Daniel Powers

Archive for July, 2009

My second (and so far, last) venture into film scoring was for another contest, this one sponsored by CGEmpire. (Here’s the contest page.) For this one, an animated short was supplied by Ilias Sounas. This time I did better, coming in third in the voting.

My score was recorded using a harp and glass harmonica from Vienna Instruments, along with a bit of Absynth and maybe one or two other things I’ve forgotten.

Alone In Space

My first attempt at writing for film was for a 2007 contest sponsored by Sounds Online. (I’d post a link to the contest but it seems to have been taken down.) A short animated film by Zennor Alexander was provided, and the object of the contest was to write a score using only libraries sold by Sounds Online.

My score was created using EastWest Symphonic Orchestra and Symphonic Choirs, with a tiny bit of Percussive Adventures 1 (now discontinued).

The title, The World From Chaos Rose, is taken from a Christmas Carol, and is completely inappropriate. I just thought it sounded cool.

I didn’t even come close to winning the contest. Here’s the video, so you can see why.

The World From Chaos Rose

My birthday was actually yesterday, nearly coinciding with my planned mid-month update.

There’s been considerable progress on the Trio in the past few days. In my last update I referred to deleting and attempting to rewrite a passage of seveal bars. Well, I pushed my way through them, but they still aren’t good. So I decided to leave them for now and maybe come back to them later.

Since making that decision, I’ve actually gotten a large amount done. The section I’ve been working on for the past several days is mainly a recapitulation of a passage from earlier in the piece. So I just copied the entire passage and pasted it in (which is something I usually advise my students not to do!), and now I’m working on introducing some variation into the recapitulation. After that, it will just be a matter of figuring out how to end the movement.

The trio is still my top priority, but I have many other projects that need attention. I have a season’s worth of program notes to write for both the Terre Haute and Carmel Symphony Orchestras, which I’ll go do as soon as I finish blogging! I’ve also been wanting to make some changes to the Scoring textbook, so I need to find time for that pretty soon, as Summer break won’t last forever (much as I wish it could!).

Let’s see, what else? I got Strings In The Earth And Air out from the bottom of the pile and worked on it for a little bit yesterday. Seems like months since I looked at it last. Oddly, I had thought it was much farther along than it is. Turns out there’s a lot more to do on it than I thought. But it must remain a low priority for now.

A few projects are in the wings, namely a set of arrangements for Cameron Carpenter and the Carmel Symphony, and Sylvia McNair with the Columbus Indiana Philharmonic. Still waiting to find out exactly what I need to do, but will have to begin as soon as I find out.

Finally, a new MIDI project. An acquaintance of mine who’s a massage therapist has been bugging me to write some relaxation-type music, and for some reason I find the idea interesting. I recorded a piece recently (will upload it here soon), and have some ideas for others. I still don’t know if this will go anywhere, and anyway it has to be a low priority for now.

The Nomine Saxophone Quartet, a student group at ISU, is in Bangkok this week attending the World Saxophone Congress, where they will be presenting the Asian premiere of my quartet Between Spring and Summer. Kurt Baer, the soprano saxophonist, is keeping a blog of the trip.

The Concerto Project was born of desperation, frustration, or both.

The purpose of the project is to create a MIDI mockup of my Second Piano Concerto, using virtual instruments. I would not even consider a demanding project like this, were it not for the fact that the single performance of the concerto was not recorded. The people contracted to record the concert reported that their equipment broke down (a claim I’m inclined to doubt).

Since I’m very proud of the Concerto (OK, I’ll admit it, I think it’s the best thing I’ve written to date!), and since Martha performed it so beautifully, I wanted to document it in some form. The plan was for Martha to record the solo part as a MIDI file, then for me to realize the orchestral parts using my ever-expanding collection of sampled virtual instruments.

Martha recorded the solo part at the old Sweetwater Sound studios in August 2005, on a Yamaha MIDI grand piano. I took the MIDI file home and inserted it into a Sonar project. After several experimental tries, in which I tried out various combinations of libraries, I started over from scratch.

For a while, it went pretty quickly, but kind of stalled out for a while. I didn’t touch it for several months. I think I may have been starting to get overwhelmed by the sheer enormity of the project, to say nothing of the audacity of believing that virtual instrumentation could take the place of real instruments.

Also, I just wasn’t satisfied with the realization. I have heard some recordings for virtual orchestra which actually sound quite good, and my own efforts didn’t come close. I think I got the idea that if I waited until I had some better recording skills, the resulting increase in quality would be worth the wait.

But recently my thinking has changed again. It seems to me now that there will always be an excuse to put it off, either because of a new library that comes out, or a new skill to learn. If I put it off until everything’s ready, it’ll never get done.

So, for better or worse, I’m back to work on it. I’m determined to finish it even if the quality is less than optimal, because of my lack of skill or equipment. Right now I’ll be happy just to have something that people can listen to and get a sense of the piece. Perhaps in the process I can gain something of the skills I need.

Last night I posted the first section of the first movement, as it currently stands. This section, just over 6 minutes long, constitiutes the exposition of a sonata-form movement. My plan is to realize and post the piece a section at a time, then post the complete movement as a single file when it’s ready.

I’ll have more to say about the concerto later, and I plan to talk about software, virtual instruments, and equipment I’m using (I know you’re all interested in that stuff!). All this will appear in the (hopefully) near future. Thanks for listening.

What I call “The Concerto Project” is actually my attempt to realize my Second Piano Concerto using virtual instruments. It has been on hold for a long time, but I have just uploaded the exposition of the first movement.

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Martha’s performance was recorded as a MIDI file at Sweetwater Sound (we actually recorded it at their old studio, but the link goes to their new studio). I have been adding orchestra parts using a mixture of various sample libraries.

I’m too tired right now. I’ll have to update this post later.

Trio for clarinet, bassoon, and piano continues to be my main project. It’s still proceeding maddeningly slowly, for reasons I can’t figure out. It’s actually turning out quite well, but it’s a struggle. My main accomplishment in the last few days has been to delete several bars and attempt to rewrite them. Today I finally made some progress.

I had hoped to have the first movement complete by now, but I’m only about halfway through.

Some other things are going but are a lower priority. I have a few little MIDI pieces done, for a possible CD project, but it hasn’t really taken shape yet. The whole idea is still pretty amorphous, so I probably can’t say anything about it just now.

Other projects have been of a non-compositional character. I am putting the final touches on Cloudscapes and am getting it ready to go to print. And am gathering material for program notes for the Terre Haute Symphony and Carmel Symphony.