What's on your mind?

[Midi]

Just finished' date=' finally, my first classical symphony piece in three movements. The second movement was a bitch and held me up almost a year. Now to notate it for orchestra in Finale...oh, and re: bad drivers-nobody seems to use their freaking blinker here in Tennessee so my wife pulls up to them and sweetly tells them their blinker is broken and they should have it checked. Heh.

[FatherAlabaster]

If you need to transpose something' date=' I'm always willing to give you a hand.[/quote'] That's very kind of you! I've never tried writing my music out before. I'm thinking that my best bet would be to program a MIDI version (no pun intended), generate a score from that, and then refine it. I suppose I could figure out how to do it longhand, but I'm sure there would be a lot of time and error involved.

[Midi]

I'm thinking that my best bet would be to program a MIDI version

Midi is always the best bet. Anyway, my offer still stands if you do need anything later.

[shikawkee]

Awesome! Congratulations. Do you have anyone to play it for you? I need to figure out how to score for strings; there's a chance the quartet I'm working with would be willing to play some of my stuff' date=' if I could present them with a score.[/quote'] I'm working with some folks with the Nashville Symphony and a chamber group. It's probably a year off from performance but I'm going to record it for guitar in the meantime. I've been lucky enough to watch and work with some skilled arrangers. They all seem to use Finale BTW.

[FatherAlabaster]

I'm working with some folks with the Nashville Symphony and a chamber group. It's probably a year off from performance but I'm going to record it for guitar in the meantime. I've been lucky enough to watch and work with some skilled arrangers. They all seem to use Finale BTW.

Cool, thanks. Someone I know here recommended Sibelius. I have no knowledge of either program, but I'll look into Finale as well. I'll be out of my depth, but I suppose that's a great way to learn.

[shikawkee]

Cool' date=' thanks. Someone I know here recommended Sibelius. I have no knowledge of either program, but I'll look into Finale as well. I'll be out of my depth, but I suppose that's a great way to learn.[/quote'] Yeah, just wing it and learn as you go along. Sometimes you'll make mistakes that will actually lead you somewhere cool. And remember to take deep breaths .

[GorboGorboze]

Just finished' date=' finally, my first classical symphony piece in three movements. The second movement was a bitch and held me up almost a year. Now to notate it for orchestra in Finale...oh, and re: bad drivers-nobody seems to use their freaking blinker here in Tennessee so my wife pulls up to them and sweetly tells them their blinker is broken and they should have it checked. Heh.[/quote'] Wow, that sounds like a serious achievement. Could you tell us something about the thing? I ,mean what kind of style and what sort of theme and such. I for one would be interested in reading more about your composing process and what was tricky about the second movement.

[shikawkee]

What's on your mind?

Wow' date=' that sounds like a serious achievement. Could you tell us something about the thing? I ,mean what kind of style and what sort of theme and such. I for one would be interested in reading more about your composing process and what was tricky about the second movement.[/quote'] My influences range from Reich and Adams to Terry Riley as a composer with old school Grainger and Ives so I like movement and pulse in classical music but this piece incorporates Indian and Middle Eastern scales with a slight nod to the blues. The first and third movements are tuning-based. I was playing around with double dropped D and DADGAD with drones and worked on strong themes that keep the music moving forward without a lot of repetition. Maybe 16 bars before each change, maybe 32 in a few cases. There are main themes in each piece that return but maybe 6 or 8 total themes per movement. The third movement was a bitch because I wrote it while I was still using and when I got sober I couldn't remember it! I also wanted it to relate and connect to the other two without sounding similar. So what happened was I took a few months to seriously learn slide guitar which was a long time goal of mine and a spider bite on my left middle finger made necessary. Once I got comfortable technique-wise I started messing around with standard tuning fingering in open G on a lark and found a really great theme on a Middle Eastern scale (the first and third are more Indian). Voila! Quite a relief I must say. There are a few blues touches but only as connecting, passing phrases and not likely to be recognized by a classical audience (or maybe even blues aficionados!). So...that's it. I hear the string parts and horns, percussion, eye. Just got to write them out. Hopefully that's not too much info...

[RelentlessOblivion]

I may be a little cranky today on account of us being out of coffee. Just thought I'd warn y'all.

[deathstorm]

Thanks for the warning

[Iceni]

I'm not that way at all' date=' I feel pretty comfortable with expressing myself around my family. We have a lot of things in common, and I've certainly gotten used to having decent conversations with them when we do disagree. I just wind up making fun of my mom a lot. We've certainly had times when we didn't get along very well, but all in all I wish I lived closer to them. We pretty much only see each other for about a week once a year.[/quote'] I'm better at talking to my mom's side of the family than my dad's, which might have something to do with me knowing them better, but they're also a little easier to relate to. I don't know the environment of ZA nearly as well as my cousins or in-laws, and they don't know the US all that well although that doesn't stop them for occasionally pretending that they do. It's a little tough since I don't have much in common with them, so I have to muddle through conversations. At least one of my uncles is a massive firearms and war history enthusiast so I can always talk to him about that. Of course I love my immediate family, but I do miss talking with my mom. Every bloody conversation we have always turns to the same dull, unpleasant subjects. It used to be that I could have long conversations with her, especially about theological/social things, but I don't even broach those topics anymore because they always lead to a lecture of some variety. She seems to be pretty acutely aware of my change in behavior but for some reason seems completely clueless about why it's happened.

[FatherAlabaster]

I'm better at talking to my mom's side of the family than my dad's, which might have something to do with me knowing them better, but they're also a little easier to relate to. I don't know the environment of ZA nearly as well as my cousins or in-laws, and they don't know the US all that well although that doesn't stop them for occasionally pretending that they do. It's a little tough since I don't have much in common with them, so I have to muddle through conversations. At least one of my uncles is a massive firearms and war history enthusiast so I can always talk to him about that. Of course I love my immediate family, but I do miss talking with my mom. Every bloody conversation we have always turns to the same dull, unpleasant subjects. It used to be that I could have long conversations with her, especially about theological/social things, but I don't even broach those topics anymore because they always lead to a lecture of some variety. She seems to be pretty acutely aware of my change in behavior but for some reason seems completely clueless about why it's happened.

Did the difficulty begin with her conversion to Catholicism? Is she the one giving the lectures? (I assume so, not trying to be funny.) I can't talk to my mom about her religion at all (she won't even admit it is a religion), so I don't bother; if she mentions it, I ask her to stop. If she starts talking about astrology, I start in with the mockery... We still have plenty in common beyond that. I know I've mentioned it before, but we've had very limited contact with my dad's side of the extended family aside from my grandparents. Since their deaths, even that trickle has stopped. Even greater than the geographic distances are the ideological ones, which are apparently really important to them. I honestly have no idea if I'll ever see any of them again.

[~Mere~]

I may be a little cranky today on account of us being out of coffee. Just thought I'd warn y'all.

I would not be a happy camper. How are you even functioning? lol And don't you mean crankier

[FatherAlabaster]

And don't you mean crankier

Hey now, this is the new and improved SomewhatrelentingNotquiteallgone. He's got a steady girl, you know... The old guy wouldn't have even warned us.

[RelentlessOblivion]

Have no fear for CandyFluffyBunnyBear has gotten his morning caffeine fix in the form of an iced coffee.

[~Mere~]

Hey now' date=' this is the new and improved SomewhatrelentingNotquiteallgone. He's got a steady girl, you know... The old guy wouldn't have even warned us. [/quote'] Ha! I stand corrected! But I still don't think he's gone completely soft on us (?) Say it ain't so Relentless!

[Iceni]

Did the difficulty begin with her conversion to Catholicism? Is she the one giving the lectures? (I assume so' date=' not trying to be funny.) I can't talk to my mom about her religion at all (she won't even admit it [i']is a religion),

Ha. I get that same 'not a religion' BS from people occasionally: 'no really, it's a relationship...' Well I hope not, I'm not sure how I'd feel being given a thousand-page book of guidelines by somebody I was trying to date, and trying to get to first base with Jesus is notoriously difficult, what with the beard and the being intangible. The problems didn't exactly start with her conversion so much as the lead-up to that conversion. All of us did our darndest to point out the flaws in the literature she was reading and never really seemed to disagree with any of us, but that didn't stop her from adopting a position standing in very stark contrast with the rest of us. Yes, she's the one giving the lectures, most of the time. We had a long, long talk about birth control over the summer. I use the word 'talk' because there was no argument, it consisted mainly of me trying to argue but getting caught up in the justifications she used, which were in themselves flawed. It's hard to localize an argument because all of this stuff fits together, but even some of the localized premises don't work. Why, for example, if life is a gift and if the purpose of intercourse is reproduction, are couples permitted to engage in any kind of birth control? What makes naturalness a criterion for Godliness, especially considering the presence of Original Sin in Catholic doctrine and the Biblical contention that the natural world is inherently flawed? Why are 'artificial' inventions considered negative despite the fact that at root the result is the same, the intent is the same, and that these 'unnatural' means are constructed entirely out of materials which are naturally occurring? It boggled my mind how completely unproductive the whole argument turned out to be given that I constructed my complaints as clearly as possible.

[RelentlessOblivion]

Arguments about immigration tend to follow a similarly disappointing pattern with my mom. Generally it comes down to her spouting some racist nonsense (weirdly the only time she ever does so) and me deciding to terminate the discussion in disgust.

[RaiCoss]

Well having an issue with man-made products is in itself a form of self-hatred of your species lol. Saying that however, nature tends to balance things out. To counter over-populace you have famine, disease etc for instance. Man-made things and actions are often only thought about in regards to their short term consequences and use, with little consideration for issues that may arise further down the line. Sent from my GT-I5500 using Tapatalk 2

[FatherAlabaster]

Ha. I get that same 'not a religion' BS from people occasionally: 'no really' date=' it's a relationship...' [/quote'] I've heard that one, and "it's a philosophy", and (in my mom's case) "it's a practice". I get that it's possible to practice meditation (why can't it just be a mental discipline, huh?) or believe in something divine without adhering to a specific theology, but come on, we were chanting the names of Hindu gods around the dinner table when I was a kid. She has statues of Hindu gods around the house. I don't get why she won't own it. Not according to Marduk... I'm just saying... It honestly sounds like a prime illustration of why one shouldn't try to reason someone out of something they weren't reasoned into in the first place. I'm beginning to think that my mom's adherence to her religion has more to do with her upbringing and family structure than anything else - partially a reactionary impulse (she grew up Catholic), partially the desire to replace one strong paternal figure with another. It obviously meets some need for her, whether or not it's got any truth to it, and I certainly don't see any amount of conversation changing that. I just wish I'd understood more of this when I was younger.

[deathstorm]

Ha! I stand corrected! But I still don't think he's gone completely soft on us (?) Say it ain't so Relentless!

He's gone mad. Mere candy fluffy bunny bear he's gone. Mere we need to put him down behind the woodshed like old yeller

[RaiCoss]

I've heard that one, and "it's a philosophy", and (in my mom's case) "it's a practice". I get that it's possible to practice meditation (why can't it just be a mental discipline, huh?) or believe in something divine without adhering to a specific theology, but come on, we were chanting the names of Hindu gods around the dinner table when I was a kid. She has statues of Hindu gods around the house. I don't get why she won't own it. Not according to Marduk... I'm just saying... It honestly sounds like a prime illustration of why one shouldn't try to reason someone out of something they weren't reasoned into in the first place. I'm beginning to think that my mom's adherence to her religion has more to do with her upbringing and family structure than anything else - partially a reactionary impulse (she grew up Catholic), partially the desire to replace one strong paternal figure with another. It obviously meets some need for her, whether or not it's got any truth to it, and I certainly don't see any amount of conversation changing that. I just wish I'd understood more of this when I was younger.

So you hate your mother? Sent from my GT-I5500 using Tapatalk 2

[FatherAlabaster]

So you hate your mother? Sent from my GT-I5500 using Tapatalk 2

Are you kidding?

[RaiCoss]

Are you kidding?

Not at all mate. Your post seems to emanate a dislike of your mother Sent from my GT-I5500 using Tapatalk 2

[RelentlessOblivion]

Ha! I stand corrected! But I still don't think he's gone completely soft on us (?) Say it ain't so Relentless!

The new and improved Relentless Oblivion. Now 66.6% less predictable.