Plumber For A Day...

If you have read my blogs you will recall that I am not a mechanic. I do well with tools but don't know a motor from an engine.

Unfortunately for me, plumbing is a similar category. Again, the tools are no problem and I have most of what I need. However, spending a couple of hours bent over working on frozen pipes, or on my knees repairing somebody's haphazard under-sink work leads to a severe increase in the pain level of this body.

It isn't a bad body for a 52 yr old with years of accidents and worn joints. And it was never a bad body, just average physically and not pro-sports. It has had its moments. Good moments. I ignore the bad moments.

Back in North Warren Regional High School I was on the wrestling team. Most times I was JV because I couldn't beat long legged Ralph and his long legs during the weekly wrestle-off for the Varsity spot. He was just probably better than me, but I did wrestle varsity in one very important match. Before I can go on about plumbing I just have to relate this match.

Ralph didn't make weight the night we wrestled Belvidere (I think). He was a few pounds over, or sick, or maybe he didn't want to face the undefeated state champion. I can't remember his name, and I should because he went to Blair for a post-grad year. I'm sure I met him on the mat again during my short-lived Blair wrestling career. But its been more than 30 years and I have forgotten some details of those ages. (If somebody can refresh my memory I'll edit this and correct it.)

Anyway, Ralph didn't make weight and I was moved to the Varsity team. This was only my second year of wrestling. Just a mere sophomore. Suddenly I was matched to the undefeated state champ who was a senior with many years of experience including preschool, gradeschool, junior high and high school, and dozens of wrestling camps.

He was good. I didn't win. He was very good. And, although I lost on score, I was not PINNED by the state champ. A proud yet somber moment for me.

I remember being stuck in a back-bridge unable to see anything except one light on the ceiling and the time clock ticking down from 1:04 in the third and final round.

Tick...tick...tick......tick...........tick...............tick and each moment took longer and longer.

He was unable to break my bridge, you know with feet on the mat, bent over backwards to top of head on the mat, twisting and turning trying to toss him off, trying to stay up so he couldn't get my shoulders down on the mat.

The referee warned him about delaying, and I think I got a point on the second warning...but that could just be wishful thinking. Eventually the time ran out before I collapsed. He had the win. He was still undefeated. I was JUST a two year JV wrestler that he couldn't pin.

This was the only match my father ever attended. And there was a very cute girl on the cheer leader squad that I wanted to ask to the next dance. (She also later attended Blair Academy.)

So why tell you about this? Because it is proof that the old body was never that bad, and still isn't all that bad. Yet, bending over working on rusted, corroded pipes behind the tub, or kneeling and working on fouled up plastic pipes under a sink -- they just don't fit me.

However, the work got completed. The leaks are gone and everybody is happy except for my back, my neck, my knees, my knuckles, and my pet gorilla.

Uh, sorry, there is no pet gorilla. And there was no plumber's crack either. So the body is still holding up even when I have to be the plumber for the day...

Naming Music...

When I start composing a piece of music it usually is because there is a melodic phrase POUNDING between my ears. Most instances there is no name for that music so the piece gets started with a number as the file name.

When I switched to using Finale for scoring I started using Opus numbers so that I would have a convenient way of naming files. Up until Hurricane Katrina I had just over 300 pieces of handwritten music stored in my lockable file box. When the box was stolen I started numbering at 313 to be sure there was no overlap of the earlier pieces. There was a slim hope that the filebox would be recovered and I didn't want to renumber later. I actually think 307 was the last piece prior to Katrina, but the memory is questionable.

I have recovered the first and second pieces I wrote. They were both written at Blair Academy. "The Hermit" for Oboe and Strings has never been performed although the computer playback is great. "Two Flutes and a Cello" was performed at Blair by myself and classmates Louise Ewing and Donald Blocker. (I have mentioned this before.) At least a few of our classmates were actually at the Headmaster's home for that performance. Not an exciting name for the piece, but it certainly was descriptive. As a tidbit, the only other piece I have written which is named for the instruments it uses is "Trombone and Timpani, with Piano and Strings".

Three other pieces, "Sarah's Trumpet," "Horn March," and "Brash Brass" have different stories. Both Sarah's and Horn were written for Recorder although the Sarah in question was actually a trumpet player and both are now stored on my computer with brass voices instead of Recorder. Brash Brass is an eighteen-voice brass piece that was written for a Dallas Symphony contest but due to illness was not completed in time to meet the deadline.

Names for my music generally come to me as I am completing the work, or later when I am rehearsing it. Some of my music has remained numbered and hence, unnamed, for years until the feeling that I knew the name I wanted came over me.

On the other hand, I do have pieces that are named from their very first note. Some of these are the four piece Blue Ridge Mountains Water Music, Sorcha Lawhir, and Shasta Snow Light. At a guess I would say that maybe 30-35% of my music compositions start out with names.

On the other hand, some are actually renamed because the music evolved as it was being written from the concept the name originally portrayed. Some had names applied for competitions and then renamed when I didn't win, and others get renamed to fit or to honor individuals such as "Susan's Concerto" for Englilsh Horn, Bassoon and Violin or "Bodil Diesen" who is the maker of two of my Recorders. And a few still bear the "Ode" titles with a number because I couldn't remember the original purpose of the music.

So is there an art to naming music? Most assuredly, but it is exercised differently for each composer. As a larger portion of my works are for solo performance it would be repetitive to name the piece for the type and number of instruments. Just a number for a name doesn't feel right to me. But still, at times the name is nothing more than a convention because it gets attached to the music that has been struggling to get out of my head.

One thing I promised myself was to never name a piece for the key it was written in. As an example, consider a Dance in A-minor; once it get's transposed it is no longer a Dance in the original key. So at least I have one restriction in my naming process even if the others all more closely follow gut reaction.

The Blog Path...

When I canceled my Anon Blogs and began this one I didn't think I would update it more than once every blue moon. I hadn't updated the blog on MySpace in at least three blue moons so why would this be any different. I don't really enjoy writing odd-bits on either it or Facebook. And just now I think I realized that the clutter bothers me, the screen noise irritates me, and I feel like I'm being watched very closely.

A Blair classmate, Les Oakes, did remind me that I am indeed being watched. So off I went to my new blogspot and began entries. Now I find that it is only my own words in front of me while my fingers dance around the keyboard. I have no interruptions to trains of thought other than the music roiling between my ears.

I had a blog on Word Press under a name I don't want to reuse. I tried to rename it but they don't allow changing the account name that matches to your email address. They told me to go into the old account and change the email address and after it is verified then I could open a new blog account with my email address. Yep! Only problem is that I only have one email address and I'm not going to bother to get a new one just to fake out their computer. In fact, they should not be telling us how to fake them in the first place. Duh!

So I just stay here and explore thoughts and polish words so that they shine as bright as the lights I envision. I struggle daily, hourly, with music pounding in my head clashing with stories trying to get out. Sometimes I
 succeed in calming them by getting one of the works into the computer where it quietly awaits the interest of a publisher. And even though I thought I wouldn't be writing much in the blog doing so seems to act like a pressure valve venting explosively with steam. Surprisingly, instead of loosing the thoughts and forms it feels like what is formulating is doing so with more precision.

This funneling has provided me with some peace of mind as well. In just the short life of this blog, and of the twitter stream, I've made more progress on other works besides my childrens stories and my music composition. In fact, when I figured out how to set up both the blog and the twitter posts on the same page I actually felt like an accomplished web author. Of course, partial success could be rewarded with publisher contracts, but that is still to come.

Those of you who find me on MySpace or FaceBook get the twitter stream automatically. In fact, you may never get to the blog page here. I am not writing either for you. I am writing them for myself only. I narrate to an invisible audience, I know, and I see some of them float in and then float out far quicker than a reading should allow. (Seeing them floating means they are not so invisible.)

At least here I can reaffirm to myself that I am. I am a composer. I am a writer. I am a photographer. And when those lives don't seem full enough I enjoy pulling tiny bits of gold from large piles of rubble.

Recorder Music...

When I was younger, in school in Hastings, Nebraska, I started playing Cello. The strings program there, in fact all the orchestral instruments, was fantastic. Then my family moved to New Jersey, and I had to go along with them since I was just 12-years old.

I spent two years at North Warren Regional High School. The first year I was the only string player in what was mostly a marching band that did two concerts on stage per year. I got featured in a front stage position and they taped a mic to my cello. Our band director didn't really understand strings and couldn't deign to note that I was trying to tune my cello from a string slippage. My A-string broke as I frantically tried to tune and I ended up playing the last two pieces entirely on the D string using advanced finger positions that I didn't really have mastered. Only a few people noted the difficulty, the adjustment, and the beads of sweat forming on my forehead. Two of those few were my mother and myself.

I learned to play both trombone and baritone and actually marched a few times with the band. I had tried using a wheeled device to trundle along the cello but it just wasn't successful. I wish now I had learned the flute or oboe then, or later.

Then I transferred to Blair Academy and although I still was not in a strings program I did have a private
teacher come out from NYC. I fear that teenagedness took over parts of my brain and I did not pursue my cello education as I should have -- but I did get a college scholarship on it and in voice.

While at Blair I was asked if I would join a starting Recorder Class. Ms. Kathyrn Phillips-Price, flautist, got me started on an instrument I have played ever since. In fact, even though hurricane Katrina was the indirect cause of loosing most of my music scores, and Recorders, and Cello, I still have the Soprano, Alto, and Sopranino Recorders from my Blair days. That makes a few of my instruments well over thirty years old.

Now I compose a great deal of music and much of that is for solo instruments. I started doing that because I wanted more music to play without having to buy it. On the computer I often voice them as Oboe because it sounds better, but I play most of them on Recorder. I like to think most are suitable for Cello as well and I have transposed some for Cello.

One day, perhaps, I'll begin marketing the music through a publisher. At this time I just fill an annual subscription to customers that gives them nearly everything I compose. This includes duets, trios, quartets, quintets, etc... in various instrumental groupings. Composing has become a large part of my life and I think I owe part of that to Blair and the Recorders.

So from Nebraska and my Cello, to brass and Recorders in New Jersey, there is an instrumental part of me that coincides with my vocal part. I've been in the business world and enjoyed the money but I much prefer the musical part of me, the peace within after completing a new piece of music, even if it means I join the starving artists.

The Art of Women...

I ran across a blog that consists of artwork. I have always been an artist myself, only I am limited to music and literature. This blog should be shared because it is filled with powerful paintings of women painted by female artists. http://womenpaintingwomen.blogspot.com/

I once filled in for an art teacher as a substitute. I spent three days in art class. Surprisingly I learned more about creating art then than I had enjoying art in all my other years. To claim I took art class would be most misleading. I had art in school but never took an art class for very long. At North Warren Regional I did take art for a short time but then managed to weasel out of it. At Blair Academy I appreciated the results of the art students but considered myself a music student and had no time to pursue other arts.

Yet, art appreciation is important for it opens other channels in our thoughts. It gives us views that we would
 never conceive of on our own. We should always strive to improve the arts in schools; the visual arts, the aural arts, and the literary arts. By providing our young students the chance to experience arts we increase their understanding in all their other subjects.

Claiming to not be an artist would also belittle my junior high years when I did create art of my own. Down on our basement floor I used a hammer to crush rocks in baby food jar lids. Many of those rocks came from the Platte River in Nebraska. Using good ole' Elmer's Glue I would glue powerderized rock in landscapes of trees and mountains onto boards. They were much like sand paintings. I was proud of those pieces. I no longer know of what happened to those works of art, but to me they were my highpoint in artistic concepts. I can still see the beauty of those pieces within my mind's eye.

So, please, go visit the Women Painting Women blog and enjoy each woman's expression.

To Tell a Tale of Three Trios...

The last three trios, in reverse order, Op 477 Romance Turmoil, Op 472 Taking Tea With Lady Grey, and Op 470 Shasta Snow Light. While picking pieces for the Cello music collection I realized I probably have a collection of trio. Problem is they aren't all the same trio configuration.

Regardless of the instrument configurations I went through the list this early a.m. and find the second piece I wrote and the last piece I have written are trio works. The first, Two Flutes and a Cello I wrote at Blair
Academy and there it had its only performance thanks to Louise Ewing and Donald Blocker on flute and myself on cello.

I seem to have migrated to more Oboe and Cello groupings because I play Recorders and the Finale Allegro voicing for Recorder is poor - but the Oboe is great. The Cello voicing is great, but the Viola isn't. Its a shame since 477 is for Oboe, Viola and Cello.

Oh well, some day I'll have the extra cash to upgrade the software, (and then the hardware, and then the brain surgery too).