What Are You Practising / Composing Now?

[Dave2002]

Oh no! Sorry to hear.

I'm turning to orchestrating/arranging or harmonising Scottish folk songs to fill the time instead.

[kea]

I don't write music anymore—that phase of my life is long since over—but for some reason I sat down today and spent 30 minutes writing this out. I am not sure why everything is written only on the left-hand staff or why my handwriting is so unreadable or whether it is finished (or even possible to finish), and, more importantly, I have no idea what I'm going to do with it. Presumably nothing.

[Joseph K]

[Pulcinella]

Is there a thread in which we can mention/promote concerts that we are performing in (assuming that this is within forum rules)?
I'm posting here on the grounds that I am indeed practising: my voice is still not back in great shape.

Micklegate Singers, NCEM, York, this coming Saturday. I hope that the blurb is better than we normally see for BaL.


Star of the Sea

Saturday, 2 April 2022
7:30 PM
National Centre for Early Music, York

A concert of old and new music in honour of the Virgin Mary, the Star of the Sea. Lobo’s Missa Sancta Maria dates from 1621, the golden age of Portuguese polyphony. In addition to being hailed as Star of the Sea, Mary is also known as the Queen of Heaven, which is reflected in other works in our programme. We also include the delayed premiere of a Micklegate commission by David McGregor, They that love beyond the World. This atmospheric piece is the first of three collaborations with young composers at The University of York, setting words written by William Penn, an early Quaker and the founder of Pennsylvania.

Our full programme is as follows:

Missa Sancta Maria - Duarte Lôbo
Regina Caeli - Cecilia McDowall
Ave Maris Stella - Edvard Grieg
Ave Maris Stella - Tomás Luis De Victoria
Salve Regina - Pierre Villette
Splendid Jewel - Stephen Paulus
Ave Regina Caelorum - Alonso Lobo
Ave Regina Caelorum - Peter Philips
Ave Regina Caelorum - Cecilia McDowall
Hortus Conclusus - Rodrigo Ceballos
They That Love Beyond the World - David McGregor
(A Micklegate Singers commission, first performance)

[Joseph K]

I'm feeling positive about how my plectrum technique is coming on.

The word I keep returning to is 'coax' because that's what I've been doing with my right-hand wrist - coaxing it into doing the little back-and-forth that is alternate picking. And because this is a relaxed movement I can spend long times doing it, without getting any hint of RSI. Sometimes it's true I still feel like I might be wasting my time, that I might simply be physiologically incapable of this wrist motion. But just now, I executed a call-and-response funk lick at 120 BPM which features alternate picking and chordal stabs quite easily, and about a week ago I would have struggled with it at that tempo. Sometimes I got a bit preoccupied with wrist-motion alternate-picking and it has eaten into other parts of my practice schedule, but now I think it will come - that it is coming - so there's no need to try to rush the process, it's healthier to work on other areas of a jazz guitarist's musicianship.

[Joseph K]

I'm feeling positive about how my plectrum technique is coming on.

The word I keep returning to is 'coax' because that's what I've been doing with my right-hand wrist - coaxing it into doing the little back-and-forth that is alternate picking. And because this is a relaxed movement I can spend long times doing it, without getting any hint of RSI. Sometimes it's true I still feel like I might be wasting my time, that I might simply be physiologically incapable of this wrist motion. But just now, I executed a call-and-response funk lick at 120 BPM which features alternate picking and chordal stabs quite easily, and about a week ago I would have struggled with it at that tempo. Sometimes I got a bit preoccupied with wrist-motion alternate-picking and it has eaten into other parts of my practice schedule, but now I think it will come - that it is coming - so there's no need to try to rush the process, it's healthier to work on other areas of a jazz guitarist's musicianship.

Well, contrary to a lot of what I say in this post, today I feel like I am just not naturally inclined to use a plectrum or play jazz, and so I've played through BWV 998 over the past hour. When I decided to return to jazz guitar at the end of February I did actually manage a few weeks where I'd spend about half an hour playing through 998, so I haven't entirely neglected it. I think the only way around this predicament is to allot half my time to classical guitar and half to jazz guitar, and see where it takes me after about a year; then I might actually pick one to be exclusively devoted to.

[Serial_Apologist]

Well, contrary to a lot of what I say in this post, today I feel like I am just not naturally inclined to use a plectrum or play jazz, and so I've played through BWV 998 over the past hour. When I decided to return to jazz guitar at the end of February I did actually manage a few weeks where I'd spend about half an hour playing through 998, so I haven't entirely neglected it. I think the only way around this predicament is to allot half my time to classical guitar and half to jazz guitar, and see where it takes me after about a year; then I might actually pick one to be exclusively devoted to.

I believe in the end Richard Rodney Bennett opted for playing (and singing) jazz.

[cloughie]

I believe in the end Richard Rodney Bennett opted for playing (and singing) jazz.

…and duetting with Marian Montgomery and Claire Martin. I think he long wanted to write songs to match the likes of Cole Porter, Gershwin and Rodgers and Hart!

[RichardB]

Is it really necessary to choose one or the other? I can imagine how the skills developed for one could well be a fruitful influence on the other.

I feel like I'm approaching the end of a necessarily productive period on account of having had to complete six new pieces since the beginning of 2022 for concert deadlines (of course they were all started before that!), although one of them has had to be postponed, for non-plague-related versions. In the next couple of days I'll be ready with the last of these, an improvisational piece for cello, ensemble and electronic sounds. Some of you will have heard my album binary systems, where I asked a number of improvising players to record materials that I would then combine with electronic sounds into fixed media compositions, and this new piece takes that "pandemic-inspired" concept and turns it back outwards into live performance. The cellist Freya Schack-Arnott recorded some improvisational materials, partly based on suggestions I provided, and I elaborated these together with synthetic sounds into a number of different sound-structures, but, instead of combining these into a fixed media piece I'm building an improvisational score around them which Freya will perform together with an accompanying ensemble of seven other players. Australian regulations on Covid are still pretty draconian, in so far as if one member of the ensemble tests positive the entire ensemble will have to isolate and won't be able to perform, so this piece is being put together on a single rehearsal the day before the gig, and without me being there to make suggestions and alterations. What can possibly go wrong?

[Joseph K]

No, it's not necessary to pick one or the other. I think, however, that at least part of my discouragement with jazz was to do at least in part with the plectrum; I think I would like to develop my right-hand fingerstyle chops to the extent that I can do away with that wedge of plastic, which will take some time...

[Joseph K]

I now have most of (i.e. 3 of 3 and a half pages of music) the Prelude from BWV 997 memorised and under my fingers. It's not too difficult - though I haven't begun to add the crucial ornamentation.

Still practising BWV 998 all afternoon... I really enjoy it.

[Joseph K]

I now have most of (i.e. 3 of 3 and a half pages of music) the Prelude from BWV 997 memorised and under my fingers.

This is now all memorised and under my fingers. Going to spend the rest of June making it all smooth and comfortable. Then from July 1st I'll start learning the fugue from 997 - not sure how long that'll take, but the idea is to have memorised and be able to play the 997 suite in its entirety by the end of this year or thereabouts, then swap it with 998 for what I practise all afternoon (by which time hopefully 998 will be mostly conquered). The Double will take time to get up to speed...

[Dave2002]

I decided to try to go back to piano playing, for a while. I noticed that Gareth Green has been giving a discount (20%) on some of his piano courses, so I decided to give a few of them a go.

The discount ends today. https://www.mmcourses.co.uk/p/grade-...nalysis-course There are five video courses - and they may be of interest to piano teachers.

If over the next year or so this enables me to play some of the pieces well enough, I will be pleased. I'm not intending to try the exams - just to learn from the videos.

[Joseph K]

There are a few problems with this - the main one being the slightly staccato/clipped phrasing at the beginning, oddly enough this is the easiest part, but for some reason I just tend to slip into that kind of phrasing, although not so much when the A section repeats. Yes, it's from this same suite, again and again. I don't mind practising it over and over so I hope people don't mind listening again, its imperfections 'n' all...

[Joseph K]