I’ve met my goals for May. I revised the piano part of the eighth phrase of Landscape 5: Marsh. I also recorded harmonica parts for Landscape 8: Palm Glade. The goal for June is to revise Landscape 6: Beach. I also hope to do a little bit of recording in this month (maybe a synthesizer part). I have also spent some of my stimulus money contracting with Musiversal for a July recording session for an orchestral part to Landscape 10: Rocky Coast. This month I’ll leave you with a realization of Landscape 6: Beach that includes a cello part performed by Nara Shahbazyan.
Landscapes Update: May 3rd, 2020
April has been fairly productive. My revisions for this month entailed a musique concrete part to Landscape 4: Sand Dunes. This concrete part is based upon horn recordings from Landscape 7: Mountains, as well as bass harmonica and string recordings from Landscape 4. So, without further ado, I present the updated version of Landscape 4.
Landscapes Update: April 5th, 2020
What a crazy time it has been. Even in bad times there can be silver linings. Practicing self isolation I have found more time to compose and record. In March I revised the piano part of phrase two of Landscape 3: Pond, as well as the last measure of the piano part. I also found the the time to record the bass part for Landscape 8: Palm Glade, which will be included below. In April I hope to add a music concrete part to Landscape 4: Sand Dunes. Anyway, here’s the current realization of Landscape 8: Palm Glade with Carl Bugbee playing the guitar part, and me playing the bass part.
Landscapes Update: March 1st, 2020
During the month of February I rewrote the third phrase of the pedal steel part for Landscape 2: Snow. I unfortunately did not have any time to record any new tracks for the project. I do plan on recording a bass part over spring break. I do have some updated audio to share this month. Appropriately enough it is Landscape 2: Snow. This realization includes a guitar part performed by Carl Bugbee of the prominent Rhode Island cover band Take it to the Bridge, and the cello part is played by Dr. Nara Shahbazyan who performs in the Providence based New Music group Ensemble Parallax.
Landscapes Update: February 1st, 2020
During January I revised Landscape 1: Forest by adding a musique concrete layer. The sound sources I used include horn recordings from Landscape 7: Mountains, as well as bass harmonica recordings from Landscape 4: Sand Dunes. In all cases, I used Audacity to change the pitch level, as well as to stretch out the samples. My plans for February include revising the pedal steel part for Landscape 2: Snow. I’ll leave you with an updated realization of Landscape 1: Forest, including the new musique concrete layer.
Landscapes Update: January 1st, 2020
So I finished the composing for the Landscapes project on December 14th, 2019. Or did I? My wife, who teaches writing, would tell anyone that the key to good writing is revision. Any part that has already been recorded I will consider to be finished, but I plan on making at least one revision every month to one of the Landscapes movements. One of the things I may add is a layer of Musique Concréte to some movements, as it may make the pieces more marketable to festivals and conferences, and it’ll add another layer of timbral interest.
I plan on writing a grant for 2021 that will fund recording efforts for the Landscapes project. Until then I intend on continuing to record parts for the movements on my own. Accordingly, in December I finished a recording of the bass part for Landscape 5: Marsh, which is included below. Today I have made a YouTube playlist of the Landscapes project, so if you wish to hear them continuously, you may. I will continue to post updates on the Landscapes project every month or so, and will update the playlist as I add more recordings. Anyway, as promised, here is a recording of Landscape 5: Marsh featuring Carl Bugbee (from the prominent Rhode Island cover band Take it to the Bridge) on electric guitar, and myself on electric bass.
Landscapes Update: December 1st, 2019
Landscape 12: Autumn Forest is complete, and I have started the first phrase of Landscape 13: River, which will be the last piece in the series. I edited and mixed an orchestral reading of Landscape 7: Mountains. The reading, which was done in early November, was by the Musiversal Lisbon Orchestra https://www.musiversal.com/).
There’s been some changes on the Musiversal front. They are discontinuing the 30 piece Lisbon orchestra, and are adding a different 30 piece orchestra. This comes with some good news and some bad news. The bad news, as a consumer, is that they are raising their prices a bit. However, this is really good news, when you worked out how little the musicians were getting paid, they really do deserve more money. On the good side of things, they are allowing composers to purchase only seven minutes of time again, rather than having a 14 minute minimum, making it a bit more economical.
They’re also changing the instrumentation a bit. The new 30 piece orchestra only has 2 horns instead of 4, but they are adding a harp and percussionist. I’m actually pretty enthusiastic about that change. I don’t get to write for harp much, and who doesn’t love some timpani? Accordingly, I recomposed the orchestral part I wrote for Landscape 10: Rocky Coast, which I will hopefully have read in late winter 2020.
I’ll leave you with the new realization of Landscapes 7: Mountains with the added orchestral part, as well as Carl Bugbee’s guitar tracks. This piece was a bit tricky. Four phrases in work have orchestral backing. Two of these feature a dotted quarter hemiola, so I rewrote these to be in a compound meter in a different tempo to avoid syncopation in the orchestral part. Another difficulty for the piece is that it is in Gb major. However, only one of the phrases was easily notated in concert Gb major. Given instrumental transposition, it made the most sense to notate the other three phrases in E major, and add sharps where needed. Ultimately it made the most sense to write each phrase with a measure of rest of the entire orchestra between phrases, and to put the phrases in a different order than they appear in the piece in the arrangement. Even though two of the phrases segue into each other, it was easier to have the orchestra record them in separate passes, and edit them together in LogicPro.
Landscapes Update: November 3rd, 2019
Hello all! I have finished my writing quota for October, so Landscape 11: Farmland is complete. I’ve started working on November’s goal, Landscape 12: Autumn Forest, completing the first phrase. I have also written an orchestral part for Landscape 10: Rocky Coast, which will likely get recorded in Spring 2020.
Last month I finished spending the budget for my grant, with Carl Bugbee recording the guitar part to Landscape 8: Palm Glade, and Nara Shahbazyan recording cello parts for Landscapes 2 and 6 (Snow and Beach) respectively. Next weekend the orchestral part for Landscape 7: Mountains will get recorded by Musiversal’s Lisbon Orchestra. Thus, there will be some great musical updates that I’ll share with you all in the future, but for this month, I’ll share with you Landscape 8: Palm Glade featuring Carl Bugbee’s guitar tracks!
Landscapes Update: October 6th, 2019
Howdy! I finished my writing quota for September, and have written the first phrase towards my October quota. Thus, Landscape 10: Rocky Coast is finished, and Landscape 11: Farmland has been started. Unfortunately I had little time to record, but I was able to incorporate the horn parts for Landscape 4: Sand Dunes into the recording (the horn parts were recorded separately by Musiversal, as their horn players were not present at the orchestral reading).
I was also able to incorporate Carl Bugbee’s guitar recordings for Landscape 7: Mountains into the mix. I have an orchestral reading for this movement scheduled in November, but for now, I’ll leave you with the current version of Landscape 7, including Carl’s guitar tracks . . .
Landscapes Update: September 2nd, 2019
Hello all. I did well on my writing quota for the month of August. I finished Landscape 9: Desert, and am already 1/3 of the way through my September quota for working Landscape 10: Rocky Coast. Unfortunately I had very little time to do any recording, which I hope to get back to soon. So, I’ll leave you with a realization of Landscape 6: Beach that features Carl Bugbee from Rhode Island’s premiere cover band Take it to the Bridge on guitar, and myself on bass.