Irish Happenings

Last Thursday we had a cello and harp player come and speak to the class. I took away a few new things from the cellist. He went into some very interesting thoughts about notating the character of your piece. I taught him a new extended technique called the “Seagull Effect”. He thought it was neat. The harp player was great as well. It was funny cause I had JUST printed a copy of  the harp piece “Chanson de la Nuit” by Salzedo because that was a score study I was given by my harp friend back home. My class mates have been a little nervous about writing for harp so I thought I’d share. Well, the harp player was REALLY happy I had the extra scores so she could play it and talk about the techniques. BUT, the highlight was that she let us all play on the harp. THAT was neat! I have always wanted to play harp. It was nice to “touch” it for the first time.

 

I had to share a picture of the baby swans. It’s cool to see wild swans all over the place!

Saturday I spent all morning composing. We have a 9 instrument piece being recording on the 28^th. I have friends coming into town so I wanted to get on top of my assignments. The instrumentation for this piece is: accordion/bandoneon, flute, clarinet, violin, cello, bass, piano, marimba, and guitar. Kind of random… but also kind of hinting toward polka or tango… I struggled with that.  AND writing for the accordion because it doesn’t seem like the director plans to bring someone in to talk to us about HOW. There’s two sides to this coin. They want us to go research and figure it out and also use this session as a learning experience. BUT they also want to record these for our portfolio…. SOOOO how are we suppose to write GOOD music for these instruments if we don’t have someone to talk to about how to write for their instrument? ---Not well planned out. I was able to find some scores online, but I am keeping it rather simple just to be cautious. Which, I think is sad. In anycase, I pretty much finished my piece already and am kind of excited with how it came out. It’s somewhat “minimalism meets South America”. Has a rumba-ish rhythm in the piano, marimba and guitar. Then I have a melody which is fragmented and slowly unravels between the other instruments until it is completed at the end of the piece. Yes, my academic background shows it face J I think it will come off well.

Christmas has hit Ireland. Beautiful. 

Right now I am sitting in Bewley’s café. I woke up at 6am to go get in line at the GNIB to register my visa as a student. I’ve heard it’s an all day event. Joy. I was in line 10 minutes before it opened and the line was around the corner…. Luckily I got my ticket rather quick and my time slot is mid morning. Had to waste 3 hours. Not bad. I’ve heard about worse. We will see how it goes. Meanwhile---coffee. J