Composing at Roots...

Trying out the Roots Cafe on 5th Avenue in Brooklyn right now.  There was a fussy child in here earlier with an excessively baby-talking mother and then another sort of spastic child who was taken to running in circles for no apparent reason.  The fussy child and squeaky sounding mother left and the spastic child has since calmed down.  And she is actually kind of cute.  The music playing over the stereo system has even been turned down so most of the distraction has abated.  So, perhaps I will be able to work here after all.  Besides, I really like the atmosphere at this place. Leaning on the wall next to my table is the sound board from a grand piano.  And there are all kinds of neat pieces of art and old musical instruments laying around.

That said, I'm editing the score for the piano piece at the moment.  I was tweaking a few of the chords here and there and trying out some things but now I've resigned myself to adjusting the layout and cleaning up the look of it ahead of time on the pages I know I'm done with.  Tania and I should be rehearsing Moon, Tides, Cycles next week sometime for the concert on the 3rd at Waltz Astoria.  Hopefully by then I'll be able to show her the score to this new one.  She's seen the piano sketch version from 3 years ago but this one is much longer now and there are some logistical nightmares in our future.

First, I can't freakin' decide what the nature of the electronic part should be.  First I wanted to sample the piano live, then I wanted to record her at rehearsal and cut and process samples from the recording to create some textural stuff for the middle section.  Now, I'm thinking about looping her and having her layer new parts on top of it while I process the sounds that I'm recording.   Or, some mix of all of the above.  So the logistical nightmare is really on my side.  But I want to do something really innovative with this piece…while at the same time trying not to let the material suffer.  Like I don't want to just write any old crap to do this with.

I will say that I'm liking the way the middle section of the piece is coming along.  It's funny.  When I left this sketch alone about 2 years ago, I felt it was done and I couldn't write any more.  It was probably a mix of being tired of working on it and really feeling like the statement the end of the piece made was enough.  Like there was nothing more to be said.  Then I just played what sounded like the next chord and this new part was birthed.

Anyhow, I'm having fun fleshing out these ideas but I have to know when to stop.  But I'm not sure that particular eureka moment is going to come to me while sitting in this coffee shop.  So, I'd probably better go.  I'm also going to a concert tonight at Brooklyn Bowl.  Mike Doughty, the lead singer to the band Soul Coughing is playing.  So psyched.  So at some point I need to go and get ready for that.