I don't know why it took me so long to think of this. Sometime during the last few days of school, it occurred to me that we had some wasted space in the music room and there was a way to move the drums forward and create a space for a permanent Spectrum keyboard setup. Voila! Thanks to John Bryan for doing this work for me. The frame will be painted but left open to be used for storage of guitar cases and miscreant percussionists (joke). There will also be a safety rail on the left side to prevent overenthusiastic students or uncoordinated music teachers from taking an accidental fall off the edge.

Facebook surprise

So, this week I finally checked off something that's been hovering around my to-do list for quite some time: I set up a Facebook page. Now, the reaction to this has been great (I thought I'd probably end up with 2 friends, if that) and amusing..."I was so surprised to see you on Facebook!" Why? Am I too old to totter to the keyboard, peer through my aged eyes, and comprehend how the whole thing works? Hey, I think I earned my geek cred a long time ago. Anyway, the main reasons I set it up were to communicate with my students (past and present) because I fear no one bothers to read the web pages and blog I spend so much time maintaining, whereas everyone is glued to Facebook 24/7; and to connect with all those students from past years, whom I still recall with fondness. Think, Chamber Singers reuniuon concert 2010! Well, I'm spending way to much time right now with it, but I do enjoy connecting with everyone so if you're reading this, you're welcome to join my friends!

Steel Cage Deathmatch: Sibelius 5 vs. Finale 2008

As a student composer in the late 1960s and early 70s, one of the greatest pleasures was hand-copying music. No, really. In those pre-digital, pre-photocopier days (!) there were basically two ways of distributing music: either typeset by a publisher, or hand copied on vellum (onionskin, a semi-transparent parchment-like paper that once was made out of soaked calfskin; the modern version is a cotton fiber product) and then reproduced. Everything about the process had an old-world craftsman like feel about it, from selecting the paper to choosing the type of fountain pen and nib. There were two basic styles of music calligraphy: either one could use a calligraphy pen freehand, which produced thick/thin lines and looked a little like the modern equivalent of 16th century manuscripts; or you could use music templates and a hollow-tip pen and carefully trace in every symbol using the template, which gave a uniform, printed appearance.

Since one was using indelible india ink on vellum, mistakes couldn't be "erased." You had to either use a razor blade to scrape away the mistake (and risk tearing the paper) or cut out the mistake and patch in a new piece of paper. And if you messed up something fundamental like spacing or transposition, you had to start the page or project over.

It sounds incredibly time-consuming, and it was. But the mental and physical process of copying a long manuscript was very relaxing (as long as you weren't under pressure to get something ready for an immediate performance) and meditative. The main supplier of manuscript paper, vellum, pens, and templates was--and still is--Judy Green Music in West Hollywood. Looking at the Judy Green catalogue, a thick paperback illustrated with manuscript papers, or going to the actual store, was an exercise in imagination and anticipation. All that blank paper, so many possibilities. The act of buying a thick sheaf of orchestra manuscript paper suggested a symphony was in the offing.

In between the complex and full featured notation applications that we use today, and the era of hand-copied music, was the Music Writer, a typewriter for music notation invented by the composer Cecil Effinger in the 1950s. Incredibly expensive ($300 in 1955) and unwieldy to use for all but the simplest projects, the Music Writer did offer uniform appearance without using templates, and in later versions, the ability to correct mistakes. The Music Writer sold well into the early 1980s, when it was made obsolete by digital software.

Next time: the two latest notation packages, head to head.

Songs from "My Butterfly"

This summer I've been spending a lot of time working on three one-act musicals (and starting a fourth) that are going to be produced at CAST next summer. I've been working on these shows off and on for a few years, but with a production actually in the works, I need to get all the music transcribed. First up is "My Butterfly" which is a rather absurd little show about a number of strange people who find themselves lost in the rainforest. One of the characters is The Balladeer, an actor who thought he was going to be in Stephen Sondheim's ASSASSINS...anyway, he sort of adds musical commentary as the action unfolds. Unfortunately, he might not be up to the task. Here are two songs (in PDF form): Your Butterfly and the Balladeer's big number, Freeway Girl.

while the xbox is away...

Since my XBox 360 is on furlough in Texas (having bricked with the infamous red rings of death, along with tens of thousands of others), I've turned to the PSP, which I've had for a while but honestly haven't played much. I'm enjoying Rockstar's PSP title The Warriors (based on the movie), along with MLB07 The Show, Killzone: Liberation, and Daxter. Before my poor Xbox 360 bricked, I was enjoying The Darkness (great voice acting), Overlord, DiRT, and Forza 2.

On the PC, I've been playing Lord of the Rings Online, the Half-Life 2 mod Insurgency and a little bit of CIty of Villains. Of course I didn't go to E3, but I've seen some amazing trailers come out of it. Check out the gameplay videos for Call of Duty 4, Gran Tourismo 5, and Resident Evil 5. Awesome! Add to those games Bioshock, Grand Theft Auto 4, and HL2:Episode 2 and it's going to be a busy Fall! (now kids--many of these are M rated games, so don't take that as an endorsement).

Musically, I've been listening to a lot of progressive rock in preparation for Spectrum's fall concerts. I've really gotten into Dream Theatre. Amazing musicians. One of my projects has been to write a concerto for tuba and strings, and the first movement is sort of based on heavy metal guitar riffs. Sort of.

Check out the audio files page for some MP3s of the tuba concerto!