October 18 - Sing We and Record It

Psalm 33 page 4 edited before proceeding to DVC for a catch-up with YouTube videos of Giuseppe Verdi's Rigoletto: Quartet, Georges Bizet's Carmen: Habanera, and Igor Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring: Tableau I (the Walt Disney Fantasia take) -- followed by the first of a two-part dictation / board harmony on Kurt Weill's Threepenny Opera: Ballad of Mac the Knife and Aaron Hoffman's



impressive second composition. Back home, after



paperwork for last Thursday's Day of Substitution, to embed videos on the Music History blog from Franz Schubert to Scott Joplin, and eventually do visuals for



Deploration Passacaglias: XVII. Schoenberg and




XVIII. Ravel.

October 4 - Fresh Chances

Atmospheric conditions within the Music Building require a mise-en-scene en plein air, so we do the Frederic Chopin (how appropriate) E Minor Prelude dictation in the brisk al fresco, changing cultures as we go, and sing and "mind's eye" our way through classwork including 7th chords, the C chromatic and F natural and harmonic minor scales -- and it seems like a



good time is had by all.



Before this, begin editing Psalm 31 -- setting Wagnerian



fire to Josquin des Pres's In Te Domine Sparavi (text said to have been Savaranola's favorite, recalling Robert Ashley's lines about Giordano Bruno: "I think they burned him... He was too... positive.") -- and



appropriately proceeding through



similar (almost Mt. Sinai-esian) conditions to



Diablo. After, record both parts of Psalm



30 in the lab



then return over the

Benicia



Bridge



beyond



the



Sulfur Springs for



supplies



in the



sunset, more Job: A Masque video editing



(I. "What You Been Doing?" and



IV. "Curse God and Die"), and additional embedding of Baroque videos for tomorrow evening's class.

May 27 - Final Finale Finally

The second day of the Theory exam evolves into the concert-party, with amazing student compositions including recordings by Eddie, Brandon, Kevin (the former and latter quixotically attired), Chris, and Tod, and live performances by



Jorge,



Bev,



Elena, William



Matthew,




Julie,



Manuela, Christo,



Daniel,



David, Adam,



Carla,


Meghan, and


Amelia with listenng support from Shane, Mike, and Marvin, plus a mass-performance of San Fernando Hub: Fresno. Excellent performances from an excellent group that shall be keenly missed.



Bit of touch-up work in the lab, and return to compose pages 11-12 of Vespers: X. Psalm 147.

May 19 - Singing for Our Superlatives

Sight-singing, Christo-Salvaides-style, with our walking-challenged (witness the temporary crutches) composer-presenter having the Theoreticians divided (from right to left above and below) into Soprano, Alto,



Tenor, and Bass sections. A good time is had by all, and also in Jorge del Castillo's syncopated dication, and William Jennings's



board harmony, where, somehow the professor is iconically crocollianly devored (keyboard-style, backbeat harmonization is sanctioned, however, up until the lamentably not-noticed-at-the-time parallelism of measures 7-8). Note the crocodile eyes, somewhat reminiscent of Pablo Picasso or, perhaps more remotely, Henri Rousseau -- neither of whom seemed to have reptillianly rendered same, so works attributed to the



Mughal artist



Miskin



will have to suffice.



Marathon session of keyboard-solfege quiz work thereafter, followed by late lunch grading Theory papers at La Pinata and



returning to the DVC Lab to compose a fourth page of Vespers: IX. Audi Coelum (Part 2) (a third was composed in the morning, as well as 13 orchestrated for The Creation: IV) then recording the complete version of

Vespers:

VIII. Nisi Dominus and



IX. Audi Coelum-Part I



plus the beginning of

Part II.



The home trip is in the halflight of Martinez,



the Port Costa Hills, Carquinez Strait, and



Sulfur Springs Mountains to write three more pages of Audi Coelum - Part II, beginning a second section utilizing an A Whole-Tone/Mixolydian Scale of A B C# D# E# F# G A.