Music Box Lullaby
Following the inspiration sparked by last week's blog post, I decided on Friday (10.30) to revisit "Mother Nightmare's Lullaby"1 and re-compose the first section, adhering more strictly to the constraints of a 15-note music box instead of playing fast and loose with the rules in Dorico like I did for the version I composed for "Teyr'loch Delter Pach".
Thankfully, online music box editors exist for the very specific niche of people who want to create and punch out holes for a manual-crank music box, which makes staying within those limitations far, far easier. I could have cheated legally by going with the 30-note version, since it better represents Cael's music box anyway, but because I needed to brush the rust off my compositional skills, I wanted to follow stricter guidelines.
Funnily enough, I still have a good ear for composing horizontally, which was a strength here. Thinking about voice leading and creating interesting lines between the voices independently comes more naturally to me than thinking vertically in terms of chord structures, tonics moving to sub-dominants to dominants and every other bit of musical jargon in between.
The problem with my method on a device that plays all notes at equal volume is that, unless you already know the song, it can be difficult to discern which line is the main melody and which line is the countermelody, especially when the lower register and not the higher carries the melodic line.
The solution for untangling any potential befuddlement was easy though. I just positioned a portion of the main melody to play first, solo, which I actually did today (11.6) after considering the piece from an outside perspective.
If the narrative begins from Cael's "Awakening" instead of from the campaign, then the lullaby has a very real chance of being everyone's introduction to the story. I need to make sure that it is not only compelling enough to draw in "readers"2 and make them wonder what significance it holds but also simple enough for them to pick out any time I repeat the opening motif in the future. If the everyday person can't separate the melody from the countermelody at the story's debut, well then, forget about any significance it may hold later!
This lullaby, too, sets a better precedent toward the story's hopefully more unorthodox telling than a journal entry or letter ever could. The tricky part will be sprinkling in equally evocative ways of conveying the story throughout, but the transcripts should be able to help with that~
In the meantime, however, have a listen. I imported the MIDI into Dorico so I could export it as an MP3 using the Celesta's sounds.
Breaking the massive Skies Over Aefala narrative down into smaller Ultralearning chunks should also help me develop the skills I've been longing to learn for years. I just needed to find a starting point, and now that I have I can take it one scene, one skill, and one project at a time.
1Title still pending on that one.
2A term I use very, very loosely here.
Edit: For some reason the superscripted numbers don't format correctly in the post even though they render correctly in the editor. Also, the music player is a new addition to Wix's element system, and I'm not sure how to fix the buttons at the moment so you can read them properly. The leftmost one is play; the one to the right of the timestamp is the volume; the rightmost one is the options menu, which leads to speed reduction options.
Summary of Notable Accomplishments (10.28 - 11.3):
Prior to reworking the lullaby, I went down a rabbit hole researching different polymaths (and Mozart) and the biographies I could check out for them on Libby
Spoiler alert: not many....
That research led me to looking into music box limitations, which inevitably led to the above reworking of "Mother Nightmare's Lullaby"
Out of the entirety of the week, I spent maybe an hour and a half on the lullaby
Almost finished writing Cael's journal for the 22nd of Nudon. Once I finish the "How I'm feeling" section, I'll go back and edit
Transcribed part 1/4 for Session 151
Transcribing has taken a back seat to writing in the mornings
In the afternoons I would be transcribing more, but this past week, aside from Monday, hasn't made that possible
Tomorrow (11.7) and Sunday should be plenty enough time to transcribe the other 3
On book 4 of "Shogun"! Reading in the mornings before I begin writing has been a nice change of pace
It continues to surprise me just how well this practice has been pulling my focus together
Built With Science
Arms
Shoulders
Chest
Back
I really wish I had a leg press machine so I didn't have to do Bulgarian Split Squats on leg day anymore. I'm learning more and more that I greatly dislike full-body movements, which squats and lunges typically require. Let me just push heavy things with my legs instead of having to fight gravity with my whole body!
Wawfuls' delight
I mean that sarcastically, because when are chores or menial tasks ever a delight?
Real Talk:
I've often heard that the hardest part of any project is getting started. I've also heard that the hardest part of any project is finishing. I've experienced the latter especially. I'll get so close to finishing something I've started and then just...set it aside to collect dust. I'm better about it now than I used to be even a few short years ago. I suppose one of my questions is, which do you find more difficult and why?
To add onto the first statement, maybe the problem isn't finding the motivation to get started as the case is often suggested but knowing where or how to start that can be problematic. I have a lot of skills I want to learn. Finding time to learn those skills can be difficult but not impossible. What exacerbates my procrastination is whether or not I have a direction. A project. If I was just practicing music composition, for example, I'd keep putting it off like I did in college because it's not pertinent to the story. "Mother Nightmare's Lullaby," however, is integral to Cael's narrative, so since I need to learn how to compose what's in my head at some point, I might as well make that a project and focus on the skills I need to develop to make that vision a reality, eh? If you're struggling with something similar, maybe that's why.
This Week's Obligatory Cat Pic: Qiri
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