New Title and Theme
Bats in the Belfry is no longer my friends (new title to be announced in the coming days). After returning to composing after a several month pause, the new theme is introspection and meditation. This is generally how the works will be approached, not abiding by a religious or spiritual dogma, but how one interprets each work. A visiting friend of mine gestured stabbing knife movement while listening to “four,” so some may interpret the works quite differently. However, he’s stuck in the same boat as the majority of people who have to associate amaranth music to either love, happiness, nature and murder, since they have limited exposure to new music and the brain can only stretch so far with limited exposure.
BTW: I like the new WordPress “quickpress” feature.
Back to it…….
I’ve been fairly busy outside the arts lately, as some of you might know. One stumbling block has been an issue with the transfer of my music station. A certain program wasn’t letting me switch computers and I’ve been putting off dealing with figuring out how to upgrade the certification. So I finally got around to that yesterday and finished a new work along with it titled “four.”
Today I finished the 5th miniature from Bats in the Belfry due out in 2009. I’m thinking I will release this album strictly via the web. Here is “Four” set to a video (drawing). I will post the second work tonight (hopefully) set to another drawing. The second which I finished a couple minutes ago is called “old brick well.” By the way, I’m not talented at drawing, but I found this great free program called “artRage.” One feature allows you to pull up a photograph underneath the virtual canvas so you can sketch over the top.
Four
Four – Bats in the Belfry – 2009
Conlon Nancarrow and You
I have decided to add a new category “historic composers” to log posts about dead composers, the ones who’s music is still contemporary. I’ll start off with Conlon Nancarrow. A lot of what I read about Nancarrow from the limited text resources describes his music as unusual or some other related term. I’ve been meaning to look up the biography penned by the author/composer over at Post-Classic, Kyle Gann.
Anyway, I don’t find his music zany or unusual as much as I find it compelling, witty and smart. In some ways a contemporary Mozart if you will. I’ll be writing down more thoughts on Nancarrow’s music from time to time over the coming years here at AAM. I know this post is cursory, but the music in the video below is anything but.
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