The Wheel of the Sky

I like to ponder the stillness of the night sky. To look up into the universe and let its vastness infuse you is a rich source of inspiration.

In my latest piece below, I try to capture something of the charm, sweep and eeriness of such experiences, with an ensemble of vocals, violin, bassoon and piano. And I was surprised at what was possible. The bassoon has a lovely haunting quality and yet is capable of guttural growls, and I love the sweep of the violin, while the piano gels the piece with a subtle harmonic language.

The piece begins with the experience of being absorbed into the night sky and there finding a sense of eternity. Then, as the observer and universe merge, all sense of separation is gone until, at the point of nothingness, the universe returns in a blaze of light. Well something like that anyway.

This sketch is from my score writing software, so the rendering isn't sophisticated, but you get the idea. The flute has the vocal part, and the lyrics from the extract are below.

Wheel of the Sky.mp3 (updated 10th may)

a.
Instrumental

b.
The day, when I sailed the night,
reposed upon a wheel,
of stellar light.

c.
Instrumental

d.
The dust, and the basins of the sea,
they hold the ends of time,
eternally.

e.
The dark, and the depth of stars,
have swallowed up my mind,
and swept away the universe.

f.
And the dweller in the dark,
fills with the dust and shine,
that circled once the absent sky.

g.
The priestess of nullest night,
births in a blaze of light,
brings forth a churning wheel of fire.

h.
Bridge

i.
Instrumental

j.
The dawn, and the air has paled the stars,
while the earth has turned,
in stellar march.

k.
Instrumental

l.
The Egret, and the flocks that roam the sky,
they take no heed of time,
in grace they fly.

m.
Instrumental

n.
The dark, and a host of stars,
have taken up my mind,
and swept it through the universe.

o.
And the dreamer in the dark,
drank of the dust and shine,
that circled once the wheel of sky.

p.
And the theorists who turned the stars,
reigns with the spell of time,
and wields a wheel of stellar fire.

q.
end passage.



The image is from the Nassa Images site.

Alchemy

Recently I had reason to play around with sound. Metal. That sort of thing.

The idea was to make a soundscape to accompany a scene where an Alchemist describes his evil schemes.

But really, it is just some noise to listen to. Enjoy. (If it sounds warbly or crackly you might have to download it to your computer before playing).

Alchemy.mp3

The images come from a big old kauri pine at the local cemetary.

This is the first time I have made use of sound samples that others have recorded. So I thank the freesound project and would like to cite the following sound artists for their raw sound samples:
- ERH - 39 raw 2.wav and 39 raw.wav
- hello_flowers - 0129_Walking on Metal 1.wav
- Corsica_S - spoon_bowl2.wav
- sharkmail - Trunpo.wav
- www.digifishmusic.com - Fly-Screen Scrape.wav
- FreqMan - Thump01.wav
- hanstimm - bowlHTc.aiff

Boldrake the Hero

Here is a little period piece, an interlude for to which to insert between scenes in a play I am writing some music for.

It features harpsichord, violin, recorder, flute, bass drum, triangle and bass guitar.

A funny little tune named after a queer little man (if it doesn't play properly, right click and download file):

Boldrake the Hero.mp3

And who is Boldrake? Indeed. Who.

It's a Caketrain

One of my ambitions is to write music to accompany spoken word poetry.

Generally however, I am far too preoccupied to find the time/space to attend poetry readings or meet poets.

Eventually a member of Caketrain contacted me for permission to use my music to set to the poem “Social Graces,” written and read by Robert Krut.

About Caketrain:

Caketrain is a literary journal and press based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Our interest is in bringing you, reader, the very best in contemporary creative writing, full stop. Our goals are for each issue of our journal to submerge you in a birthing tank for gelatinous language monsters, young masses of tentacular foci undulating as directed (in all, at once) by our eclectic stable of contributors; for each new book to seduce and ensnare you, sometimes intangibly, always undeniably; and for you, reader, to be able to draw at least one passage from our banks that prods your mind with a precision and power that feels as if it was written for your eyes alone.

Te he.

The end result was this podcast. The poem in question is 14 minutes into the podcast. Thanks to the people at Caketrain, I enjoy their beautiful journal.

Image:
N.M. Courtright
“But I’m Not a Chair”
from Caketrain Issue 03
Sourced from Caketrain website: www.caketrain.org

More Blood

Oh, I should say to people who do not usually read my blog, that not all my blog entries are so gruesome as this one. Actually, they usually are not gruesome at all. But I am working on an interesting project at the moment calling for some interesting music.

And so, blood, blood and more blood. That's what I say.

Yes that's right, blood.

Blood.

OK I have said it enough now. blood.

done.

That said, I reviewed the above mentioned piece of music, about the above mentioned runny substance, ahead of handing in my assessment. The first version was a little messy in places, and had more instruments than is needed, and a few too many ideas. Composition lecturers pick up on that sort of thing. Please find the new and exciting version below for your listening pleasure.

If the file does not play correctly, right click and choose save target as... and download it to your computer before playing.

Blooooooooooooooooood.mp3


The image: The Death of Altothas is sourced from this web page: http://www.cadytech.com/dumas/
and comes from "Memoirs of a Physician;" London, Dent, cr. 8vo., illustrated, 3 vols., 1894. Reprinted, same firm, 1906 and 1926. It is not clear from the web page who the artist is that created the work.

Wonder Dust

People often ask me 'when will you write more electronica'. Well, I do enjoy it but study commitments have meant that I am mostly focused on classical music at the moment.

However, I recently spent a little time on music from a short film by Mistress Maderella that pitted the evil Barbie against Wonder Woman. On listening to the Wonder Woman theme music, I remembered how good it is, have a listen, it's lots of fun:



Anyway, one way to write music is prepare little loops that can be combined and re-combined in a drum machine. This I did. During a trip to Adelaide this week, I was inspired to use the film music loops in quite a new way to make a piece of electronica called Wonder Dust. Have a listen below. I guess you could call it chill music, and this style of music is fun and easy to produce.

wonderdust.mp3

Theurgical Attraction

Theurgical: Having, brought about by, or relating to supernatural powers or magic.

I recently agreed to compose music for an exciting and ambitious project by independent theatre director Michael Futcher. As part of this, I embarked on a three volume novel by Alexandre Dumas called Memoirs of a Physician, and was immediately gripped by the story. Michael Futcher describes the project:

Creative development on the project will use as its source the 1600 page Alexander Dumas novel, Memoirs of a Physician, an extraordinary gothic tale of epic proportions set in pre-revolutionary France, as well as biographical accounts of the infamous psychic and Freemason, Cagliostro. Both these subjects with their cornucopia of theatrical elements (alchemy, mysticism, eroticism and excess) offer extraordinary riches for theatrical and thematic development.

I have also been listening to French Baroque harpsichord music. The works of Jean-Philippe Rameau in particular are regarded as among the best of the era. His melodies can be quite simple, but are treated with amazing inventiveness.

As a way to begin re-interpreting music of the era for theatre, I wrote the below harpsichord piece. The musical themes from this work will flow into some future ensemble pieces. But to begin with, I wanted to keep things simple by choosing an instrument that strongly charaterised French Baroque music, to dip my toe into the project.

Theurgical Attraction.mp3

Those familiar with Rameau might notice some influence from Gavotte and Six Doubles from New Pieces for Harpsichord.

Image: This image has been scanned from the book Memoirs of a Physician, volume 1, Illustrated. 1906 Edition, London, J. M. Dent and Co.

Old Man

I recently wrote a soundtrack for a short film titled Old Man.

When I asked the film's producer Benn Carr about the film, he had this to say:

When some of us get old we sometimes appear lost. Looking, searching, but unable to communicate what we have lost. It takes a special person to take the time, and delve into a strangers life when they cry out for help, despite how far away they may seem. This is a film about loss, understanding and compassion. When a woman takes it upon herself to look inside a man that is fragile, lonely and in need of a kind heart.

I had warned Benn that I had very little time to write this music. Actually, only a few hours one Sunday. I had the film running on my laptop and just let the music emerge. It's amazing what you can do in such a short time. Sample some sounds around the house, add effects, add some strings... Still if I had more time it would sound much better.

You can listen to an excerpt of the soundtrack, by clicking on the play symbol below. Hope you enjoy.

the older we get excerpt.mp3

Sundew

Some of my favourite moments have been in the company of ruby red patches of Sundew at Girraween National Park. I love how they gleam, and they are such strange plants! They invite close communion and silent curiosity.

No one said it as well as Amy Clampitt in her poem, The Sun Underfoot Among the Sundews, which I cite as one of the inspirations for my next piece of music (below). You can click on the play icon, or right click to save it to your computer.

Sundew.mp3

Why the Sundew as inspiration? Coz I like them, and I work better with inspiration.

I will be submitting this piece next Tuesday as part of my assessment. I hope it is acceptable, sometimes I think my music is too pretty for the university establishment. I've limited myself to 2 french horns, 2 violins a cello and a flute. For this piece I was drawn to the sound of the french horn, it has such an ancient sound that to me is haunting but grand. The violins add the brightness of sunlight. The flute is something like the movement of insects. Anyway, you can just listen, hope you like. This piece makes a play on your expectations. The theme is repeated many times, but each time the notes are held for different durations, so that there is a subtle freshness to it that is difficult to anticipate.

On the Whim Concert

A piece of music I recently wrote for string quartet will be performed on 4th June 2008. Here are the concert details:

Composer and New Music Concert:
Wed 4th June; 1:05pm til 2pm
Ian Hanger Recital Hall
(room 2.10 level 2, not far from the main foyer)
Queensland Conservatorium Griffith University located at 16 Russell Street, South Bank.
Admission: Free

I think these are mainly student pieces being performed. There are 8 short pieces, mine is the 4th. For those that haven't heard this piece on my blog, there is a recording of it in the previous blog posting. It should be a fun piece to see live.