May 7 - Look, We Have Pergium to Deliver

Productive day, beginning with 21st-Century Music Monthly Journal updating at 21st-centurymusic.blogspot.com and planning for June 7 San Francisco Composers Chamber Orchestra Variations on the Ghost of Sousa Dancing program while Harriet's making preparations for the May 9 Horsewomen of the Apocalypse: The Black Horse with a Touch of Gray, including San Rafael News (info on all at markalburgerevents.blogspot.com), then off to school,



where Robert is the presenter-of-the-day (to a rapt audience including Cristina, Sarah and Nick M.), with a dictation from



South Park: Bigger, Longer, Uncut (no further questions, Your Honor),



by Marc Shaiman -- a perky, tweaky tune solidly in Bb major (outlining the tonic chord over the course of its first four measures), with nicely surprising sixteenth notes unpredictably on offbeats and onbeats, with harmonization altered/enriched by Robert,



for board realization by Joel, Sarah, Chris, Nick M., Cecilia,



Deborah, and Cristina.

As can be seen, the melody is:

Sol Do Do Do Mi Re Re Re
Sol Sol Sol Mi Fa
Sol Sol Sol Sol La Ti Do Do Do
Do Do Do Do Mi Re Do Do

And we have fine inverted harmony, plus a borrowed Ab/Eb from the relative minor.
Speaking about minor, Nick will catch his scribal error in measure 1 second chord to agree with Deborah's version (Cm/Eb, rather than a potential Igor Stravinskian bitonal C/Eb). And we have communally not yet caught the incorrect Roman numeral at the end of measure 2 (the F chord is, of course, V, rather than VI).



Following this, we play Deborah's beautiful Composition 2, and give the room over to a talented tag team of clarinet and piano; for it's off to the lab, initially making a recording of Variations on Americana in the lab on Cubase that's a bit better than the previous on GarageBand.



Plus record instrumental versions of most of Mice and Men: Act 5, Scene 1, including Triple Fugato of Vengeance and Postlude.



Finally, head home, rehearse AIDSong and Conference Room Technique with Harriet, and have her record former, below, discovering that audio in GarageBand can be sped up and slowed down as easily as MIDI -- tremendous!

May 2 - Into Each Life

Trying to get the press release done for San Francisco Composers Chamber Orchestra this morning, but the universe has other ideas and I am out of commission for several hours, deserted of good health, alas.



When the desert storm abates (actually having nothing to do with the 80-year-old burlesque performer Tempest Storm performing in Mojave, above -- who pops up, perhaps understandably, if one googles "Storm in Mojave"), discover that my trusty laptop is ailing, too.


A phone call to Erling rescues the situation, saving an extended trip to the Walnut Creek Apple Store,



and am able to salvage the day finishing up the percussion and string parts for Variations on Americana, also writing a program note and posting material re it at markalburgerworks.blogspot.com (filed under August 2007). Also, final print-out of hard-copy May 2008 21st-Century Music (available online at 21st-centurymusic.com and 21st-centurymusic.blogspot.com).

May 1 - The Hills Are Quiescent with the Noise

Morning joys and sorrows (The Little Death, approaching the Death Songs of next weekend [markalburgerevents.blogspot.com]), generating the brass parts for Variations on Americana, then off to teach with the North Lagoon Mountains drying out.



Nick T. is up for dictation today with another fine movie excerpt. Learn from Cecilia that yesterday's was from the anime Castle in the Sky, with music of


Joe Hisaishi (b. 1950). Meanwhile, Nick's today is C major: four bars with 2-beat pickup of eighths

Me Sol Do Mi Mi Fa Re Re Sol Ti Do Re Mi Do Do Re Do

I (our addition) IVM7 V7 iii7 vi ii7 V7 I

a hip version (what with seventh chords on all but vi and I) of that Renaissance inclusiveness of using chords built on all scale degrees save viio.

Following this notable compositions by Josh and Robert, followed by Conference Room Technique / How to Survive from San Rafael News: 10 Death Songs.


Home again, correcting the May 2008 issue of 21st-Century Music (now available at 21st-centurymusic.blogspot.com and soon at 21st-centurymusic.com) working on the online Music History text (markalburgermusichistory.blogspot.com), putting up info on the Trumpet of Tutankhamen and the First Delphic Hymn.

April 30 - View From On High

Record a provisional Op. 148 VARIATIONS ON AMERICANA,



a mapping of pitches from the four strains of John Philip Sousa's The Stars and Stripes Forever onto four sections of Charles Ives's Variations on America, which ultimately will be part of the recording ORBITAL AMERICAN DESERATA;

High-tail it to Theory, where Cecilia presents a nice dictation / board harmony exercise on movie music, a C natural/harmonic minor melody featuring temporary tonicization of the relative major (via a secondary plagal relationship), and a fine descending bass of Do, Te, Le, Sol, Fa.

Back finishing up the May 2008 issue of 21st-Century Music (21st-centurymusic.com and 21st-centurymusic.blogspot.com.

April 29 - Parts of It Are Excellent

Begin the parts to Variations on Americana -- the woodwinds.



Cristina teaches Theory class today and gives us first seven bars of Henry Mancini's Moon River, in 3/4.

C: Sol Re Do Ti La Sol Fa Sol Do Ti La Sol Fa Sol Do Re

Harmony: I vi IV I6 IV I6 viiho7


Home thereafter, writing up the Marin Symphony Carl Orff / Colin McPhee show (posted at 21st-centurymusic.blogspot.com, to be published in Commuter Times this Friday and 21st-Century Music / 21st-centurymusic.com soon).


Back again for Music History class, with The Police, Talking Heads, Mark Alburger, Tan Dun, Erling Wold, Prince, and Nirvana, among others (recordings, of course).


Left Bank with Owen, Doug, and Aaron -- then home and dark.