What Are You Practising / Composing Now?

[Bryn]

Tom Phillips: IRMA

Preparatory rehearsal last night. I have been allocated the roles ‘Music’/chorus/conductor. Now to start work on generating an hour-long soundscape derived after Cage's Roaratorio on . . . . I have several editions of A Humument to mine but await a copy of W H Mallock's A Human Document, the novel Tom Phillips treated to produce both A Humument and IRMA. The performance itself is scheduled for 17 June at Lumen Church, 88 Tavistock Place, London WC1H 9RS, starting at 7:30 pm. It was only last night that I learned that some of my fellow participants were also involved as performers in Stockhausen's Donnerstag aus Licht, as attended by fg and myself at the RFH this past week.

[MrGongGong]

Tom Phillips: IRMA

Preparatory rehearsal last night. I have been allocated the roles ‘Music’/chorus/conductor. Now to start work on generating an hour-long soundscape derived after Cage's Roaratorio on . . . . I have several editions of A Humument to mine but await a copy of W H Mallock's A Human Document, the novel Tom Phillips treated to produce both A Humument and IRMA. The performance itself is scheduled for 17 June at Lumen Church, 88 Tavistock Place, London WC1H 9RS, starting at 7:30 pm. It was only last night that I learned that some of my fellow participants were also involved as performers in Stockhausen's Donnerstag aus Licht, as attended by fg and myself at the RFH this past week.

Fantastic

A Humument is a work of genius and I hope to be able to finally hear IRMA

[BBMmk2]

I’m on the third and final movement of my project.

[Serial_Apologist]

I’m on the third and final movement of my project.

Is that your reduction of Havergal Brian's Gothic Symphony for pop singer and kazoo accompaniment, BBM?

[Bryn]

Is that your reduction of Havergal Brian's Gothic Symphony for pop singer and kazoo accompaniment, BBM?

Oh, be fair. Kazoo and giant thunder sheet.

[Serial_Apologist]

Oh, be fair. Kazoo and giant thunder sheet.

[Jonathan]

After a conversation with my piano teacher, I've decided to learn Chopin's Berceuse - despite its popularity, I'd never even sight read it until last Friday!

[BBMmk2]

After a conversation with my piano teacher, I've decided to learn Chopin's Berceuse - despite its popularity, I'd never even sight read it until last Friday!

Good luck! Have fun with the Rh!

Steadily plodding through the third and final movement of Berlioz’s Symphonie Funébre et Triomphale for modern concert band.

[Bryn]

Currently working up a 1-hour 'soundscape' for use in the forthcoming performance of Tom Phillips's IRMA. The more I delve into the scores (the 1969 original and the 2014), the more wide-ranging I find myself searching for potentially relevant components, from the sound of the Thames hydro-power installation for Windsor Castle to Beethoven's 32 Variations and the Op. 111 sonata, the more I wonder whether to abandon my original intention to present everything sequentially and maybe overlay some. Having just added The Heart of a Humument to my little collection of A Humument editions, I find that page 5 heads me off towards Tom's illustrated translation of Dante's Inferno and Tom Phillips's illustrated translation of it. Off to a nearby selva oscura to capture some ambient sound through a tube.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Elgar’s Piano Quintet - piano part. Elgar’s piano writing sometimes has “too many notes”, but the rewards are great. I’ve yet to play it with the string quartet.

[cloughie]

Arranging ‘The lady is a tramp’ for male voice duet.

[BBMmk2]

I’m ponder about transcribing Brahms’s Sonata for two pianos, Op.34b. Now will I be able to change the title to Symphony in F minor, Op.34c?

[MrGongGong]

Flugelhorn / Live electronics for a gig on Monday .... thank heavens for Michael Norris


(http://www.michaelnorris.info/softwa...magic-spectral)

[Dave2002]

My latest crack at BWV 1000.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M0aB12jCiKU

Well done. Keep going.

I used to know someone who played the guitar rather well - and he did have lessons with some prestigious teachers IIRC. He'd start off playing, and then things would start to sound really good, until he hit a rotten bar - then there'd be cries of "Oh sh ..." - possibly repeated - and he'd then head off again to the end of the piece. I never learnt the guitar, but I'm familiar with the process of playing. It's a real shame when one thinks one has almost got to the end - almost perfectly - then screw up the ending. At least with a keyboard one can shout the expletives - but not usually with wind instruments.

You made it almost to the end before your video cut out. Again, well done.

Now I sometimes play in a group, and work on the principle that to keep going whatever happens is the way to go - sometimes people don't notice the horrendous mess in the middle of some more complex pieces.

[Joseph K]

Well done. Keep going.

I used to know someone who played the guitar rather well - and he did have lessons with some prestigious teachers IIRC. He'd start off playing, and then things would start to sound really good, until he hit a rotten bar - then there'd be cries of "Oh sh ..." - possibly repeated - and he'd then head off again to the end of the piece. I never learnt the guitar, but I'm familiar with the process of playing. It's a real shame when one thinks one has almost got to the end - almost perfectly - then screw up the ending. At least with a keyboard one can shout the expletives - but not usually with wind instruments.

You made it almost to the end before your video cut out. Again, well done.

Now I sometimes play in a group, and work on the principle that to keep going whatever happens is the way to go - sometimes people don't notice the horrendous mess in the middle of some more complex pieces.

Thank you Dave.

However, once again I have switched back to jazz guitar. I'm currently wrestling with a plectrum and teasing my mind with the metronome on 2 and 4 playing continuous arpeggio and scale exercises through different chord changes and melodic minor and octatonic scale exercises, not to mention a whole load of chord voicings - much of this is a case of relearning it. Yes, I know I said last time I went back to classical guitar that it was 'for good'... shows what I know. The better I got at fugues, the more I realised that that would not suffice. I prefer the whole improvisational concept, however difficult it is... and as for the plectrum, I've heard it said that playing an instrument using an implement is harder than one which doesn't use an implement; well, I am determined no matter how long it takes to get good with the plectrum... I suppose one thing I've learned is how to organise an effective practise schedule - and, what's more, I am able to play my archtop hollowbody electric guitar longer continuously than my classical guitar, since the former has a strap so I don't have to balance it on my leg, which would cause my leg to cramp if I practised for too long.

So yeah... and it's 'for good' this time, like, actually.