling with the orchestration of Ariadne’s big outburst. It’s getting better. I’ve added a snare drum, a tam-tam, and the xylophone to the big moment.  Probably too much, but I’m going to let it sit there and annoy me for a while.  I keep avoiding brass for the simple reason that we’ve just heard the brass underscore Icarus’s big moment, and I hesitate to repeat the motif.

In general, I feel as if I really need to start exploring percussion more—it is a 21st century opera, after all.  I can kind of hear all kinds of wild rhythms on the quad toms, but I have no idea how to do that.  (Spoiler: just start slapping notes up there, idiot, just like you do with everything else…)

Dream One, “My mother, bored and pampered”

Posted on by Dale

Nice weekend—we traveled to Abingdon, VA, to visit my in-laws and to go to the Highlands Festival, a not-bad little arts festival celebrating its 66th year.  No great purchases, but I did get a handful of handmade-by-hand hooks on which to hang my shaman drums in the basement.  Currently they hang on bronze-colored 3M thingies, which are OK, but the whole vibe of that corner is “artisan crafted.”

I also picked up a small silver-plated vase which we might use to contain our body paint for 3 Old Men:

It’s probably too ornate for our purposes.  I’m open to further ideas—I had originally thought of an inexpensive ceramic bowl, but more and more I think we need to break-proof the whole process.  We saw a lot of hammered aluminum vessels from the 50s and 60s over the weekend that began to appeal to me.  Perhaps my fellow Old Men will have suggestions.

It occurs to me too that we need an acolyte to hold said vessel.  Hm.

So this morning I got back to work on “My mother, bored and pampered,” and I am not happy.  (So what else is new?)

The first part is fine.  It’s all appropriately honky-t0nk and sleazy.  But when Ariadne launches into her big moment and gets all opera-y, the accompaniment went to hell. What sounded really interesting and gorgeous in the piano score just sounds horrific with strings, too muddy and inarticulate.

So I’m not posting that part.  Here’s the part that makes sense:

Dream One, 4b. “My mother, bored and pampered” | piano score [pdf] | orchestral mp3

Dream One, “Hark, the sound of screaming fans” orchestrated

Posted on by Dale

At this point I’m just flinging instruments at the screen to see what sticks.  Theseus’s cheesy opening still bugs me per se, and the orchestration has not improved it.  I think part of the problem is that it’s in the wrong key for the French horn really to shine, but that ain’t gonna get fixed.  (Now I’m intrigued by the idea and will waste half the morning futzing with that.)

Anyway, give it a whirl and make suggestions for improvements:

Dream One, 4a. “Hark, the sound of screaming fans” | piano score [pdf] | orchestral mp3

In other news, the baritone sax is not as low and sleezy as I expected.  Bass sax?

Dream One, “I am alone”

Posted on by Dale

All right, here it is.  It’s overblown, and who knows if the tenor can be heard over all that noise?  But it has some nice moments.

Dream One, 3. “I am alone” | piano score | orchestral mp3

In other news, I was surprised to find that what I thought I was hearing in my head orchestration-speaking-wise for “Hark, the sound of screaming fans” does not work at all.  Blergh.

Also too…

Posted on by Dale

I may or may not have finished orchestrating “I am alone.”  It has some gorgeous crashing sounds in it, but I worry that they’re too much.  Pretty music, powerful music, but does it support the tenor or simply overwhelm him?

I can’t tell yet, so let me listen to it another day before posting it.

Onward, to “Hark, the sound of screaming fans,” to which my response this morning on my walk was revulsion—still—at Theseus’s jaunty little tune.

Random thoughts

Posted on by Dale

This little poster has been showing up on Facebook:

::sigh::

Here’s my issue with this: it exemplifies the execrable egocentrism of many religious folk in our society.  As my favorite liberal evangelical blogger Slacktivist would say, it’s a moral trap to want to believe that your virtue is enhanced and sustained by the unvirtue of others.

These believers look at this poster and identify with Noah and his family—”Yes, Lord, you are mighty we just bless your name for all your mercies to me etc etc etc”—without ever thinking that God also brought all the other people in this painting “to it.”  What other people, you ask?  The people under that water.  Those people.  The doomed, the drowned.

Ah, but those were bad people, wicked people, says the believer of this poster.  And that’s the moral trap.  Whatever the values of the cautionary tale of the Bible, our believers transfer that to their relationship to actual people here and now.  Those people are bad, not like me.  God will bring me through “it,” because I am Godly.  Those others?  They deserve to be under the black, cold sea.

So this morning, as I was doing my doctor-mandated walk and listening to Dream One… again… I lost interest in the music qua music and began thinking about staging, specifically the opening scene.

When I got home, here are the stage directions I typed into the libretto:

Icarus is in the sky again. The Event is on. Observers (CHORUS) attend the moment in amazement and delight.

[In the rear, projected sky.  Two vomitoria flank the central playing area.
Large overhead screens flicker to life: corporate sponsor logos, Icarus 2014 splashscreens, on-location reporters, tweets, selfies, etc.
Beneath, we hear control room sounds, commercials, reporters, etc.]

CHORUS I
[emerging from the SR vomitorium]
[Among them are a handful of Old Believers, who still worship in the old ways.  Their dress may be a bit more ceremonial, and they would not be carrying electronic devices, which the rest of the CHORUS most certainly are.]

I think that would be one kick-ass opening.  The idea of Old Believers would not be central to the plot, but I think it would reinforce the idea that the Event is actually an ancient ritual, one that became laden with meaning for some and that has now achieved the status of religion, while for the majority of us it’s just another entertainment.  Think Christmas.  Or Independence Day.  (I also am amused by the idea of not explaining these people or even referring to them; they’re just there.)

I suppose I should get back to orchestrating “I am alone”…

Dream One, 1. “Joyfully gaze” orchestrated

Posted on by Dale

Here’s the opening number.  It’s been done for about a week now, but I haven’t felt like putting it up for review yet.  Made a minor tweak this morning.  Again, I fear I am over-orchestrating.

Dream One, 1. “Let us joyfully gaze” | piano score [pdf] | orchestral mp3

That’s all you’re getting today, because I am now setting out to work in the labyrinth all day.