The complete terror of committing to a project combines nicely with the putting-your-money-where-you-mouth-is-ness of getting a job done.  The task - 7 minutes of ear-splitting beauty wrapped in the philo dough of Edgar Allen Poesian mystery and mayhem.  No problem.

I've seen libretti before, and plays in written form, so I have and idea of how they're supposed to look on the page - CHARACTER NAMES are in all caps, stage direction in italics 

and sung texts

are written 

with poetry-like spacing.

But the ugly head of grammar rears it's...um, ugly head. Past perfect? Participles? Greek to me.  My teacher would tell a story of an attractive older woman who took a shine to him when he was an undergraduate.  To make him palatable, she demanded that he act like a gentleman, including learning to speak proper English with a clear understanding of the correct parts of speech and how to use them.  To the point, he did.  It's amazing what incentive can do.

While the prospect of a full production is alluring, I don't see myself going on a sentence diagramming spree.  I do wish, however, that I would have paid a smidge more attention in my high school English classes. Incentive... 

3) Readings!  Band pieces and piano preludes!  I posted a Seth Godin-ism from this morning on FB that seems to have hit a nerve with a few folks.  Here's the whole post; here's the quote:

If your business or your music or your art or your project is truly worth your energy and your passion, then don't sell it short by putting its future into a lottery ticket.

Here's another way to think about it: delight the audience you already have, amaze the customers you can already reach, dazzle the small investors who already trust you enough to listen to you. Take the permission you have and work your way up. Leaps look good in the movies, but in fact, success is mostly about finding a path and walking it one step at a time.

4) England tour with the Choir of Trinity Boston.  On said tour - the UK premiere of one of my motets!  Watch out, English choral tradition!  How bout some minor ninths up in yo grill!

5) I'm actually getting the sacred choral music into the hands of choir directors successfully.  Do you have a church choir?  Do you know and love a church choir director? Wanna put in a word for me?  Wanna read that Godin quote again? 

Ok

Speaking of too much to do and not enough time to do it, the following projects have, quite literally, waltzed into the transom of my scatteredness:

1) Rapido! - People asking what "Miniatures" in my FB status meant will soon understand.  Can Frank write 4-6 minutes of music and have it postmarked before leaving town on Thursday?  

2) Bent Wit - Mark yo calendars for August 8th!  10 minute opera based on this Poe story in the works!  Click here for additional amusement. Props to the Identity show, btw.

Where do you put the tired when it's most of what you gots?

See, that's what the ICS needed - a conductor. 

I'm chalking this one up with fascinating interviews I've been hearing recently with older, mostly male, artists talking about their craft. Check out this one with the recently departed Dennis Hopper from - again with the NPR! - Fresh Air with Terry Gross.

Duvall says this at the end of the interview and I almost drove off the road:

"I said to Sanford Meisner at the Neighborhood Playhouse way back, 'I always want to think of myself in the potential,' " Duvall remembers. "What's next? I can always grow a little bit, and try to do something different. So I'm always looking for what's out there — the potential."

I found myself in a discussion about former students who may have gone off an actually done something with music - there are a few, most of whom now bombard me with facebook messages.  One, I painfully had to watch fail on national television, being called out for the same things I used to harp on her for.  Potential - mine or that of my students, or colleagues, for that matter - is a precious commodity.  Not only for me, it seems.

Several things: 1) Is "Music Theory" really necessary?  Is it necessary as a performer?  As a choral singer, in a medium where one of the fundamental rules - that pitches, and therefore pitch relationships,  are absolute and do not change - is thrown out the window by the time warm ups begin (the choir is not a tempered instrument!)? 2) Is solfege really "Music Theory"? 3) Does using solfege versus numbers (or vice versa) actually give you an accurate representation of the octave relationship?

Back to writing(!) and where I left off with the prelude form, which is not, actually.  That's the hardest thing about it, I'm finding.  Looking at models can be confusing as well (exhibit A - Bach, exhibit B - Chopin). Do you write a melody or focus on a figuration?

Paypal can be ornery.  Are there options out there beside spending a boatload on a new website complete with specifically developed shopping cart feature?

Props to BMS students and the Choirs of Trinity Church, Boston for outstanding performances, respectivly. 

The Stones were never my thing - and they still aren't - but I was surprisingly very interested in what Keith Richards had to say about his process and methods while in the writing, rehearsal and recording maelstrom that resulted in Exile on Main Street. 

Also via NPR, Ronnie Dio passed away.

Finally, I have again realized why I stopped paying attention to this site in the first place, though I can't remember why I put it back on my blogroll.

So everything is cookin along with this survey - I'm all for helping others with their data collection - when I get to the dreaded question, "If you are a composer, how would you describe the music you write?"  with a open ended text box for you answer. Uh-oh.  Post-modern....nonono, too emo...post-serial...wait...traditional elements of...that sucks...can I just write 'alternative'?...

So after hemming and hawing, I finally came up with "Pan-tonal, polyphonic, conventional instrumentation" Not sure what that means, but I'm sure it means something.  What is that need to categorize?  So we can make iTunes searches easier? 

Anyway, Stevie Wonder turns 60 tomorrow.  In an unrelated story, there's a rad retrospective of his music this weekend put on by your favorite community music school.  Click here for info. You KNOW you love vintage 1970's Stevie.

As a result of SCOTUS' not hearing the case, the 9th Circuit's ruling to uphold the Superintendent's decision prohibiting the wind ensemble from playing an arrangement of Biebl's Ave Maria at the graduation ceremony, as she felt it promoted a particular religious view. (I have to admit, that I did get a chuckle out of the revelation that the band "...reluctantly elected to perform the fourth movement of Gustav Holst’s Second Suite in F for Military Band." Reluctance, indeed.)

From the Chief's dissent:

                        ...the Ninth Circuit’s reasoning may be applied to almost all public school artistic  performances. The audience at such events, which generally consists overwhelmingly of relatives and friends of the performers, may be regarded as no less “captive” than graduation attendees. If the decision is applied to such performances, school administrators in some communities may choose to avoid “controversy” by banishing all musical pieces with “religious connotations.”

Surpassing the artistic expression side of things, he goes on to say...

               A reasonable reading of the Ninth Circuit’s decision is that it authorizes school administrators to ban any controversial student expression at any school event attended by parents and others who feel obligated to be present because of the importance of the event for the participating students.

I'm going to sidestep the 1st amendment issue as it's already been addressed (with the precedent now set that public schools can now legally squelch - ok, maybe I'm not going to sidestep the 1st amendment issue).

This was a wordless arrangement (maybe not done by the composer?) of the piece - originally for men's choir - using the same title as the original - there's your problem.  If this arrangement had had another title, would the Super have given a damn?  Would the audience?  Would the kids in the band? 

What makes a piece sacred? (I've asked before - alot). Something about the way the piece is written? Or the modes used? The rhythms? The composer's intent? Who knows the composer's real intent? Does it ever match the listener's reaction? Should it?