back when I was a college student... which was so long ago! Hah, okay, not really. In fact, my graduation is coming up next month, although I finished up my credits in December. For the fall semester, all I had left was senior seminar (a requirement for my music major), and my senior project. That project was to record/edit/mix my debut album, as well as transcribe ALL of the music played into sheet music. I worked more in-depth with those recordings early this year to create the final mixes, and have gotten the disc mastered, completed the graphic design for the packaging, and sent everything to the printer's for production. Next week I'll get the finished product, finally! :) It's a milestone of sorts--an end, in that it wraps up my first couple years of songwriting/performing, and in some ways my school years... but also a beginning--my first CD, hopefully not the last.
So while I'm sifting through my site, making updates to house the info about the new CD (and, admittedly, making updates in general, since I've sorely neglected these pages)...
I came across a couple music things that I thought would be neat to have on my site, although they don't relate directly to the singer-songwriter thing.
First, if you don't already know, I've been playing pedal harp for 3ish years now. I played with the orchestra a few times--since harp is such a specialty instrument, that means you almost always get a solo or few. But one concert last year, my part was more prominent than usual... Violist Mark Ludwig, from the Boston Symphony Orchestra, was in residency and played with our orchestra as a soloist. We played a movement from Harold in Italy (Berlioz), where the violist and harp play a duet. I really only had one measure where I was the "melody," but my part was important enough that I had to sit up front by the soloist (even though I'd spend the other 10 minutes of the movement sitting there doing nothing, hahah). It was pretty neat, and I managed to play pretty well. Here's a clip of the part where I played...
Harold in Italy: Mvt I (clip)
The second thing...
for my orchestration class that same semester, our final project was to orchestrate a piano piece for the Skidmore orchestra. I chose "Bethena: A Concert Waltz" by Scott Joplin, and the result was pretty decent.
Some details about this track...
This recording is my orchestration derived from original piano score for "Bethena" [part of the goal was to preserve the composer's intent--melodies, harmonies, form, etc.]. The project was taken on for an orchestration class, and was sightread along with other class projects by the Skidmore orchestra on April 18th, 2006.
Please excuse the slight errors (wrong notes, uneven tempo changes, incorrect entrances, intonation issues)--the mostly-student orchestra did an excellent job playing this for only going through it twice! [This recording is of the second read-through.] Although there are a few minor changes to the score since the recording, they're probably nothing anyone but me (or a fellow orchestrator) would notice, and/or are simply to make it more readable/accessible for the players... oh, and that's me on the harp in the last few sections.
Instrumentation
Piccolo
2 Flutes
2 Oboes
2 Clarinets in Bb
2 Bassoons
2 French Horns in F
2 Trumpets in Bb
2 Trombones
Tuba
Harp
Violin I
Violin II
Viola
Cello
Bass
my orchestration of "Bethena" by Scott Joplin
So there you go! I know this is probably not all that exciting for non-orchestra lovers, and it's also kind of old news... but hey, that's why it's in the blog, and not the news. I just wanted to have this stuff documented/available somewhere. :)
Not like anyone ever checks this blog anymore, since I haven't written in like a year... oops.
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| Apr 19th, 2007 @ 6:28 pm |
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