Musings of a Composer

Friends, I forgot to tell you how I've changed the beginning of Celebration of the Deep!  I was tormented over how busy what I had written might sound, and for what purpose?  Really I wanted the french horn melody to shine over everything else.  And I seem to have a tendency to want to start every piece with a drone, why?  And I heard the opening of the second act of Tristan und Isolde by Wagner, where for what seems like a long time, all we are hearing is solo brass, maybe even one instrument at a time at first.... hm....  and so, I changed The Deep so that it starts with solo french horn, and THEN the strings come in... and I'm having them use tremolo bowing for the waves hitting shore effect (we can only hope...).

On Friday I sent off the much-improved score of The Deep to Cayenna for her feedback and comments, after making sure that no "bare" notes remained...  dynamic levels EVERYWHERE, lots of dots and dashes and crescendos and decrescendos, and I'm happy to say that she is pleased with it! "This has really developed!! I think the orchestra will enjoy playing this a lot." were the first words in the email.  Yay!  I worked up to this by first sending the score and an mp3 of my computer playing it, to my sister Alice, who is also a composer, and she was very enthusiastic about it, so that built up my confidence...  and I have to say that Cayenna continues to be for me a fantastic collaborator in bringing my music to life in performance.  What a gift she has, and how blessed we are in this community for all her efforts!  And now today has been filled with washing and chopping up greens for 2 big salads, and chopping and cooking kale & swiss chard stalks witho...

In the last 6 weeks I think I've been able to spend only about 10 hours on The Deep, some of that time spent studying the score for flaws (and let me just say what an overwhelmed state of mind THAT little exercise led to!). Mostly issues of No Time for the Winds/Brass To Breathe.  They need some Rests. But in the second half of April I went away to Harbin Hot Springs Retreat, to soak in the wonderfully relaxing and rejuvenating warm waters, do lots of meditation, eat great food prepared by their capable chefs, sleep & hike & explore & stretch.  I Rested!  And healed - I had a cranio-sacral session with Jim Gilkeson that opened up my own ability to breathe deeply, plus feel grounded and connected. So I've been worrying about all the work necessary to create Rests for the winds/brasses in The Deep, but while at Harbin I came up with a strategy: Separate out the winds, instead of having one staff for flutes, one for oboes, etc., have Flute 1 and Flute 2, Oboe...