Movies, Max MSP, and Martin
It’s been a couple weeks since I finished my series of blog posts on Solitudes (which now has its very own page where you can view the score and listen to a recording), so I feel it’s about time to give a little update on my life and composing!
I finished my Junior year of college today, which is a bizarre feeling! It seems only yesterday I was moving into my dorm and wandering the halls of the Fred Fox School of Music like a child who has lost their parent in a mall. This summer is going to be interesting; without school I fear the cabin fever of being in quarantine will only increase, so I’m trying to find ways to keep myself busy.
One such way is by subscribing to the Criterion Channel! Those who know me personally know that I am incredibly invested in film, and I have been a collector of the Criterion Collection’s wonderful blu-ray line for a little over a year now. Their streaming service offers a fantastic array of classic, international, and important cinema (I am not sponsored by them, sadly) and I have set myself up a watchlist (currently 87 films long!!) of films I have been meaning to watch for a long time. I’ve been trying to watch a lot of essential cinema lately, and some of the standouts I have watched recently have included A Brighter Summer Day, There Will Be Blood, Metropolis, and as much David Lynch as I can get my hands on!
Just one corner of my watchlist that is sure to keep me busy this summer!
Of course I have composition and clarinet projects that are keeping me busy. In addition to finishing my wind quintet which is 75% done, I have decided that this summer will finally be the time I learn to use Max MSP. Max is a software that I’m still trying to get my brain around, which enables the user to create patchers for numerous things, which in my case will be electroacoustic music! My goal for the summer (which might be ambitious as the learning curve is… so steep as to be almost vertical) is to write a short piece for clarinet and electronics that I can record myself. It’s an exciting adventure I’m embarking on, but I have to wrestle with the fact that the first project I do will probably… suck. I think I’ll have to do a couple smaller, incomplete pieces before I try to write a full-fledged work using the software.
This is what a Max patcher looks like. If you’re thinking “How the hell do you make music out of THAT?”… you’re not alone, because I made this with the help of a tutorial and I’m still at a loss for what it truly means. All I know is I can now make a timer and change the color of an object.
One other composition project I’d be interested in doing is a duet for myself and my roommate, who is a trumpet player. Again, something short, but after working on 3 fairly large projects in the past few months I would like to write some small-scale stuff that doesn’t take itself too seriously and that could actually be recorded by myself and my roommate.
Of course, I am also diligently working on my clarinet playing. I’m gearing up for my senior recital (which will hopefully take place in January), and have begun working on the final piece I have to learn: Theresa Martin’s fabulous unaccompanied work Gryphon. It’s an incredibly challenging piece, but it is exactly the kind of contemporary music I love playing. The rest of my program will include X by Scott McAllister, Andre Messager’s Solo de Concours, and Libby Larsen’s Black Birds, Red Hills, which I will be performing with two very close friends: pianist Brice Kimble and violist Corissa Knecht.
This section of Gryphon has been giving me hell… but it’s a remarkable piece of music.
It’s been a bizarre semester, and I’m sure the summer will be no less bizarre. Nevertheless, I’m going to keep composing, keep playing, and of course keep watching as many movies as I possibly can!