Finally, when someone asks me what Up Your Cherry sounds like, and whether we have any recordings, I can point them toward something. We just finished mixing and uploading our first song, "This One."
Yes, it's in 7/4 mostly. Of course.
We have at least one more song to record this week, and we're also hoping to revamp the website. I've also been tossing around video ideas with a friend of ours Chris Braak, who will hopefully also be joining us live at some point in the not-too-distant future on bass.
In the meantime, this coming Saturday July 21, we have a gig to play, the first we've had time to book in ages. We're the house band for a puppet slam at Walking Fish Theater for the second time. It's hella fun, and you should go. Here's a flyer:
As previously reported, this past weekend, Matt and I went to Orlando for the NATS National Conference, where Tesla's Pigeon, which won the Art Song Award Competition, was performed on Saturday. We had a terrific time, and I hope I manage to stay in touch with the many wonderful people we met. I couldn't possibly list all of them, but of special note are Carol Mikkelson, the NATS Art Song Coordinator, who is quite possibly one of the sweetest people I think I've ever met, with one of those gentle southern accents I could listen to all day, and Colleen Gray (soprano) and Nanette Kaplan Solomon (pianist), who together performed Tesla's Pigeon. In addition to being lots of fun, they are both quite extraordinary and dramatic musicians who learned the work in record time despite being busy with so many other things. They sold the hell out of my songs in the concert!
Carol feeds me a cookie.
Introducing Tesla's Pigeon at the NATS Convention
On Saturday morning, I was browsing the booths in the exhibit hall, when I spotted an Australian flag out of the corner of my eye. What's that about? As I drew in closer, I saw a table was stacked with all manner of tourism information for Brisbane. Brisbane!? The city in which I was born and bred? Eh? I was so absorbed in trying to figure out why my hometown had its own booth at NATS, I completely missed the basket of lollies to one side. "Mel," asked Matt, "is this Australian candy--?"
MINTIES!!
MINTIIIIIES!!!!
I'm not sure I've ever been so excited about Minties in my life. I hadn't even thought about them in nearly a decade. For confused Americans: Minties are functionally equivalent to Tootsie Rolls, but white and mint-flavored (and Australian, obviously).
It turns out that beloved BrizVegas is the host city for the 2013 International Congress of Voice Teachers next July, and in attendance at NATS were representatives from the Australian Voice Association. I didn't get to properly sit down with them all, but I met the president Jane Mott and had the chance to speak with VP Adele Nisbet, and caught a good case of homesickness talking about mutual friends and haunts. They left me with a bunch of Minties (eating the last one now) and a packet of Aussie flag cocktail toothpicks (expect those to show up at future house parties).
The conference was held at the Renaissance Hotel at SeaWorld, so it seemed natural Matt and I should hang out at SeaWorld on Sunday, especially with discounted tickets. I enjoyed myself more than anticipated, and didn't even mind the Florida heat (Philadelphia was simultaneously in the grips of a heatwave that brought worse temperatures anyway). I sort of forgot that SeaWorld is more circus than zoo or amusement park -- and the animals actually do seem to enjoy performing, although I'm sure PETA would disagree or something. They even have one of those troupes of rescued pets that seem to be all the rage at the moment, which of course turned Matt and I into insufferable cat idiots squeeing at all the performing kitties.
The biggest squee of Sunday, however, was reserved for a blog comment notification that buzzed my phone in the middle of the seal and sea otter pirate show. One of the highlights of our recent roadtrop was a dinosaur dig we did in Wyoming, and our guide dropped into the roadtrop blog to give us some exciting news about a bone I found at the dig -- see the latest roadtrop entry for details!
Now we're back in Philly. I have parts to create for a new arrangement of Jack and the Beanstalk for the Kennett Symphony, and a crapload of laundry to fold. Sigh.
I'm trying to wrest myself away from an arrangement I'm doing of one of my pieces. The reason I'm always putting off composing is that when I start, it takes up everything. All my physical space, all my mental space, all my energy ... I forget to eat and sleep, I don't want to talk to anyone, and even when I'm forced to pull back (as I'm forcing myself to now, for my own health), all I can really think about is how I need to get this composition finished.
You know what? I don't care how bad MIDI instruments sound (and WOW have they come a long way since I ditched writing music on paper 16 years ago), I freaking love playback. No amount of sneering from composers who think we young 'uns rely too much on it will counteract the inherent coolness of being able to say, "Hey, slave robot orchestra inside my computer, now play this! Wait, now try THIS!"
Yeah, I guess I could still compose without playback, but I'm really bad at remembering to put in accidentals, probably because I grew up singing fixed do. And besides, the less pressure I put on my underslept malnourished brain, the longer I can go without sleeping or eating. Win-win.
Judges coo over Tesla's Pigeon
Audiences flock to hear Tesla's Pigeon
Composer a-flutter at song cycle's success
Tesla's Pigeon not just a load of guano
I'm excited to report that Tesla's Pigeon has won the National Association of Teachers of Singing 2012 Art Song Composition Award. This week, they're flying me down to Orlando's Renaissance Hotel at Sea World for the NATS 52nd National Conference to collect the prize and see a live performance of the song cycle at a recital on Saturday, June 30, at 3:30PM. Matt's coming too -- I picked up a South West Airlines credit card a couple of months ago, preloaded with enough points to seat him next to me for free. I'm so happy that this piece is getting some recognition; I believed in it enough to hire the marvelous, gorgeous, adorable soprano Jessica Lennick and the dashingly talented and accomplished pianist Tim Ribchester -- both of whom are always my first choice for anything involving voice and keyboard -- to record it last year (available on bandcamp, as well as Amazon and iTunes), and aside from the glory of winning, it's a relief to finally be able to break even on that enterprise.
Aside: This isn't the first decent prize I have won in a competition that levies an entrance fee. I sort of feel obliged to put that out there because I have read more than one opinion article from composers jaded by the competition circuit who categorically denounce entrance fees and advise other composers to never pay to enter competitions because they themselves have invested small fortunes over the course of their careers with no payoff. Indeed, most competition listings provided by services such as the American Composers Forum or the American Music Center clearly demarcate or separate contests with fees to facilitate composers with this attitude. Community discussion about entry fees reached fever pitch back in 2010 when Eighth Blackbird (whom I adore) launched its first competition; they decided to remove the imposed $50 entry fee after a storm of criticism. I was right on the fence about that one. I think if they had originally charged $20 or $30, there wouldn't have been an outcry, but -- I think because of the existence of the $50 bill, an annoying denomination that businesses often refuse to accept -- psychologically, $50 feels even more exorbitant than it is. And make no mistake, it is exorbitant. But I'm not anti-fee in general. I think it takes a lot of time and effort to run a competition, and a lot of the small private organizations that run them wouldn't be able to offer any prize money without fees. At least for me, the presence of fees causes me to filter my entries. Is this composition really worth the $100 I might spend sending it out to a few contests? Does it have a chance, or is it one of those pieces that probably nobody in the world is going to like as much as I do*? Plus, of course, I can't speak out against fees with any verisimilitude because I've made quite the return on my investment. Is it worth entering composition contests with fees? Well, yeah, sure it is, if you win.
Tesla's Pigeon will hopefully get some attention the following weekend as well: July 7 through 9, I have been invited to take part in the Tesla birthday celebrations and conference organized by the Nikola Tesla Club here in Philadelphia, so I'll be selling CD's, scores, and the remaining silkscreen prints in addition to my speaking and hosting duties. If you're interested in checking out the event (and you should be), I highly recommend the Divine Hand Ensemble concert on the evening of July 7. Divine Hand are a Theremin + strings ensemble I befriended two Tesla's birthdays ago; I interviewed each member of the group on camera last year for a documentary about their inception called 21st Century Classical Music, which I believe is scheduled for broadcast later this year (more details when I have them). Here's an excerpt about their annual Halloween concert, featuring music from the Ghostbusters score by Elmer Bernstein:
So come hear some Theremin arrangements and originals, and say hello and maybe pick up a Tesla's Pigeon CD (even though CD's are practically artifacts at this point) or silkscreen print from me after the show (or, you know, get one now online by clicking on those links):
Awards Ceremony & Concert
Featuring: The Divine Hand Ensemble
R.U.B.A. Hall
414 Green Street, Philadelphia
Tickets $12
*I love those pieces. I send them out sometimes, but nobody or hardly anybody is interested in playing them, so they mostly just sit in a drawer. I get them out every now and then and say to them, "I love you. Don't let rejection get you down. I wrote you because you are cool and you'll always be cool to me." I am a great mother.
And finally finished blogging about the whole thing. Only took me two weeks back in Philly to get around to writing the last few entries. Read all about it at www.roadtrop.com.
I will blog more soon. I have much to say involving Tesla and tattoos.
BTW, Mr. Matt still has blog entries to write and photos to upload, so if you've read everything, don't give up on roadtrop.com yet.
I'm a woman of my word. I took that noisy miner picture to No Ka Oi, and I got myself a tattoo. Well, two hours of tattoo.
The rest of it will be completed when we return from our 5-week roadtrip around America, which begins tomorrow! If you want to hear about our adventures, I suggest you bookmark www.roadtrop.com or subscribe to our updates.
Aside: I am now officially All But Dissertation. Mind boggling.
I just spent an hour or two playing the mandolin, playing scales and arpeggios and picking out the chords in songs like "I Still Call Australia Home" and "Home on the Range" and "Everybody Hurts." The thought crossed my mind: I wish my life were like this. Why can't being a musician mean I just sit around playing an instrument all day. Then I remembered that the reason I am a composer is that I suck at practicing and I hate it. Oh yeah. That's right.
I put my mandolin back on its wall hook and went thrift shopping.
One Saturday afternoon, Rand greeted the Hills by beckoning Ruth upstairs, unto the immense master bedroom, where tall glass windows lined a wall to the left of the bed. "Do you see those junipers?" she asked, pointing to a row of twelve-foot bushes about half an acre from the house. "A UFO came by there last night." Stunned, Hill asked for details. "It was hovering just above the junipers and then flying in slow motion," she said. It was round and its outer edges were lighted, she continued, and it made no sound. By the time she woke Frank and led him to the window, it had moved out of sight. "Did you really see this?" Hill asked. "I saw it," said Rand. The story seems to demonstrate her confidence in the ability of her mind to interpret the evidence of her senses. As the years went by, this particular confidence would not always serve her well.
Maybe ... maybe Ayn saw Stockhausen arriving from Sirius?
Oh, more stuff:
On the long drive in Frank's new Cadillac convertible, they stopped for a day or two in Ouray, Colorado, an old gold-mining town a few miles east of Telluride, whose surroundings contributed to the topography of Galt's Gulch. As they continued east, they may have passed the former site of Nikola Tesla's scientific laboratory, which had stood on a mountaintop near Colorado Springs in the early 1900's; the experiments the eccentric genius had made in harnessing electricity from the atmosphere and transmitting it wirelessly through earth and air may have provided a model for the revolutionary new motor invented by Galt. (Tesla also invented a fantastical but possibly workable "death ray" that Rand may have borrowed, in part, for Dr. Stadler's terrifying weapon, Project X.) Along with Edison, Tesla became one of Rand's models for her hero.
We wanted something low-cost, since it was our first. I was gung ho about fixing it up myself, since I pretty much grew up renovating and I'm handy like that. So we ended up buying the cheapest house in the area. $82,000 for a two-bedroom semi-detached. And ohhh boy was it a fixer upper. When we walked in, the walls were yellow from decades of indoor tobacco use; they were literally coated in nicotine. I knew everything needed to be gutted and redone. But I was keen. And somehow, I managed to convince Matt to go along with it.
Our real estate agent and our housing inspector thought we were completely insane and advised us not to buy every step of the way.
Five years later, after the expected helpings of blood, sweat and tears, the interior is finished, and we're (more than) ready to rent the place out - after we show it off a little online, because GODDAMN we are proud. I've blogged our progress occasionally along the way, but here are some specific before/after shots to give you a small idea of our work.
The basement stairs were rickety and a little worm eaten, so we replaced them with treated wood. The foundation wall itself, being made of mortared field stones and more than 100 years old, was in terrible need of tuck pointing - I'm glad I finally plucked up the courage to tackle that this summer and probably saved us about $8,000. We still have to install a handrail, but it's pretty much complete.
For a period of about ten days, we didn't even have a working toilet. The local McDonald's saw us regularly at all hours. Matt embraced his inner redneck and shaved with a hose in the backyard. Understandably, we tackled this room first. The brand new bathroom cost us a total of about $500 in materials, mostly spent on the glass blocks, as we got some killer deals on the toilet and bathtub. Perhaps the only thing more baffling than the sash windows in the original bathroom is the chair-rail strip of wallpaper depicting the heads of big cats (there is a better shot of this monstrosity in one of the slideshow photos below).
Next we finished the kitchen, which was quite a job. Above you see it as we bought it. All the electrical appliances were connected to a power strip from the 1960's that you can see fastened to the wall below a window that was missing a pane of glass. The sink was from 1947 and leaked. We know the year of manufacture because there were a bunch of 1947 newspapers beneath the "rug" in the main bedroom, and we found an advertisement for the exact sink within.
First we took down the kitchen wall. At the time, I was napping upstairs when I was awoken by the most horrendous noise; it sounded like a war had broken out. I ran into the kitchen to find Matt, Jordan (pictured above) and four or five neighborhood boys I didn't know blithely laying into the wall with hammers. As I recall, I was extremely freaked out. Especially when I saw that there was about three cubic feet of wasp nest insulating the outer wall (we had not yet discovered this in the above photo). Luckily the wasps were not resident.
Not satisfied with the walls, we also set to demolishing the floor, which had been rotted out by the leaking 1947 sink. The rot had spread to the joists, so we sistered those to treated wood beams and replaced the subfloor completely before tiling.
I should also mention here that I learned during the process of building the kitchen that staining cabinets is my absolute least favorite job of all time. I think I hate it even more than sanding ceiling drywall. I built the plate rack you can see above the sink with some dowel and scrap wood after I saw one in a cabinetry display with a repulsively high price tag - it seriously looks exactly the same as the one in that showroom.
The main living area (look at that beautiful wallpaper) was almost a breeze compared to the cramped rooms with all the complicated plumbing and rot problems. I impulsively decided to take down the stupid arch wall, and I'm so glad we did. Combined dining/living rooms are where it's at, especially in a house this small.
Progress on the exposed brick wall was documented here.
Here's the view from the arch (or where it used to be) to the front door. New door, new window, new walls, new ceiling, new lighting fixture, new molding, new floor ... it's all new.
Except that HVAC grate. It was a non-standard size, so we had to keep the old one and refinish it.
This is probably my favorite feature of the living room. The original rooms had these exposed pipes and ductwork running floor to ceiling. When I say "exposed," what I mean is that they were actually covered in wallpaper and then painted. Yeah. We decided to box them in, and because I hate wasted space, I recessed some built-in shelving into the covering wall. The column you see was necessary because the ceiling beam above the arch was poorly supported at that end.
Stairs: original, in progress, and complete. The door you see in the first photo was dismantled and the wall to its right taken down so the basement entrance is now right at the top of the basement stairs.
This is the view from the top of the stairs, in progress and complete.
And finally, the bedrooms. The master bedroom was the only room in the house where the plaster was in decent enough shape to patch and keep. I'm very happy with the closets we built in both rooms. They're better than the closets in two of the bedrooms of our Philly house.
Here are some occasionally hilariously horrifying shots of the renovation in progress. Looking back at them, I can't believe we lived like that for so long. But I'm laughing, so I guess it was worth it.
And here is a pretty slideshow of higher-res photos Matt took today. I present our masterpiece of home improvement:
So. Who wants to rent a nice new house in Downingtown?
A few moments ago, I was mining a 1977 interview with Stockhausen for quotes and insights to include in a horrible paper I'm writing on Mantra that is already late because I am allergic to writing it. Anyway, I tweeted:
Now & then, Stockhausen's writings remind me of David Icke. Especially when he starts talking about his past lives in Japan/India/Egypt.
Hahaha, right? then, OH HOLY SHIT, this on the last page of the interview:
The spirit of [my latest work Sirius] is that it is music from Sirius, which is transposed on this planet and [reveals] the possibilities of this planet, because I think that the culture of this planet has been mainly formed by visitors from Sirius, especially in the time between 9000 and 6000 B.C., [as have] most of our modern concepts of cultural achievements, as far as these are still available, because, as you know, an enormous amount has been burned in the library of Alexandria, where all the secret knowledge of architecture, of mathematics, of astronomy and of the arts, and of the magnetism of the earth, of ecology, etc., has been destroyed voluntarily by the Christian orthodox administration. But I think that our main sources of present-day culture, as decadent as it may be in most parts of the planet, stem from visitors from Sirius whose main representatives (leaders) were Isis and Osiris. Through a series of revelations which were at first quite nebulous, but have become more clear during the past few years, I know (as little as I know about details) that I have come from Sirius, myself. And I know that the highest kind of language that can exist for this highly developed culture is music. As long as we're inclinated toward the bodies and possibilities of the body of this planet Earth, then everything from Sirius appears as music. It is structured in a direct harmony with the forming principles of the universe, of the rotations, of the seasons, of different aspects of youth, man, woman, the friend, of the elements earth, fire, water, air, of states of growth, etc. All of these characteristics stem basically, and have been made conscious, from this culture, and there are many other planets which have been influenced by these universal principles, which are communicated best through sound in music that is the best and most universal way.
