May 5 - Pontoon Tattoo

Let's just say that it never occurred back in 1998 that Pontoon Tattoo (In Memoriam Sonny Bono) had anything to do with anything except lines re-quoted by Tom Kuntz (let's not go there either -- January 11, NYT),



shortly after the death of the recording-republican in a run-in with a rogue tree on a ski run.




***

On his show-business low point in 1988, which prompted him to enter politics. He angered the diminutive TV star Herve Villechaize by calling him ''Pontoon'' rather than ''Tattoo'' during filming for Fantasy Island:

"I wrote 10 gold records, I produced a top-3 TV show in the nation, and now I'm standing here getting bawled out by a midget."

-- address at Harvard, quoted
by The Patriot Ledger (Quincy,
Mass.), May 4, 1996

***


San Rafael News: VI. Pontoon Tattoo



Somehow the quote turned into --

Pontoon Tattoo
I've had hit records
Produced T.V. shows
Here I am bawled out by a midget.

-- and the recording of Janet Lohr's, this past Sunday, was mixed provisionally as above.


Great dark thrash of a dictation from Mike today, sounding remarkably beautiful on piano w/ respect to both melody and harmony (hmm, what's the story with the visuals on this blog at present?)

E harmonic minor, notated in an interesting non-standard, yet efficient key sig of two sharps (F and D!). Two phrases -- melodically of 4 and 7 measures, but harmonically of 5 and 6, such that the return of the first motive functions as an entire motivic anticipation -- nice!



The bass line descends chromatically (the old Henry Purcell Dido and Aeneas "When I Am Laid" trick), and then contains a related retrograde passage at end. Melody is a textbook case of delayed resolution to tonic -- also nice! (and yet another semi-clothed maiden, albeit ancient -- what is going on here?)



Returning home, receive a fine review from Michael McDonagh of the Philip Glass Satyagraha in New York (at 21st-centurymusic.blogspot.com, yes, that's the Robert Mapplethorpe / Robert Wilson / Einstein on the Beach photo, but that's what happens sometime) and have started re-constructing the back issues of Journal, beginning wtih July 2005.


Pleased to hear from Santa Cruz that Harriet and I will be attending and reviewing their



Kurt Weill Threepenny Opera.


And as for top photo? Or photo of top? Well, that's Chessie Moore (and again from her Wikipedia article), who has kept abreast of the times by getting a tat on (well, once again, guess we're not going there, as well).

April 24 - Fullway Recording Plowing On Amen

Two more pages (9 and 10) of Part 2 Triple Fugato of Vengeance (three subjects, but only bipartite) from Mice and Men, Act V, Scene 1, prepared for publication (which means the manuscript is finally in the music software program in computer, and can be turned into midi as needed).


The final quiz -- 14 -- in Theory today: Analysis, with musical examples from the 1980's... Philip Glass's Satyagraha (Act I, Scene 1) and Akhnaten (the Akhnaten-Nefertiti Love Duet), and Sting's King of Pain from Synchronicity.



Beyond, it's the lab again, finishing up the editing and mixing of the rest of Halfway Mark -- finished, Hallelujah!

April 18 - Play & Sing to the People & Animals

Compositions in Theory today -- fine pieces by Curtis and Mike (the latter on guitar, assisted by Chris), plus Antigone: V. Where Is Your Pain? and


XVIII. The Fire from


The Bald Soprano, both of which (the pieces, rather than above personages) will be on The Red Horse show, 8pm tomorrow, at St. Gregory of Nyssa, 500 De Haro Street, San Francisco, with more info at markalburgerevents.blogspot.com.


Next is dictation from Philip Glass's Akhnaten,


the Duet with Nefertiti: chromatic palindromic bassline

E: Sol Le La Le Sol

with the common-tone-madness harmony of

I64 bVIM7 viho7 bVIM7 I64



In the lab thereafter, adding soundfiles to --

Op. 76 ANIMAL FARM
(March 10, 1999; New Music, 1999)
Grand Zoological Fantasy-Variations for Chamber Orchestra
(1111 1111, 1 perc, pf, strings)

-- as below, in parts A and D

A. Cold-Blooded

I. Wasps



II. Flies



III. Spiders



IV. Crabs



V. Sharks



VI. Frogs



VII. Turtles



VIII. Snakes



B. Birds

IX. Penguins
X. Ducks
XI. Swans
XII. Eagles
XIII. Seagulls
XIV. Chickens
XV. Nightingales
XVI. Cuckoos


C. Mammals I

XVII. Platypusses
XVIII. Kangaroos
XIX. Mice
XX. Squirrels
XXI. Whales
XXII. Bears
XXIII. Cats
XXIV. Lions

D. Mammals II

XXV. Dogs



XXVI. Wolves



XXVII. Skunks



XXVIII. Elephants



XXIX. Horses



XXX. Donkeys



XXXI. Pigs



XXXII. Sheep



also posted today at markalburgerworks.blogspot.com.

September 15 - Canyons to the Starry Savannas

More John Williams (and no Olivier Messiaen) for dictation today: The Force from Star Wars --

Melody C: Sol Do Re Me Fa Me Sol Sol Do Re Me Sol Me Do Sol Fa

Harmony: i V7 i V i IV, with its nice surprise borrowing (aside from all the normal harmonic minor usages) of IV from the major scale.

Another day of a fair amount of listening: Sergei Rachmaninoff (imagine that), Joaquin Rodrigo, Christopher Rouse (a bit), Tan Dun, Peter Tchaikovsky, Georg Philipp Telemann (whose plethora of compositions evidently do not have a date among 'em, if Grove 1980, Wikipedia, and other available online sources total silence on this point would seem to suggest), Antonio Vivaldi....

Evening class is mostly the older minimalists, including Henryk Gorecki, Arvo Part, Terry Riley, La Monte Young, Steve Reich, Philip Glass.



The Dalai Lama escapes to India during the Glass score in Kundun (and all of this is back in the news, of course), and we all escape to our respective next destination --



Doug and Owen and our student pianist and I to Elephant Bar, in lieu of an early-closing Left Bank (I with my computer firmly clenched) --



a watering hole of much beauty with the gazelles bouncing about bounteously.


Home late, preparing for publication the second page of second imitative section of Triple Fugato of Vengeance from Mice and Men Act V Scene 1.

April 9 - Wilderness of Music

Morning write-up for markalburgermusichistory.blogspot.com of Roger Waters and Pink Floyd, music which somehow brings to mind the Wilderness of Rocks in Joshua Tree National Monument.

Dictation and harmony is the Bed scene from Philip Glass's Einstein on the Beach --

Fm/C Eb/G C/G D

which could very well be C: iv64 bIII6 I64 II (V of V) --

followed by keyboard exercise of 12-bar blues derived from Muddy Waters's Hoochie-Coochie Man.


Home writing up Philip Glass, as above, then updating markalburgerevents.blogspot.com re upcoming Steven Clark Star Trek show on April 14 and


The Red Horse program the following 19, plus listening to John Adams (On the Transmigration of Souls), Edvard Grieg, Charles Ives, Dmitri Shostakovich (Symphony No. 8), Richard Wagner, Ralph Vaughan Williams (Symphony No. 2).


Prepare for publication the second page of the Triple Fugato of Vengeance from Act V, Scene 1 Mice and Men (some of this was sketched out on the Appalachian Trail, on the way to Mt. Katahdin).

Have to also get The Bald Soprano: Overture ready for tomorrow to give to Nora Lee at Marin Symphony.