Keith D. Jones's Blog, page 12

News: The Faire Folk of Gideon Available on iBook app

Good grief, I thought the wait would never end, but The Faire Folk of Gideon is finally available on Apple's iBook app. Crazy. I only uploaded both The Etymology of Fire and The Faire Folk of Gideon at the same time. Nothing to do but wonder pointlessly why one took so much longer than the other. The things I was simply never meant to know has increased by one, which is quite a trick considering you cannot actually add one to infinity.

News: Red King Outgrabe, 1. Frantic, Score

The PDF version of the score for the first movement of the Red King Outgrabe has finally been uploaded to the music page. I've also gone ahead and uploaded a new version of the MP3. I think I've got the instruments balanced so that it doesn't sound too terrible. Oh, I also figured out how to reduce the size of the score so I've re-uploaded the String Vignette and Outgrabe for Horn and Strings scores. They don't use up quite so many pieces of paper anymore.

News: String Vignette, No. 1, Uploaded

The music and score for my brand new String Vignette, No. 1, has been uploaded to the music page. With any degree of luck, this will be the first of many vignettes, which are intended to be short, single movement pieces. At least one more string quartet vignette and then move on to other instruments. If one of these little vignettes turns out longer than anticipated, then I'll simply slap the outgrabe label on it. Only time will tell if I will stick with the outgrabe instrument labeling convention or simplify like the vignette labeling convention I just invented.

News: The Etymology of Fire Available at iBookstore

Well, it only took about six freaking months, but The Etymology of Fire is finally available at the iBookstore, which means you can read it on the iBook app in your iPhone, iPad or iPod. With any luck, The Faire Folk of Gideon will pass inspection soon and also be available. The Magic Flute—unfortunately—will have to wait until I can get a less pixelated cover put together. I have absolutely no idea how long this will take.

News: Amazon.com Terminates California Associates Program

Amazon.com has terminated my Amazon Associates account because I am a resident of California. I'm really curious to find out if this will cause a drop in their California sales. Not because of me. Can't say much of anybody was using my Amazon Associates link. Big loss. Whoopie. Still, cutting off all California associates. Only time will tell if they have hacked off a bit of their nose to spite the rest of their nose just because that's how much they really hate paying taxes. Or some mangled metaphor like that.

Journal: Sustainable Vignettes

Sustainability is a bit of a bugaboo for me. Not really meant as a buzzword. Not like compliance. Bit of a word that gets thrown around at work. I cringe anytime someone mentions compliance. Nobody ever invokes that word if they have anything good to say.

I think I've mentioned before that I really try to find things that are sustainable. Things that I can continue day after day and week after week. Not easy, I can tell you. Work is draining, stressful, but not all the time. It's the motivation that gets drained out of you. The thing after thing after thing. It isn't even that there is always tons to do. There are breaks. Waves. Problem is that there never really are big breaks. Not really possible to take time away from work because there is always another important deadline right around the corner and there simply aren't enough people to take up the slack. This is where the drain really seeps in and creates its own problem. Energy and morale go down just a little bit more. Takes longer to get less done. Creates its own stress. Repeat.

Not my point outside of mentioning that work takes its toll. This requires time to rest while not at work. This leaves less leisure time that can be sacrificed to the stuff one would really much rather wish one were doing. Writing music. Composing fiction. Vomiting up amusingly anecdotal journal entries. Shit like that.

[ more ]

News: Outgrabe for Horn and Strings Score

The PDF version of the Outgrabe for Horn, Violin, Viola & Violoncello score has finally been uploaded, and I've just got to do something about that naming convention. I was really pushing the boundary with this ensamble. Half the reason my thesis composition was called The Red King was to get around listing out all the instruments in the title. Naturally, I was the only person who cared about the naming convention. Never mentinoing it to anyone. I don't recall ever explaining to anyone why I was using "Outgrabe" as a catch-all name in the first place. Short answer: "why not?" This was also the straw that broke the camel's back piece between me and the faculty. Half-way through it, I switched composition advisors. It was never intended as a comp. workshop piece. I started it over the summer and only presented as much as I had finished on the first day of workshop as a how I spent my summer vacation kind-of thing. I even opinned that it was probably too tonal for workshop and had been started as much because I had always wanted to do a tonal work as anything else. The workshop teacher—for reasons I doubt I will ever understand—said I should continue to workshop it. I never should have let him talk me into it. Never.

News: Outgrabe for Clarinet and Piano Score

The score for the Outgrabe for Clarinet and Piano returns. This one took a lot longer than expected to finish. I still don't know why I insist on re-entering the scores rather than just let Sibelius upgrade the old file. Oh, well.

News: Original Outgrabe for Piano Returns

The original Outgrabe for Piano has been posted as a PDF. The recording I had was in very poor quality, and my computer simply didn't understand how to interpret so I didn't really plan on keeping it available. I have finally been able to add enough performance direction to the score that Sibelius 6 could do a half-decent job of it. This has required me to re-title scores to show Outgrabe for Piano number one and number two. Outgrabe for Piano was the first piece I wrote for undergraduate composition workshop, and the two forces pulling at me in music. It's very telling that the first "invention" half took 2–3 months, and the second "prelude" half took 3 days to compose.

News: Fugue in B-Flat Major Score

The Fugue in B-Flat Major score has finally been uploaded as a PDF. It was composed for a graduate class on Invention & Fugue so it is a little square even for a fugue. Fortunately, it still turned out rather well and does hopefully help such that I really do know what I'm talking about. Also, I never would have done this subject as a four-voice fugue if left to my own devices, but the class demanded it. Three voices would have worked much better. You'll note that I dealt with this little situation by dropping a voice out absolutely as much as I could get away with.