Keith D. Jones's Blog, page 7

Pyrrhic Kingdom Giveaway Update

All 10 boxes have been delivered to the Post Office and processed. Media mail should take 7 days to deliver, according to the nice man behind the counter. I noticed I need to keep using boxes of the same size based on how big the labels the Post Office adds take up.

Pyrrhic Kingdom Giveaway Update

Discovered that the last two boxes were actually a different design, and the print of the cover art wouldn't fit. Had to run to the store this morning and get better boxes. Well, I actually considered doing a smaller print for the last person just so it would fit in the smaller box I had onhand but decided that was just rude. Sure, Samantha and I would be the only people who knew, but that's two people too many. Finally, everything is boxed, and I just need to run to the Post Office.

Pyrrhic Kingdom Giveaway Status

Have all the winners' names and addresses. Finished printing labels. The prints of the book cover have all been signed by the artist. Almost ready to start boxing up books. Must remember to sign them first. Planning on customizing each one. This will require post-it notes. Should be ready to ship them out this weekend. I think the Post Office is open on Saturday. Hopefully, Memorial Day hasn't screwed up the Post Office's schedule.

Violin Vignette, No. 1

Violin Vignette, No. 1, has been uploaded to stormsdream.com/music, and I have very mixed feelings about this one. On the one hand, I've been meaning to do something a little more experimental, and these vignettes are meant to be experiments. I've been meaning to do something more dissonant and atonal, and those voices have been nagging. They just nag and nag that I haven't been doing enough modern atonally dissonant stuff. On the other hand, bleep and blurb just aren't doing it for me right now. They have their place, and atonal dissonance certainly conveys specific moods, which seems to me something that a lot of modern stuff just doesn't get. Dissonant atonality influences emotion and mood just like anything else in music. So, there's no reason to use atonality for absolutely everything. It has its place just like tonality has its place. I hear the term post-tonal thrown around a lot, and while working on this vignette, being annoyed at it most of the time, I've been teasing myself with the term post-atonal. Yeah, post-atonal just tickles me. I like it.

Flute & Cello Rhapsody, No. 1

The Rhapsody for Flute & Cello, No. 1, has been posted to stormsdream.com/music. Finally something just a little longer than the vignettes, which I still love dearly, but there is a time and a place to try different things. This one went through a lot of false starts and ideas that simply sounded terrible, leaving me rather depressed after each failure, before finally hitting upon just the right combination. The second hardest part was coming up with the name. Well, I didn't want to use vignette for something more than two minutes. So, I needed something, and I went through rather a long list of possibilities before finally settling upon rhapsody. Well, I didn't want to use outgrabe because that has gotten tangled up in a bunch of stylistic requirements. Much more dissonant blah blah. Rhapsody leaves itself open for more possibilities in my head for some reason.

Oboe Vignette, No. 1

I actually finished my new Oboe Vignette a couple of days ago. Finally had a few minutes to upload it to stormsdream.com/music today. I can feel two forces waring in my head. More so for the new vignette I'm working on than this one I just finished. On the one hand, I want to keep experimenting, and I want the music to take the shape it needs. On the other hand, I've got the outrageous forces of acceptable contemporary composition screaming in my head that there simply isn't enough dissonance in these vignettes. Well, I'm not going to add sour notes just for the sake of making it more acceptable, am I? If the texture doesn't fit chromaticism for chromaticism's sake, then I'm not going to do it. Simple as that. Still, the voices rage. Oh, well.

Hiding Dr. Jekyll

I always remember being told the story of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde as being about split personalities to the point that Dr. Jekyll wouldn't even know what Mr. Hyde had been up to. Even if there was a certain amount of awareness, it always still involved losing control. Mr. Hyde would take over, and there was nothing Dr. Jekyll could do about it. Even when he liked it, he had no control. Kind-of like a drug induced rush, I guess. Dr. Jekyll had to have his fix and damn the consequences. Now, I suppose a lot of these slight differences simply come out of the fact that lots of different people have played with the story and the idea. There have lots of different essays and adaptations and whatnot. The consistently important detail was that Dr Jekyll gave up control to this other person living in his head called Mr. Hyde.

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Clarinet & Viola Vignette, No. 1

I swear I'm actually reading a book if only I could be bothered to mention that fact here on Goodreads. In the meantime, I've just completed another vignette. This one for Clarinet & Viola. Well, technically it is clarinet, viola and piano, but who cares. And, I'm particularly pleased with this one. Somebody should be, right? Check it out at stormsdream.com/music if you feel like it. Oh, and I just finished re-reading The Fellowship of the Ring. The Two Towers is next.

Piano Vignette, No. 1

Piano Vignette, No. 1, has been uploaded to stormsdream.com/music. More than the flute vignettes, I think this piano vignette is a better demonstration of touching upon the idea. This vignette really feels like it could have been longer. In fact, it could have been a lot longer or at least feels like it could have been longer. It just doesn't feel like it could have been longer without being a lot more complicated and involved, which is not what I was going for. It's complicated enough. The first draft was actually a lot more boring and ordinary. There was a serious danger of a boring and repetative accompaniment. I think I managed to avoid that.

Flute Vignette, No. 2

I've uploaded a second flute vignette to stormsdream.com/music. This one took a little longer. I think the first flute vignette was completed in about three days, which either means its not very good or I was just on fire when I composed it. Regardless, it set a bad precedent since it's now stuck in my head that these vignettes are easy. Wrong. This second flute vignette took somewhere between two and three weeks, including one evening where I just stared at the score for about two hours absolutely convinced that it was crap. Not doing anything with it. Just staring. And, occasionally burying my face in my hands. Oh, and groaning. Lots of grumbling and groaning. Anyway, I think it all worked out, and I'm currently rather pleased with myself about the final product.