Wednesday, February 02, 2005
Dancing About Architecture
The arrangement for "Less Than a Hero" has been coming along nicely - despite all my spare time suddenly vanishing for no discernable reason. This was the most troublesome song in the opera when I first wrote it; originally I'd toyed with the idea of yodelling, then happily discarded that idea, then came up with the three-verse semi-recit form, tossed the original verses in disgust, and finally came up with the version that went into the completed piece. The problem has always been that the song has a lot of information to get across, in a circuitous way that fits the Juggler's character while keeping the magical system of Stardust County sufficiently vague that it doesn't turn into a cookbook world. The music has to be sufficiently unobtrusive that it doesn't distract from the words, but doesn't become monotonous. With that in mind, I threw out the piano part that I hadn't started, and kept the accompaniment to guitar, fiddle, tambourine, and castanets. Underneath the verses I wrote an interesting fiddle part, then started paring it down. When I had my first sketch done, I tested out the segue into "Thunder-Grey Horse" using Sibelius' playback feature. Oops! the end of LTaH was stronger than the beginning of TGH! Exactly the opposite of what I'm trying to accomplish with this song pairing! So I had to go back in and rewrite the intro to "Thunder-Grey Horse". Much better now - got rid of some chord changes I was never really comfortable with.
This is why I don't write more about the creative process. I don't know if any of that even made sense.
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I'm getting a block-and-iron wall (3 foot, relax) put up around my front yard, and I'm annoyed about it. There are other parts of the house that I'd much rather be spending this kind of money on. Not to put too fine a point on it, but the cost is more than my trip to Peru. It's a matter of, after 10 years, getting tired of the traffic across my yard and the damange done to the landscaping. And girl, is it hard to get a contractor out to your house in this town! I've had a few communications problems with the contractor I finally went with, but he's always made an effort to put things right so hopefully I made the right decision.
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The arrangement for "Less Than a Hero" has been coming along nicely - despite all my spare time suddenly vanishing for no discernable reason. This was the most troublesome song in the opera when I first wrote it; originally I'd toyed with the idea of yodelling, then happily discarded that idea, then came up with the three-verse semi-recit form, tossed the original verses in disgust, and finally came up with the version that went into the completed piece. The problem has always been that the song has a lot of information to get across, in a circuitous way that fits the Juggler's character while keeping the magical system of Stardust County sufficiently vague that it doesn't turn into a cookbook world. The music has to be sufficiently unobtrusive that it doesn't distract from the words, but doesn't become monotonous. With that in mind, I threw out the piano part that I hadn't started, and kept the accompaniment to guitar, fiddle, tambourine, and castanets. Underneath the verses I wrote an interesting fiddle part, then started paring it down. When I had my first sketch done, I tested out the segue into "Thunder-Grey Horse" using Sibelius' playback feature. Oops! the end of LTaH was stronger than the beginning of TGH! Exactly the opposite of what I'm trying to accomplish with this song pairing! So I had to go back in and rewrite the intro to "Thunder-Grey Horse". Much better now - got rid of some chord changes I was never really comfortable with.
This is why I don't write more about the creative process. I don't know if any of that even made sense.
----------------
I'm getting a block-and-iron wall (3 foot, relax) put up around my front yard, and I'm annoyed about it. There are other parts of the house that I'd much rather be spending this kind of money on. Not to put too fine a point on it, but the cost is more than my trip to Peru. It's a matter of, after 10 years, getting tired of the traffic across my yard and the damange done to the landscaping. And girl, is it hard to get a contractor out to your house in this town! I've had a few communications problems with the contractor I finally went with, but he's always made an effort to put things right so hopefully I made the right decision.
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