The first Session

Take a seat on the couch. Hopefully this won't be too...painful. heh

Greetings all to my new blog. I'm moving it over to this location because, well, i didn't think anyone was reading over on Livejournal other than a couple friends. thanks to the wonders of google, i am hoping this blog touches a couple more people. for past posts please refer to the livejournal site

http://wtfisjohn.livejournal.com


Now, as to what to expect. Well, I am a composer, an educator, and a sound engineer. I split my time between south jersey where i have a lovely apartment, and Brooklyn, where i have a small room. I am a masters student at Brooklyn College in Music Composition as well as being an Adjunct Lecturer teaching CC 1.3: Music and its History, Language, and Culture. in other words, music appreciation. I enjoy teaching the class but hope to jump into teaching theory soon as well. Down in Jersey, i work for Concert Quality Sound (www.concertqualitysound.com). I think i am labeled on the website as a Sound Technician. Works for me. My forte is mixing, monitors or FoH (though my experience is limited to relatively small shows at the moment. Basically bar bands and monitors for a couple larger acts, nothing much over 750 people i think). I'm actual technical chops aren't a strength, but i am working on them...

SO, what can you expect? well, i'm not gonna talk about my daily life. its pretty freakin' boring. However, i am going to chat about pieces i am working on, cool shows i've done, interesting set-ups, awesome new electronic works, and just about anything else...Oh, and a lot of opera

Yep, opera. Little ole me. If you do happen to know me and haven't read previous blogs, than you may be surprised. I don't set text. I don't write songs. mainly i just pet my cat Monster. heh. but, i got hooked up with this...commission? well, i'm not getting paid, but whatever. This opportunity then, to write an opera for DePauw University. A short one...really short, part of the microfestival at a later date. a 20 minute opera. its an interesting challenge. To take a form that is classically quite large and shrink it down to 20 minutes...

Now, think of the challenges of writing a meaningful short story. and i mean, really short, like a maximum of 7 or 8 pages. These are the same challenges in writing a short opera. How do you develop an idea, a character, a theme in such a short time? well, its been what has been eating at me for nearly 2 months. bit late letting y'all know, eh?

I have the libretto. Got a fab short story from speakcoffeetome (check out her blog!) and i've adapted it to the best of my abilities. I'm not much of a writer, but i know a few tricks. i even had a draft of the first page of the libretto...

now i am going to burn it. yep, burn that sucker down. it sucked. really sucked. too convoluted. too complex for no good reason. 11 across 4 across 3 across 8, all these polyrhythms while the voice is stammering along at a quasi-speaking rhythm normally coming out as 5 across 3 or 4 and some other random rhythms...As i was writing, i started thinking "dude, all these polyrhythms. this thing is gonna get bogged down." Sure enough, it did. Scratch that idea...back to the drawing board. back to the basics...

Next post: Form