Thursday, April 27, 2006

Long time, no post.
Not because I don't love my avid internet fan scene.
Not because I plan to become one of the majority (can't remember the statistic) of bloggers who stop posting after 3 months.
But because I got sick of posting 'haven't finished yet' over and over again.
So this is my first post-US4 post!

Finished as much of it as I'm going to mess around with (for the moment at least) yesterday. It went in a bundle of stuff (copies of the manuscript final drafts of La Pastora, Frisch weht der Wind (Version A) and copies of the current revisions of Lovesongs along with a recording of same) as part of my application to go to the Darmstädter Ferienkurse this year.
Next move is (tomorrow) to make copies to send to Paul Archbold at Kingston, and to Chris Redgate to have a look at it. Paul reckons we should be able to get a recording of it over the summer for my portfolio (and who knows, if Chris likes it... but let's not get ahead of myself here).

Rather surprised myself today by mowing the lawn, digging compost into the vegetable bed, washing and ironing a load of laundry, and beginning work on the Sibelius version of Frisch weht der Wind (Version A). I thought that I was going to have a mini-slump before working again. I'm making a 'skeleton' version of the score with everything that all four versions will have in common (pitch, rhythm, and (most importantly) bar structure). This is a little bit of a pig because it involves entering every single time signature in by hand (Sibelius can't cope with bars of 1/10 etc. grrrrr) but it will look pretty when it's done.
I got two sides of A4 inputed today (77 very short bars) which shows promise. If I stick at it, a 'skeleton' draft should be finished soon. Famous last words.

In the bid to send my package off, F and I were racing around the department sharing the photocopier, swearing (him in French, me in English). He's in Trossingen giving a paper on Agricola right now (well not right now...) and there had been compatibility issues with his notes. For some reason, our university PCs (the staff PCs in their offices, not the networked PCs) seem to translate Mac-originated Word documents as notes - crotchets, minims etc. Also, he'd realised that he wasn't happy with the quality of his scanned examples. It was one of those great stress-filled evenings that you absolutely dread, try to avoid, and pretend to yourself that you don't enjoy. It was lots of fun but I hate doing it frequently!

My plan for the next year is to have lots of copies of my music prepared to send out for competitions, applications for summer schools etc., inquiries from interested musicians (what, can't a composer dream?...)

I leave you tonight with a recommendation to have a look at Daniel Wolf's blog Renewable Music, at http://renewablemusic.blogspot.com. Particularly his entry for March 26th. Enjoy.