Thursday, June 28, 2007

baroque lute alarm clock madness

Recently I've gotten in the habit of using the music I'm working on or being haunted by as my alarm clock. I record the music into my cell phone and then set it as my alarm sound. It's kind of the reverse of the normal process. Usually I'll be haunted by a certain melody or chord progression for weeks or months as I'm writing a new piece, and when I'm finished the piece the haunting melody or idea will have been exorcised or at least trapped on staff paper or cd. It's as if I'm re-haunting myself.
The music I'm using now is the last movement of a four movement work I wrote for baroque lute, a 300 plus year old instrument which has about 16 strings. It's called "Farewell"
Here is the piece in it's entirety

I Initiation

II Puzzle Piece
III Toy for Luka
IV Farewell
The titles of the first and fourth movements are self explanatory, but the second movement, "Puzzle Piece" refers to the idea creating a musical or rhythmic picture piece by piece, so that what you start out is not exactly what it seems and becomes part of something much bigger than itself. "Toy for Luka" is sort of a pun, as in baroque music and earlier there was an actual type of piece called a "Toy." It's the first movement of the four that I completed and I wanted to dedicate it to my son who was constantly around me when I wrote it.

Tuesday, June 19, 2007

Monday, June 11, 2007

Flood


There was a pretty heavy downpour yesterday and Luka decided to take his drum stick and venture out into the middle of it.

Monday, June 4, 2007

morning commute

I've been commuting to work by bicycle since April and I've noticed that a big difference between commuting by train is that time is not as rigid. When you travel by train you have to board a specific train or you'll miss your connection and might end up late for work even if you only arrive there a minute late. Now when I travel by bike I use the other commuters I pass on my way to measure time...The children from my apartment building who leave at the blow of a whistle. The woman with the baseball cap pulled down low so you can't see her eyes, who's always talking on her cell phone. The guy with the dyed brown hair, light blue jump suit and cigarette dangling from his mouth who always seems to make me feel like everything is okay. The nondescript middle-aged woman I pass when I'm halfway there, my friend, Glenn who's always listening to obscure music on his huge headphones...It feels like a big community- like maybe we should have a party or something. And then there's the occassional exception- people that I'll only see once and never again. People whose destinies are not meant to be intertwined with mine.

Rolfe's Barber Shop