May 6 - Immortality in the East

Mixed a provisional San Rafael News: IV Immortality -- best that could be done thus far on GarageBand, what with the outside ambient noise at Chamber Arts, etc., but at least a surreal document approximating what we've been up to.



Lyrics after an encyclopedia definition...

Immortality
Is a term for the feeling believe
In human life continuing after death
The question whether there is life after death
Has played an important role
In philosophy and religion
Immortality
An ability to void death totally

It's a mensuration canon -- probably not what first comes to mind -- a sort of "time round" where the three entrances of the melody in the middle of the piece are not only at different pitches, but in different time signatures (normal on top, slow on bottom, and extremely slow in the middle) --


a notion borrowed from Josquin des Pres in Agnus Dei II of Missa "L'Homme Arme" Super Voces Musicales (will have to get the sheet music of Immortality up on site soon, too).



Before this, Deborah does a great dictation of Alan Menken's



A Whole New World from Alladin (1992), beginning, in Bb

Mi Fa La Sol -- another melody with delayed usage of a prominent tonic, as in yesterday's selection from


King Diamond (the name had eluded yesterday -- b. Kim Bendix Petersen [the appelative change definitely suited metal usage], June 14, 1956, Copenhagen, Denmark -- Lord, he's older than.... -- and I suppose we all have to act out -- some regularly for fun and profit... definitely at a distance from Alladin....).

But we digress-- and isn't much of life so? -- at any rate, the Menken selection proves to have great harmony -- again, like King Diamond, Bela Bartok, and so much of the blues, a reharmonization of a static motive.

Distict here is are the nice voice-leading potentials: an initial three chord changes that yield a nice step-wise rising voice; and a chromatic passing bass (4 #4 5), interior harmonized as a diminished 7th, with double common tones from the previous IV.


After this Nick M. plays his animated new piece on guitar, and we hold forth with Kristen's recording of Ozymandias.

Stop at local library on way home for re-supply of borrowed CD's -- have gone through 6/7ths of their collection by now, picking and choosing, of course.

Back in evening for the Music Historians -- our last class at the helm, as students will be giving special presentations over the final two weeks -- music tonight (recapitulating a bit of the past couple of weeks, plus music 200-2008) by Neal Hefti (Batman), Philip Glass (Naqoyaqatsi), John Corigliano (The Red Violin), Jimi Hendrix (All Along the Watchtower as used in Forest Gump), Neil Young (Keep on Rockin' in the Free World utilized as the closer in Michael Morgan's Farenheit 911),

(According to Neil Young's biography Shakey, while on tour in the late '80s, Young and Frank "Poncho" Sampedro looked at photos in a newspaper of the Ayatollah Khomeini's body being carried to his grave. These images showed mourners burning American flags in the street, which incited fear in Poncho. Sampedro commented, "Whatever we do, we shouldn't go near the Mideast. It's probably better we just keep on rockin' in the free world." Then Young asked if he could make a song out of it.),

Kurt Cobain / Nirvana (Heart-Shaped B0x), Steven Clark (Amok Time, first instance of showing a You Tube clip), and music of Symphony X, Death Cab for Cutie, and Panic! At the Disco!

Home late. Blitzed through music sections of NYT, LA Times, Chicago Tribune, Times of London, Miami Herald, Dallas Morning News, Toronto Star, and Philadelphia Inquirer -- and surely that's enough extended life for one day...

April 27 - Death and Life

Finish preparing the full score of Variations on Americana (will be doing the parts this week), then off to Chamber Arts (again!) for rehearsal of the 10 Deathsongs that are San Rafael News with Kristen Jones and Elizabeth Henry, and



Eliza O'Malley, Harriet March Page, and Janet Lohr.


Record Elizabeth and Kristen in

III. Death Catch
IV. Immortality
VIII. Rain-Death Fugato (Death Is the Rain)
IX. The Reproductive Organs

All above will be recorded by Eliza next week, plus Harriet and Janet in Death Catch and Rain-Death Fugato.


Also record Kristen's solo VI. Ozymandias (yes, above image is Olmec rather than Middle Eastern...)


Then off for another walk along Fairview Road, above Castro Valley and Hayward, featuring views east to unfortunate new construction in the pristine hills,


and west to a hazy San Francisco Bay,


dallying with a llama (get it?) through the slats of a fence --


make that two (in the spirit of the double and triple popes of the Babylonian Captivity and the multiple usages of the "Delay Lama" in the DVC lab) --



and a gaunt horse (is that an apocalyptic pale horse?) --


make that two, too (and a black horse! -- and weren't there duo steeds in the Synge / Vaughan Williams Riders to the Sea?).



But no cats (or guard ducks, for that matter) in sight.



A swing past the highrise of Cal State East Bay (an eventual walking goal), down (Mr.) Jackson Street and over the San Mateo Bridge (beyond pyramided roof) to San Francisco allows errands at Goat Hall and John Partridge's,


then over the Golden Gate to Kinko's San Rafael (the view of San Pedro Ridge while xeroxing) to print up a couple of copies of


The Bald Soprano: Overture (on the cover, that's Tisha Page as the Nurse, who's flown back home to Seattle by now after her whirlwind yesterday, and Percy Martinez as the Firechief, who's flown God-knows-where, in my direction of several year's past before Goat Hall began its ongoing renovations),


followed by a drive to the Civic Center (with views up toward the eucalyptus on Ridgewood Drive near where we used to live), and dynamic Marin Symphony performances of Colin McPhee's Tabulah and Carl Orff's Carmina Burana, the latter with supertitles -- first time experienced in an oratorio after all these years of use at various operas -- a visceral experience, with report in a few days for Commuter Times and 21st-Century Music (21st-centurymusic.blogspot.com and eventually at 21st-centurymusic.com).



Up late mixing Elizabeth and Kristen's recordings, with particular attention to Ozymandias, since all the rest are still works-in-progresss until Eliza et al can be added (shot of K by Tom Voigt during The Playboy of the Western World run, one of six dressing room knitting shots...hm).



For Ozy, it's Big Electric Lead Guitar Center, Piano Right and Left Hands at Left and Right 16, two recordings of Kristen as "Epic Diva" with standard settings (Chorus, Track Echo, 1/4 Echo, 1/3 Reverb) at Left and Right 32, a string of 4 Ceramic Drums and 2 Dombeks at Left 48, and the first eight Tambourines at Right 48 -- both percussion tracks set to "Edgy Drums," and all instrumental tracks at maximum reverb.