E3

The biggest video game convention in the United States, E3, is in a week-and-a-half -- and the first publicly-playable version of Mortal Kombat: Armageddon will be there. I found out late this afternoon that the deadline for the last sounds I can put into the game is Sunday night... so all of the sudden, I guess I know what I'm doing this weekend!!!

notes for WATERCOLORS

I was asked for program notes for WATERCOLORS, so I figured I'd share them here:

Water -- such a simple blessing, but it is absolutely essential to sustaining life. In writing this piece, my hope was that this collection of sketches would remind us how precious the gift of water is to every living thing on our planet.

ECHOES OF SUN AND ICE - I used a jagged melodic line with large intervals and open quartal harmony to musically recreate the grandeur of a glacier-topped mountain range -- the big, bombastic brass and percussion probably helps too. My inspiration came from a ski trip in the Canadian Rockies.

MOON OVER TWILIGHT LAKE - The basis of this melody came from an early piece I wrote for bass clarinet, 'cello, and marimba. I've always liked the tune, and I thought it's folk simplicity and melancholy tone would fit well with this collection. This piece always reminds me of a very placid mountain lake near Aspen, Colorado... but the actual Twilight Lake only exists in my imagination.

RAINDROPS HANG FROM A SPIDER'S WEB - When it came time to create this collection, this was the first sketch I started, and the last one I finished. It wasn't that the process took a long time, it was that every iteration just wasn't quite right -- I knew what I wanted to achieve, but it took a while to quiet my mind so that I could hear it. Nature will always reveal it's elegant, intricate, yet simple patterns to anyone who takes the time to notice.

CAST ADRIFT ON A STORMY SEA - My dad is a sailor; so is my uncle, and my grandfather... I suspect you could trace it even further back in my bloodline. When it came to writing a collection of pieces revolving around water themes, there was no question that one of them had to involve a respectful homage to the awesome power of the ocean.

REFLECTIONS IN A TIDAL POOL - I wrote this while I was staying on the beach of a small island in Mexico - every morning I'd write for a few hours before the day's adventures began. Writing this became my oasis of introspection; a meditative moment to listen to the waves on the shore, smell the fresh sea breeze that moved through the diaphanous curtains, and feel the rise and fall of my breath.

oh, the horror!

Today our ISP went down... I had to go ALL DAY without any internet connection!!! I tell you, IT WAS HORRIBLE!!!!

Chaos in Bismarck

Without further ado, here are pictures from the Arts Festival at Bismarck State College, where I was Artist-in-Residence last week:












A special thanks to John Darling for making this trip possible!

more on Chippewa Falls

You may've noticed that I haven't been blogging much lately, and for that, I apologize. I was really sick, I've been REALLY busy, and I've been really, really focused on the new piece I was writing for Chippewa Falls -- so focused, in fact, that it was hard to write about it while I was actually writing IT. So to make up for that, I figured I'd write about now...

It's finished! I can't wait to hear the band play it. For the most part, it's an extremely simple piece of music, but within the simplicity, I've tried to create some very special, unique moments. Part of that is the orchestration -- I wanted to add some less-common colors to the ensemble, and do some things I would NEVER normally do. For one thing, there are crystal glasses being played, by rubbing the rims... and it's not just going to be a few punters in the percussion section -- it's going to be almost the entire band. And I also stole an oft-used John Mackey percussion technique -- in one section, I'm having the timpanist play the drums with regular wood drumsticks (evidently, this can be very damaging to the drum-heads, so we'll see how this goes over when they get the music!)... there's also some very naked piano parts, and I never write much for piano...

In the meantime, I've got to get back to copying out the score and parts!!!

saveourkidsmusic.org

Chances are pretty good that you've never heard of a guy named Lindy Sikes, but he's a very seriously dedicated educator, and a really good guy. I got this email from him this weekend. About a year or so ago, I spent a few days down in his district and witnessed numerous instances of the postive work he's doing for the music program, as well as the positivity he's bringing to his student's lives. If you were going to try to make a difference for a teacher, this would be the guy to do it for. Think about signing this petition -- you can still sign it, even if you don't live in Fulton County, Georgia.


Hey all,

I sent an email out to some of you earlier about my job situation here in Fulton County. To make a long story short, Fulton County has decided to eliminate instrumental music in the elementary schools. That is where 100% of my salary comes from. There is a very good chance they will put it back in but we need at least 10,000 signatures to help this along. If you are a music educator, remember, this could be you!!! I am asking everyone to sign this petition. We have about 7600 names right now but if you know of someone that would like to help the cause, pass it on!! Go to the website below and follow the instructions. Thank you in advance.

www.saveourkidsmusic.org

Musically Yours,

Lindy Sikes
Assistant Director of Bands
Milton High School
Alpharetta, GA

Happy 2nd birthday!

The blog turned two on April Fool's day -- to celebrate it's birthday, I thought I'd start a tradition by subjecting you to the same thing as the first birthday -- a very fast and totally incomplete smattering of links from the past 12 months:

April - I cut my ankle and we talked about pachelbel's canon in d

May - I rocked Minnesota...

June - I started working at Midway, recorded tracks in Salt Lake City, and introduced the term "pullin' a Newman"

July - I talked about pizza...

August - I got married.

September - my sister and I did the Muddy Buddy race and gave my first guitar lesson via blog (notice that no one came back for seconds)

October - rocked out at Indiana Purdue U, and Anne completed her first Ironman...

November - performed at VMEA with Jefferson Forest HS (and then vented my spleen about the experience) and finished Sticks & Stones...

December - Midwest, Midwest, and even more Midwest...

January - Premiere of Sticks & Stones at Mountain View HS (part 1, 2, and 3) and the blog died...

February - came back from a loooooong technical delay!

March - played in Sun Prairie, Wisconsin and wrote about one fairly regular day in my life.

THANKS FOR READING! BLOG LOVES YOU!!!

1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6

Did it occur to anyone at two minutes and three seconds after 1:00 in the morning, the time and date was:

01:02:03 04/05/06

? ? ?

BCM goes South Park

In a senseless fit of procrastination this weekend, I wasted a few precious minutes of my life on a website where I created a picture of myself as a South Park Character: CLICK HERE to see it.
This wasn't enough of a distraction, so I also did the other BCM composers (hope they don't mind!).

Here's Eric:

And Newman:

And Steve:

is it just me?

Or did anyone else forget to set their clocks forward one hour this weekend, thereby showing up to work an hour late?