The Gnome

@jim-4

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It is a lovely sunny day, but before you get up, here’s a thought. Do you know what has been happening in your garden? The Gnomes are already awake and going about their business before they are interrupted by humans. The fact of the matter is that Gnomes do not want us to know they are really alive. Probably frighten of what we would do to them. Humans have a long record of abusing what they do not understand, and don’t forget Gnomes are magical creatures.

I just imagined what it would be like in your garden, if you had gnomes, and how they would go about their day. I imaged how they would wake up. Gnomes sleep standing up, and then as they awoke, just having a sneaky look around the world. Cautiously at first, checking for danger, ie us humans and at the same time taking a moment to admiring the beauty all around us. If it is all clear they begin to move, slowly at first, a little stiff from a night spent perfectly still. As the sun warms up all around, they would take the time to greet their neighbours and be prepared to help any who may need a hand.

I think Gnomes get a bit of bad publicity because they are really friendly. It is us humans who cause all the problems and this quiet race is just trying to co-exist in the mad world we have created, but have failed to nurture for all. If the truth be know I would guess that Gnomes probably don’t like humans, but I also feel they are too dignified to judge us, quite so harshly. They try to see the good in all.

This is one of my older pieces, I wrote it in 2022. In fact it was written on MuseScore and the instruments are all from Garage-Band. Having another listen to the finished product I decided to have another go at the mixing. Basically I used a far wider pan (if that is the right word), so that I think you can hear the bits better. Is this where I have been going wrong?

Sunny Day in Ireland

@jim-4

Link to Score

This is my attempt to convey some of the things I feel on a summers day. I have a conflict one one side there is a laziness, sit back and enjoy the day. While on the other I feel I should get out and enjoy the day. I mean here in Ireland we do not get many sunny days, you do not want to waste them especially if you are not at work, but how? Do you go mad put your life in your own hands and actually do something outside. The options range from gardening to actually going to the beech. We are lucky here in Ireland there are many unspoilt and beautiful beeches, not far from my home. Or do you stay at home, like a coward, just in case the weather changes?

When I first came up with the tune it felt as if something was stirring, it may have helped that while I was working on it the sun was shinning all day everyday. I remember sitting in my garden and humming the tune, it just felt so apt.

It has a funny instrumentation Piano, Cello, Oboe, flue and Bassoon and this version uses Garage-band Instruments. It has made me think again about using the BBC Symphonic plug in because the more I hear it the more mushy and heavy the overall effect is. It hides some of the things I am putting into the music. Don’t get me wrong it has a very rich sound but I suspect the problem may lay with me. Perhaps I need to work more at the mixing stage. I just prefer the lighter sound you have here, I think you can hear the subtleties far better. For my money it is these bits that bring the piece to life.

Personally I think this works and I like this.

Having said all this to myself perhaps I need to revisit Buterchurn Drive.

Butter Churn Drive

@jim-4

Link to Score

Butterchurn Drive is an attempt to put a walk in the country to music. I envisioned it to be along a river as it meanders its way along to an old Inn. Then refreshment time. It is a lovely summers day and although the walkers are looking forward to the walk there is a little air of foreboding. Who likes exercise before you actually go out and do it.

The cord at the beginning is there to signify the entrance to the track. If you listen you can also hear a bubbling brook. I tried to put over that feeling of I really don’t want to do this but I will. Before as the music develops the walkers get more into it enjoying the views etc and really enjoy the experience. Of course the will be highs and lows, a little trip and a bird flys out in front of you. I was also thinking that if children are involved they can be very resistant to something at the beginning but go on to enjoy it. The “are we there yet?” Syndrome.

I am not sure if this works. I had not played it for a while and now after hearing it again, I think I have failed to get across some of the things I wanted to. Yes you can hear the babbling brook in the beginning. I definitely got the foreboding bit over, but is it a little over done? I wonder if it sounds like a very hard walk or even torture. What is missing is the joy and beauty and maybe a few surprises along the way. Most of which should be happy, some not (eg maybe Dog Poo). I think that for a work like this there has to be a way of putting it down then revising it and asking the rude questions, dose it work.

his is definitely a work in progress. There is more to be done and I have not planned it properly. I also suspect the mix is a little heavy so hiding some of the sights I wrote in it.

Crazy Dentist

@jim-4

Link to Score

The question of the day is, can you tell a story with just music or must you use words like a song? We all know music can enhance an emotion or express one like in film music, try watching a film without the music background and a lot of the emotional content disappears. I am also aware that many major events be them happy or sad are often connected to a piece of music. I am also certain that many pieces of music rely on their emotional impact on what we have been trained (or maybe better put conditioned) to understand as sad, happy etc. Then again not everyone makes the same emotional connection. Music can point to things like marching music implies military. There are long standing theories that different keys represent different shades of emotion.

But emotions are not stories.

So the question remains can you tell a story with music or do you need hints either verbal written or pictures to set you on the right path. Well Crazy Dentist is an attempt to tell a story in music.

You may want to hear the music before reading on

Main Points

• Bored sitting in the Dentist waiting room. There is always a hint of fear here, the sound of the drill. The anticipation of what is to come.
• The dentist comes in and after greetings, invites you into his surgery. Although he is polite you get a sense of something.
• As he works on your teeth things get more intense. That dark undercurrent seems to grow.
• When it is over you want to get the hell out of there.
• But you need another appointment.

Please bear in mind I think all dentist are a little crazy. If you look at the score you will see a laugh that I use now and again. I just can not understand why they do what they do. I once asked a dentist this question and he told me it was all about the money.

I would love to know, good or bad, what you think.

Salty Five Eight

@jim-4

Link to Score

Salty Five Eight is another of those awkward ones. It is a bit short but I like it. I would like to make it longer as I know it could be more. It is a piece I wrote a while ago, and I have learnt a lot since then. In other words it needs to go somewhere and mean something. Personally I think it lacks the harmonic drive and structure that would enable it to develop. So with this in mind I had a go at re-writing the harmony and altering the melody appropriately. Somehow it is still not what I am looking for. Believe me at this stage I have had several attempts at it and I have failed. I want more for one of my babies!

I do wonder if all this work has made me over familiar with it and any improvement I try just sounds wrong, because it is unfamiliar. For example I can’t hear it played any other instrument but a piano. Maybe by hearing it too often I have lost my objectivity with it? This relates to another problem, you come up with an idea, you like it, but what is it? Personally, I find, if I can not identify it, give it a name, I just don’t know where to go with it. If it has no identity, it has no life of it’s own. Sometimes I wonder if it is not easier to have an idea of what you want to say then come up with a melody that fits. That worked with the Character Pieces, but I wonder if in reality I was being selective in the characters I chose. Picked the lower fruit, but then as we all know practice makes perfect.

So for now I am going to publish it and move on. Maybe one day I will come back to it (again) or not. By publishing, it may not get forgotten. I think it deserves better than that.

Any Ideas??

Awaken

@jim-4

I need to start with a confession, I can’t find the score for this. I always start by making a file using the date as the working title, it is only after I have played about with an idea for a while that a title may come. I like to discover the character of the idea, and that takes time. I have tried to rush this stage, but if I don’t understand the character of the idea, I just don't know how to develop it.

This can be a problem in two ways, Sometimes I may like an idea as in the case of Awaken, but can’t see how to develop it, so it may wait on my hard drive until I go back to it (or not). Obviously this is a recipe to forget ideas. In that case I take the viewpoint that maybe the idea was not as good as I thought. Did you Know that George Gershwin, lost in a hotel room a note book containing over 40 new ideas. On finding out this Gershwin Just shrugged his shoulders. He believed he would come up with enough new ideas to replace the lost ones in a very short time.

Also, as the file title is a bit cold I find it hard to associate the title I come up with and the file I started out with. Things can get a little lost. Luckly I put Awaken in a folder in which I regularly access and play, but what can I do with it without staring again. I am now trying when I save in progress bits, to incorporate both file and working name (you live and learn).

I came up with Awaken, and I thought there is a good opening, but what next? I have a theory that if you get stuck on something let it go. You will either go back to it later with an answer or it will be dumped. Although I can only do work on one thing at a time, I like to have other ideas bubbling around in the background.

John Harrison

@jim-4

Link to Score

John Harrison was a major clever clogs of the 18th Century. His claim to fame is to to build a clock that was both accurate enough and resilient enough to be both taken to sea and to be used to measure Longitude to a very high degree of accuracy. This was essential for safe navigation of the ‘Seven Seas’.

I do not know much more about him, other than what I read in Wikipedia, but what came to mind was an artisan working away in a workshop, probably at home, trying to improve his design until he could claim his prize.

The music would not be out of place in Pinocchio, where the puppet maker is toiling away in his workshop. I added the tick tock sound to give it a feel of a clockmakers, although surprising enough, I do not think that John Harrison was noted as one of these.

For once (don’t worry it won’t happen too often) I have used a simple 2 2 time. The melody is played by a Fantasia, which has a very light sound. To balance this I had to change the sound of the piano backing to an electric one.

Parallel fifths and octaves, have a bad press in Classical music (although they can be found in both Mozart and Beethoven’s music). This is because they can take some of the richness out of the melody, but on the other hand some times that is what you want. I have decided to look into this in my own music. Sometimes you want this to happen, but as with all things knowledge is power (they can be hard to find even in small scores). So I have decided to use a plug in for Musecore that detects parallel fifths and Octaves. Hopefully this will make the harmony more interesting. I also want to split out the melody and harmony before Orchestrating by using a SATB lay out. So I have a new plan.

1. write the melody on a Piano with cords
2. expand the harmony over a SATB choir, maybe change sound to Piano
3. Run the plug in as above and see what happens, (don’t have to fix them all)
4. It is the recommended by Teachers to have a piece laid out in SATB before Orchestration

Again the result is straight out of Musecore and I am happy with the result.