Random Thoughts
Call it a blog, a news column, or whatever you want. Random Thoughts is a place for the Big Kahuna to rant We hope you like the new format. If you're already linking to us, we'd appreciate an update to the link. If you'd like to exchange blog links, contact us and we'll set something up. |
||
 |
||
 Subscribe to RSS Feed for ""
|
|
|---|---|
| Blog ID: 372 - Does This Happen to You? - 2007-11-21 | |
 Let me tell you a story. Back in 2000 I wrote a short piano piece as an emotional response to an experience I had with a very gifted pianist. I may tell you about it sometime, but it’s still too personal for me to really share right now.In any case, the work was entitled ‘Forgotten Sister.’ For those who are interested, it’s an atonal work built on a select few tone clusters. It wasn’t more than a couple of minutes long, and it took me only a few days to write. It really did come together quite quickly for me. Now, let me tell you about what led up to me thinking about all this, seven years later. My piano is on the fritz. It’s old, and I’ve basically worn it out. Every time I turn around something new is going wrong within the action. I’ve been trying to maintain it myself, but I’m no piano technician, so the result are a little less than perfect. This last time it was so bad that I haven’t played it for about two months. Fellow musicians out there will understand when I say that, emotionally, it’s been really hard on me. Needless to say, my piano chops have deteriorated, which adds to the frustration. I took a few days last week and really tore into it. I’ve been adjusting things just to get it to a point where it’s not painful for me to try and play it. I’ve gotten it to a point where it’s tolerable, but certainly not a joy. With this frustratingly bad piano back to at least a semi-tolerable playing order, I started pulling a few pieces out to play. One of them I pulled, simply because it was handy in my music files, was ‘Forgotten Sister.’ Playing it again, seven years later, I find that I want to revisit it. First off, I noticed some minor notation errors. Nothing bad, just places where I could have given more clear direction to the performer. Not a big deal. That’s an easy fix. The trouble is that I’ve started hearing it as a second movement to a larger, three part work. And not the full second movement, either. It sounds like it needs to be expanded. Have any of you had this problem? Rats. Just when I thought I’d left some emotional baggage behind me, the music I wrote around it comes back and kicks me in the head screaming, “Write more of me!” At least I know what my next project ought to be. |
|
| Comments | |
| Blog ID: 292 - How Do You Market an Opera? - 2007-09-25 | |
 My friend, and fellow indy musician, Mark Hansen, sent me a link to an article at Portfolio today. It talks about the new ad campaigns by the Utah Symphony and Opera. Some of them, it seems, are a little risqué for the more conservative types here in Salt Lake City.In case you've been living under a rock for most of your life, Salt Lake City is the home office for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Utah has a predominantly LDS ('Mormon') population. I know because I'm one of them. Most 'Mormons' tend to be very conservative when it comes to issues related to sexuality and morality. I think the new ads are a riot. Most of them are quite subtle when it comes to the romantic and sexual references. The worst offender, though, seems to be a radio ad for "A Midsummer Night's Dream" which featured a "morning after" chat where the woman wakes to find that her lover has turned, quite literally, into an ass. If you know anything about "A Midsummer Night's Dream" this should be no surprise to you. This happens in the original play, and the opera, so why be surprised to find it in ads for either one? Lots of operas are about love, sex, betrayal and death (mostly death) so I see ads talking about those kinds of things as simple truth in advertising. Besides, the ads are really funny. I think there are a few people that are simply overreacting. I enjoy taking my young daughters to the symphony once in while, and I'd like to take them to opera as well. I admit that the "Midsummer Night's Dream" ad went a little overboard, but so what? It's not like I was planning on taking them to that opera in the first place. I don't take them to most of today's romantic comedies, either. They're too young for that sort of thing. That's not bad advertising, it's just good parenting. As Mark pointed out to me, though, it does bring up an interesting question. This ad campaign is definitely targeting a younger audience than the stereotypical stodgy, moth-ridden classical concert-goer we all know and love. So just how relevant is classical music today? It's certainly lost much of its modern audience. Ticket sales have been going steadily down for some time. Reaching a new audience is vital to the survival of opera companies, ballet companies, and symphony orchestras. It's a hard sell to make, too. With so many other venues and products competing for our entertainment dollars, it's no wonder that live music, especially classical music, has suffered. Why spend as much money, and more, as I would on a CD - which I can enjoy many, many times - on a concert ticket that I get to use once? (There's a whole 'nother blog entry in that one.) On top of it, most people of my generation, and the generation before me (and the generation after) all look at classical music as "boring." The question is, "why?" That's a question I hope to answer over the next several entries. Stay tuned. [Photo by Pedro Valdeolmillos and is used by permission.] |
|
| Comments | |
| Blog ID: 151 - How To Drive Yourself Crazy Without Wires - 2007-07-23 | |
 My home studio is built around my laptop. Some people say you can't do it that way. I never listened to my parents growing up, why should I listen to these naysayers now that I'm older?I love my laptop. I love being able to cart my music creation software around wherever I go. What I don't love is trying to access it in my studio, without a separate mouse and keyboard. My solution? Install a wireless mouse and keyboard! I was in luck. My father-in-law had recently purchased one with a built in headset and a nice internet communications package. It didn't do what he thought it would do for him, though, so he offered it to me, at a cut rate. Bonus! The install was seamless. Everything seemed to work just fine until I tried using my music software. Finale wouldn't play back. Cubase wouldn't even launch. This darned thing had commandeered my sound card and MIDI interface! No way was I going to put up with that. At the same time, I wanted to give it a go. It was a nice keyboard and getting it, an the mouse, out of the way of my MIDI controller keyboard was easy. So I started fiddling with it. Getting Finale to play back wasn't much of an issue. I just had to readjust a few settings. Getting it to behave with Cubase? That's was nightmare. No matter what I did, within Windows, within Cubase, wherever, Cubase and the wireless set didn't want to play nice with each other. Just as I was going to give up and scratch the whole wireless thing in favor of Cubase (I've got my priorities, you know), I noticed that the wireless keyboard and mouse were using regular Microsoft drivers. It was only the internet communications package that was using anything proprietary. On a whim I left the keyboard and mouse plugged in, but uninstalled the comm package, and then restarted my laptop. Voila! Miracle of miracles! Everything worked. Now my studio is even more fun to play in. |
|
| Comments | |
| Visitor Comment | |
| At first the only reason I didn't like laptops is that they were twice the price and half as powerful. But that's not the case now... so good on you. http://surroundsoundspeakerplacement.blogspot.com/ | |
| ------------2007-07-23------------ | |
| Go To Archives | |