ZATH BLOG
Reality selected
The alternate reality that I inhabit is the one where I don’t get $ quickly enough to join the program this year, and then the program falls through because too many other people have the same problem. I am told that there are plans to try and get the PNWFS certificate program attached to a university of some sort in order to become accredited, so the banks will consider all students as “in-school” and maybe even allow students to obtain federal financial aid. If this happens, I will do my best to go next year!
Infrequent blogger
So! I had that recital I mentioned in my previous post. It was a collection of computer music, a piece for cello and “tape”, a film score, and the bridges piece. I need to revise the film score so it can be recorded and accompany the film on the soundtrack.
Reed and I will be moving to Seattle before September 7, because that’s when the Pacific Northwest Film Scoring program starts. Totally awesome! I’m currently immersed in a world of apartment hunting, which is exciting. I like to think about how this decision would influence a lot of potential outcomes, and therefore would theoretically work as a central point from which several alternate realities spring. But that’s really nerdy so I’ll just ponder that one on my own.
The school itself will be on Mercer Island. We may end up moving into an apartment on the island itself, which is cool. I’ve never lived on an island before (unless you say “This Island Earth” but then that’s less unique because there’s X Billion others in the same boat). The alternative would be to find a place in Seattle or Bellevue and then ride the bike to class, which I would also be fine with. There’s also the question of finding some kind of part-time weekend or evening job to make ends meet.
I recently completed a 4-week class on the history of electronic music. Interesting stuff. My appreciation for cerebral music is increasing, but I think I’ll still be able to handle “that sounds nice”. The class was taught by Christopher Penrose, who is working on a spectral synth for the iPad called Synthtronica.
I’m sure there’s more to say but I’m not sure what it is just yet.
Here’s a youtube video of one of the pieces I presented at my recital:
Recital program
I feel compelled to write about what I’m up to, compositionally. I think it’s because my friend and fellow composition student, Reed, just posted a recital playlist on his own blog. I am a copycat!
First and foremost is the project I’ve been kind of working on for most of the year: a miniature for each of the bridges that cross the Willamette in Portland. The instrumentation is Violin, Cello, Flute, Clarinet, Piano, and Percussion.
As far as the movements go, Sellwood, Ross Island, Marquam, Hawthorne, Morrison, Burnside, Steel, Broadway, and Fremont are all finished (save some editing). I’m partway through the movement for the 10th bridge, which got me interested in this project in the first place: the BNSF (Burlington Northern Santa Fe) Railway Bridge 5.1, which I didn’t know existed until last summer. Last is the St. Johns movement, whose inspirational bridge is pretty and large, which means the movement should be as well.
Next up is a score for short film. The film is 7:45 or so, and only about 3 minutes of it has any kind of a temp track set up by the director. I’m not sure if that means I should just write music for the parts just with temp track or take the initiative and score the whole thing (something to ask the director). Most likely the film will be projected during my recital, accompanied by live string quartet and piano. Then, this summer, the performers will be recorded for the film’s actual release. Exciting!
Those are the only two “I’m going to do these on my recital for sure” pieces I’ve programmed so far. I have a few other ideas to write between now and then (June 5, come see my recital!)
Some possibilities include:
- Sonata for Clarinet and Computer
- Electronic music for short silent film (emphasis on public domain)
- Percussion piece for non-standard instrumentation (details to follow!)
- Electronic, Musique Concrete style piece using mouth samples
- Viola duet
My target duration is an hour, let’s see if I make it!
In other news, I picked a new theme and title for my blog’s site, which was a very productive waste of time! And I’m thinking about trying to get into a 1-year film scoring certificate program up in Seattle… mostly because Reed said he was going to do it, which is another copycatism (but would be totally awesome).
A chiptune cover
Figured I’d post something I did a few years back for a game that didn’t really come out (but gave those of us who were working on it a lot of amusement). My contribution was all of the chiptune covers of 80s (or not) songs. Here’s one of them:
Everybody Wants To Chip The World
On reflection, we probably would have needed to get permission from the original bands before distributing the game. Eh!
WIP: Cover of Orbital – Way Out
So, what do I work on instead of homework?
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zath_wayoutvrc6wip01a.mp3 | 17-Jan-2010 03:16 | 2.2M |
I’m not going to let myself complete it until I’ve got some breathing room at school, but… it’s so fun making chiptune covers!
Reverb Project – Transmissions
Album by Wyatt and me from some ten years ago.
Also, listen to it on TheSixtyOne.com and give us some hearts!
Starbuild-tape
At the end of last term I was hard pressed to finish writing a 4-movment sonata for cello and laptop. Long story short, I have something to upload!
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zath_starbuild-tape.mp3 | 17-Jul-2009 23:13 | 2.2M |
It’s the “tape-part” for the second movement of the sonata. The sonata as a whole was called “Take It Back” and investigated the idea of being able to reverse your decisions. Kinda like Braid, I guess, but far less developed an idea. This movement is the “Oh, Hey, I Can Reverse Time” moment of the piece. Or something.
It was created using sampled sounds from my viola, mostly me tapping on it or swishing my bow in the air. There were also tones from the viola or a piano, manipulated by a neato program called HyperUpic. There was some additional jiggery-pokery in a program called SoundHack.
It’s… ambient? And it’s about two-and-a-half minutes long. Really it’s a wash of sound that belongs behind a cello. Someday I’ll get a good recording of the rest of the piece and put the complete version online too.
Nintendoboe
Video by Zaratustra,
Oboe by William McGlothlin,
Composition and Sequencing by me!
Song and Remix
Zaratustra created a game called Fugue back in 2002. It was for an Hours of VERGE competition (where you have a certain number of hours to create a game from scratch). He used a public domain song to go with it, but he wanted something that fit the game a little better, so I whipped up a song in an evening. I think the only requirement was that it had to sound baroque (or use some kind of baroque instrumentation), so it features a harpsichord sample rather heavily.
I’m sure all three of you who read this (including however many of you who are actually me) are familiar with this tune, but it jumped out at me tonight while perusing some of my old stuff, so I thought I’d upload it.
Later, Zara was looking for music to use in Zeta’s World. I volunteered some music from earlier games, and since he didn’t plan to sell Fugue, its music was up for grabs. I assumed he’d want a remix of the music, so that way he could have the main version of the level play the above song and an alternate version play the remix below. It was used for a level called “Sunspot”.
It kind of diverges from the original, but that’s alright. This version was made in late 2004, according to the timestamp on the Impulse Tracker file.
Most of the Zeta’s World soundtrack is by Troupe, and it’s good stuff. I guess I’m the “guest artist” for that soundtrack :)
We now return you to your regularly scheduled programming.
Count The Ways
Last term I submitted a solo viola piece in three movements and was 1 of 4 entrants accepted into a composers competition at my school. The brief was to write a new piece for a specific instrumentation (fl cl ob bsn f.hn tpt perc vln1 vln2 vcl1 vcl2 cb), use a melody or motive from a piece of music written before 1685, and make sure it ended up four minutes or shorter.
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Count_the_Ways.mp3 | 06-Mar-2009 21:34 | 8.5M |
The piece was written in 6/4 (because it had bits with a 6/8 feel and other bits with a 3/4 feel), so it seemed best to write it so that either division of the beat could be played… but that meant conducting it in 6 and it ended up slower than written (it also had some tricky parts).
But it turned out pretty well. I didn’t WIN, but that’s cool because we were told all four of us wrote very respectable pieces. :)
It’s exciting to have a piece performed by a traditional ensemble!