Break Out the Confetti Poppers!

We've reached blog post # 52! That's enough to count for each week of the year.

Funnily enough, this has been a week rife with setbacks, from migraines that Excedrin cannot quell to technical issues concerning Dorico's inability to load the proper VSTs for playback. Add in the 3-day weekend from the continuation of my partner's weird schedule, and that's nearly 5 days wiped off the board with maybe 1-2 major tasks accomplished during that time frame.

Oof.

Composing Music Again?

That said, I have begun puttering around with composing music again, brushing up on my fundamentals through Skillshare's Music Composition 1 - Rhythm & Melody. The teacher amuses me because the course is very much set up like PowerPoint slides in a college lecture hall. One video recites information you should know, which you then review by taking a quiz and then completing assignments relevant to the section covered by the video. I've completed up to Section 4, which is how I discovered the issues Dorico was having with automatically loading virtual instruments. I eventually performed a fresh reinstall of both it and the VSTs after a few hours of troubleshooting.

Since section 1 was mostly the overview of the course and general descriptions relating music to language, there was an assignment to complete. I will say though, as someone who's more linguistically than musically inclined, I very much appreciated the refresher comparing music to language, making it easier to visualize in my mind. Notes are the letters that make up musical words (motifs) and sentences (phrases).

Section 2

The assignments for Section 2 focused on creating motifs in different time signatures using a minimal set of note durations. I kept mine simple, though I added melodic components. Mistake? Yes, but glass half full, I just view it as additional melody practice.

Even though he placed limitations on the meter, Peters didn't mention whether or not tuplets were allowed. I think if I were to continue this and the next section, I would experiment more with rhythms outside the normal meter, because why not?

It was my desire to play around with the viola that led to the mess with the playback not working. Had I just used piano, it would have been fine, but I didn't want to use the piano! So, as it tends to do so, my fixation on doing things the way I wanted resulted in painstaking troubleshooting. It worked out in the end. I got what I wanted plus some added bonus practice navigating Dorico via the shortcuts I learned from the Dorico lessons thus far.

Section 3

If Section 2 was about the creation of single motifs, Section 3 built upon that by expanding the number of motifs in a single phrase from 1 to 2 and how to incorporate them within a single phrase.

All in all, the assignments themselves didn't take that long. Three minutes each maybe, max? Assignment 3 is the most questionable in regards as to whether or not I fulfilled the requirements of creating 2 distinct motifs, but I'm not too worried about it. The general idea is that more practice is better than perfect practice. The meters were predetermined, otherwise I would have played around with 6/8 more.

I'm excited to progress to the second course, which focuses more on harmony, which is where I've always struggled. Just as I was starting to get the hang of it toward the end of my college career, I graduated and then moved to Japan for nearly a decade, where I hardly touched composing. I'm fine on the theory front and discussing it within preexisting music, but when it comes to writing good harmonic structure and movement, my brain goes into overanalyzing mode, similar to how a writer might get stuck in the editing loop as they're trying to write. (Guilty there, too.)

Ah well, sometimes you take two steps back, other times you take twenty. At least in many cases it's easier to catch up to where you dropped off than it is to learn the skill initially.

Other Notable Accomplishments:

• Transcribed 112.2 - .4: a little over an hour and a half

• Transcribed 113.1 & .5: ~1.7 hours

• BWS Intermediate (B)

Questions for Contemplation & Discussion:

• Do setbacks frustrate you, or do you see them as a way of testing your mettle/problem solving skills/knowledge/etc...? For me, they tend to annoy me at the time they occur, but where would we be without setbacks, eh? They can be just as imperative for learning as other methods. Except migraines. Migraines can just fall down a hole to die.

• Of the blogs that I post, which appeal most to you? Deep dives or general overviews, a combination of the two, or something else entirely? Are there other topics you wish I would discuss more or areas where you'd value hearing my opinion?

This Week's Obligatory Cat Pic: Qiri

"Paw-ndering the ghosts I see."