Readthrough!

I don't think I've mentioned this yet, but I booked the readthrough for the play.  

November 14th, 7:30PM in Ewell Recital Hall at William and Mary

This readthrough will, if all goes well, consist of four actors representing the four main characters who will read through the script while sitting on stage.  There will be one or two rehearsals beforehand, so they will have had some time to work on characterization.  In addition, there will be music and sound effects playing at the indicated times during the play, and this should provide a pretty good simulation of what the musical might sound like in a full production.  

Met with Cirves to show him the first recording that we've made, featuring Rebecca Phillips as Madeline's singing voice.  He seemed to like it.  All is reasonably on schedule as long as I can get the rest of these pieces recorded before November.

Inspiration of the Day

This doesn't really relate directly to the House of Usher, but I watched this presentation on appreciating classical music (among other things) the other day and thought it was really spectacular.  I encourage anyone to take twenty minutes and check it out.  

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/benjamin_zander_on_music_and_passion.html

In musical news, we start recording tomorrow!  I've been working overtime to try and finish at least ONE new female song to hand over so that they can start learning it.

Audio Immersion

I've been having a lot of fun playing with the computers in the media center this week.  They're all Apple G4s with 23 inch screens and the Logic Studio Pack pre-installed.  If you don't know logic, it's basically a sound production tool that lies between Finale (all about the notes) and ProTools (all about the mixing).  It has tons of cool sounds that I can use- pretty much anything you can imagine.  It even has the Chinese Erhu Violin.  Now that's a sound library right there.

What I've been debating myself about is whether or not to use this concept/demo CD to create an immersive audio environment.  What I mean by that is taking sounds, such as ambiant noises, footsteps, gunshots... whatever... and putting them into the songs in order to make them more realistic.

For example, I took the song "Love That Will Never Die" and I first put it through a classical guitar sampler.  This makes it sound like someone is actually playing guitar (or at least as close as I can get with a computer).  After that, I grabbed some ambient noise- a dark city street- wind, rustling, etc- and then some footsteps, as if someone is walking down the path.  A latch to some sort of case opens, and a few seconds later a guitar begins to play.

I think that's much more powerful than just explaining to a listener how the show opens- it allows the listener be immersed in the world without necessarily seeing it on a stage.  

I'm sure I'll be talking a lot in the near future about the G4 computers and the CD creation process in general.  I had my first meeting with my female singers on Thursday, and they were quite good.  It's getting to be about that time when I should start asking my artist and graphic design friends if they can come up with some promotional images...

I Got Somethin!

I sat down the other day and was able to write a good first draft of "Music of a Dream," which is a new title that I've given to a song previously called "Seranade."  I don't like generic names in my song titles.

It's the piece that William sings in honor of Annabel but based on another piece which Roderick had written and discarded.  There can never be an uncomplicated song that a character, you know, just writes for themselves.

I guess that's the point.

Anyway, what's more exciting is that I've been meeting with Duncan Neilson, my fall semester advisor, and he's been very helpful on tweaking my existing songs.  We were able to look at "A Love That will Never Die" earlier this week and make it, in my opinion, about five times better by changing only three notes in the entire song.  That's not three notes which repeat over and over, but three notes total.

The issue, as with every song, lies in the musical shaping.  You can imagine this easily by picturing a song you like and forgetting that it has notes.  Just think about the contour- the general idea of where it's going. You could think of Holst's "Mars" as a series of increasingly big hills angled softly on one side and steeply on the other.  You could think of the opening of the Jaws theme song as a series of upward sloping lines which become shorter and shorter.  Etc.

By changing three notes, we altered the song from two mirror-image lines with bumps at the end to one long line that makes the entire thing cohesive.  Perhaps I'm explaining this very poorly.  I would do a better job and draw graphs and things, but I have a paper for Strategic Management due this afternoon.  Yay school.

I Got Nothin

I have roughly eight weeks before our first scheduled readthrough, and in that time I still have to finish 3-4 songs and record all 16.  And it'd be nice if I could write the incidental music, too.

This stupid school thing is getting in the way of my musical writing.  I need to start scheduling in writing time like I schedule my classes.  Alright, from 4-5:30 on Mondays and Wednesdays, mandatory composition time.  I think I'll do more than that anyway just because I end up composing at random times, but at least now I'll have that, and if nothing else I'll get in... 24 hours of composition before read-through time.  

That doesn't sound right.  I need to schedule more time.  

DRAFT IV!

Mr. C just sent me an electronic copy of Draft IV, or IIII if you hate roman numerals.  What I've read of it seems great- a honing and improvement of everything that came before.   Also in this draft are lyrics for "Mysterium," which I'm quite excited about implementing.  They certainly show Roderick off in all of his megalomaniacal, crazy, sacrilegious glory.  

VOICES

(Singing incantations.)

PER IPSUM, ET CUM IPSO,     (Through him, and with him,

ET IN IPSO EST TIBI       and in him is unto thee,

DEO PROMETHEUS            God Prometheus          

OMNIPOTENTI IN UNITATE         almighty in the unity

SPIRITUS PROMETHEUS,             of the spirit of Prometheus,

OMNIS HONOR ET GLORIA.         all honor and glory.

PEROMNIA SAECULA SAECULORUM.       World without end.

PROMETHEUS.  AMEN.    Prometheus.  Amen.    

PROMETHEUS.  AMEN.        Prometheus.  Amen.

AMEN.  AMEN.  AMEN.          Amen.  Amen.  Amen.)

He also added in a line that I suggested, in which Roderick is talking to William after playing "Mysterium" and says:

"Think of it:  world peace…!  And, if not, we'll have twenty 

thousand cannons at our disposal, and the high ground."

And just because I like it so much, I'll end this post with William's monologue at the end of Act I:

WILLIAM

And so I left, for the first time, anyway.  The sky was still dark overhead, and damage from the storm was everywhere to be seen:  broken limbs, the smell of sulfur in the air, greenish foam all around the tarn, great mounds of it, as if the sea itself had gone insane that night and was foaming at the mouth….  And then I heard—sounds of music coming from the lonely House of Usher.  Four hands playing a dark variation of Roderick's "Mysterium."  It sounded … it sounded as if the two of them … were trying to raise the dead.

("MYSTERIUM VARIATION/REPRISE:  RAISING THE DEAD," crescendoing in volume and madness as the lights fade.)

(BLACKOUT.)

(END OF ACT I.)

An Upbeat Song!

I've been procrastinating for a while, as I'm sure you can tell.  However, this weekend I did fulfil the goal that I set for myself last weekend by writing another first draft of a song.  It's rough, to be sure, but "I Can Not Love You" is at least conceptualized.  

In contrast to what the name might lead you to believe "I Can Not Love You" is a romantic ballad which is based on Poe's "The Raven."  Madeline sings it to William in mock-serious/playful tone (he thinks it is about a former lover) and the reveal in the lyrics at the end is that it's been about the raven the whole time.  I alternate between a tune so mockingly sappy that it could have been in Tragedy! and a 5/4 playful rhythmic party.  Because Madeline wrote it, there's a key change every twenty seconds.  I don't know why I decided that was something she liked to do, but it's fairly well established now.

I sent it to Mr. C this morning.  I look forward to hearing what he thinks.  

Next week: "Silence"- can I finish both the initial incarnation AND the reprise?  Stay tuned.  

I made a word-cloud!

If you click on the image below, you can see a word cloud that I made which shows the top 40 words (other than the, is, to, etc...)  that I have used throughout this blog.  The results (specifically the occurance of "time" words) are occasionally depressing, but I think interesting.  More interesting than hearing me say that I still don't have anything new quite yet, at least.