Thursday, February 17, 2011

Played around with recording today. The mid-range of the harp comes through so loudly. I wonder if that's what it sounds like to an audience. No way to know. It's most balanced when I play the mid-range p and everything else normally.

Also worked on trouble spots in Prelude 1. There are many, but I zipped through playing it afterward.

Tuesday, February 15, 2011

For music theory, I am to write a chorale as a final project. The instructor recommended if we are not good at writing lyrics to use a poem, or failing that, since a lot of poetry is not suited to music, pick a song that has lyrics we like and use that. He also mentioned that bad poetry makes good music.

I absolutely cannot stand poetry and I'm not really a 'lyrics' person, so I asked my sister, who is more of a wordsmith-y person, what she would recommend. And I got Jabberwocky by Lewis Carroll, anything by Judas Preist, and Shake That by Eminem. Which would all be hilarious in chorale form, but she also had some serious suggestions, as well. I am waiting for a couple books from her, one written by a friend.

At this point I'm not clear on what kind of melody and shape I'd like, so I don't have much of a frame on which to hang lyrics. I think I'd like to have it be in a major key and modulate in the middle to minor, and back to major.

Maybe if I get a first line, I can use the Bad Poetry Generator.

ETA: And end up with something like this:

Bad poetry makes good music
And, now nekked, they shiver, oh how they shiver
love is chemistry, sex is physics,
Porcupines will rule the world forever!