May 12 - Over and Out to Lunch

Over the Benicia Bridge yet again to Theory.


where Curtis checks in with a tried-and-true, but at least we have to figure out the key (since we are not given a signature), and get a chance to harmonize untraditionally, should we so choose, at Board 1 with Sarah (don't forget the Eb in measure 2) and Curtis,


or Boards 4, 3, and 2 with Joel, Deborah, Cecilia (what's with the hoodies today?), Mike, Robert, Cristina, and Chris.


There's time for a second bass line dictation, which is San Rafael News: V. Life Span, that should have been given (was actually a bit sketchy, performed from memory) as 4/4 in whole notes

G F E D (decorated by rising whole-tone scale scale in 1/8th notes on C),
Ab Bb Cb Db (decorated by falling whole-tone scale in 1/8th notes on Eb)
Eb C A F# (decorated by repeated F#s in 8th notes)

Bass is example of 12-tone tonality, each harmonized as a root-postion M7 chord.

Song is, as correctly noted by Joel, existential, to say the least. Play same, and Deborah's lovely and somewhat tonally ambiguous composition 2.


Home, preparing for publication Mice and Men: Act V, Scene 2, Page 2, and placing the relatively new instrumental version of Triple Fugato of Vengeance and Postlude at myspace.com/markalburger.

April 25 - Impediments and Overcomings

Finished preparing for publication Triple Fugato of Vengeance (Part 2) and Postlude from Mice and Men Act V, Scene 1, and recorded both in the DVC lab (shot above of the drying-out North Lagoon Mountains, taken several days ago on April 21 when returning home, may stand in for another Salinas-valley-environs photo).



Theory dictation is from Block 3 of Camino Real, the whole of which is played in class, as well as a bit of Block 4, and a nice work-in-progress from Sarah.



Part of return is along the road paralleling I-80 to the southeast, stopping off at Cordelia,


where a turreted homestead


is occluded by a line of tanker cars.