Joseph Zitt

As usual, work on creative stuff has gotten stuck in a sargasso of technical crud, but I’ve dug my way out, and the accelerated composing of “Moses” continues.

I’m using the Rosegarden sequencer to compose the piece. I know how it works (pretty much). It effectively plays back what I write, and it generates beautiful printed scores, for both the conductor and the players.

Rosegarden only works under Linux, which means that I really should keep my laptop booted into Linux rather than Windows while cramming on this project. Fortunately, I found a very good article at the Linux Journal site that showed me how to be able to get at my mail and Firefox bookmarks from either Linux or Windows on the same box.

In trying to get there, however, I hit the usual bunch of obstacles that set me back a week. I first had troubles on the Windows side, then ran into trouble clearing space out for things (having not only lots of large MP3s but half-gigabyte downloaded episodes of Battlestar Galactica makes defragmenting difficult).

Once I got that done, I went over to the Linux side and upgraded to the new version of Ubuntu — which completely killed my graphical interface, meaning that I only had a command line. With the help of some folks on the Freenode #ubuntu IRC channel, I was able to conquer that, discovering that the problem stemmed from an easily removed smudge on the installation DVD.

The one killer app for Windows that isn’t available yet on Linux is any recent release of iTunes that will handle video. So I’ve have to pop over to Windows to sync my iPod with new podcasts and to download new episodes of Galactica when they resume this Sunday. But that shouldn’t be too big of a deal.
So here I am, working relatively happily in Linux on the laptop.

Composing this is going to be a mad dash. Agreeing to have it ready in time to perform it on April 1 is insane, but I had some good reasons to do it (some perhaps to be revealed here later).

I’ve worked out the timings of the text, so I can tell where the bar lines fall. The reading will be freer than the playing, but it will still have to be in sync with the orchestra, and I may not have much of a chance to rehearse with them. (I’m using Robert Ashley’s scores as a model.)

The melodic material is derived from the song “Go Down Moses“, with repeating phrases from it running alongside and against each other and contrasting material. I’m keeping in mind that it will have to be easy for this community orchestra to rehearse and play, and not so repetitive that the players get lost. This means having frequent obvious points where things very clearly sync up and shift.

For example, early in the piece there’s a twelve-bar section where a measure-long phrase taken from “Go Down Moses” (roughly the four-notes corresponding to “Israel was in” in the first line — an eighth note and a dotted quarter on one pitch followed by a dotted quarter and an eighth a half-step down, in parallel with another voice a minor third below) repeats against what turns out to be a slow twelve-tone row in the cellos and basses. The most dissonant point is at the end, where the voice for the first time says “MOSES.” Everything stops for a few beats and restarts. (This stuff is much harder to describe in words than to notate.) The effect should be of increasing tension.

(And nobody may notice that it’s a twelve-tone row, and it isn’t being used rigorously. It just struck me that using all twelve notes as I went along was a good way of organizing things. The row may or may not turn up again. You can unbutton your collars now.)

Now that I’m able to get started with the actual notation, I’ll be starting by notating the vocal part. Since I’m not assigning pitches to the speaking voice, it will probably make sense to use a single line of percussion notation to track it.

But I should probably get to bed sometime, so I can be awake at some point tomorrow. Come to think of it, I may not get to do much, since I’m planning to catch the movie Absolute Wilson at 2 PM (the only time in its one-week run that will fit my crazy schedule), have a rehearsal in the evening for next Wednesday’s concert, and may try to squeeze in the late show of Pan’s Labyrinth at the same theater afterward. Then, I’ll do my rounds and work on the composing some. I’ll probably also cram on it on Thursday, then fit it in around my work week, rehearsing, and performing from Friday on.

I don’t know if this means that I need to get a life or that I have too much of one. If I ever slow down, I’ve have to schedule a time to figure that out.