It was a bit of an arduous day, but I did manage to finish planning out The Kidnapping of Belmount story. There are eighteen “chapters” or “episodes” in all, though that could of course change. If each of these episodes translates into at least five minutes of music, then the entire musical will be at least 90 minutes long, which wouldn’t be bad at all for a first musical composed with no financial incentive!
I must finish composing my “Hour By Hour” orchestral piece first, though.
I’ve had quite a lot of homework lately, so haven’t had much time to do much else. However, I did think of a good ending to The Kidnapping of Belmount, so perhaps I can finish planning out that today.
Obviously my computer did not crash, so I’m somewhat happy about that…
I still have a bunch of homework that I must finish by tonight, so it probably won’t be an exciting day.
After classes today I spent a few hours working on my latest piece of music, currently called “Hour by Hour” … I am almost finished with it, perhaps only a few more hours of work are needed. I am quite pleased with it and I look forward to adding it to the site when it is finished and polished. I think if you count all the original melodies that are in it, this piece may indeed have the most. I’m not sure how long it will end up being… right now it’s about six minutes.
I got those classical music CDs in the mail today, so I’ll have to listen to those when I get the chance… woohoo! I also got the full score to Holst’s Planets! A very kind and giving member of the Northern Sound Source forum mailed it to me after a little contest he posted on the forum. This score is awesome! Holst’s orchestration is brilliant, I can’t wait to study it more. Within the coming months I hope to perhaps render a demo of Venus or Mercury with GPO. Wouldn’t that be nice?
Last week my computer almost crashed when Windows wouldn’t start up. I finally got it working again, and quickly saved my important files (30 GB worth) onto my iPod. Isn’t it awesome that an iPod can be used like that? Good thing I’ve got the 80 GB model… it would be awesome if they came out with 120 GB model… I’d have to buy it… maybe… then again, it would probably be too expensive.
Anyway, I’m going to shut down my computer tonight and keep my fingers crossed that it will boot again tomorrow without any scary flaws… otherwise I’ll be quite in trouble (unless of course I can fix it the same way I did last time). So… good luck to myself I suppose.
Until tomorrow (I hope) …
Whew, I did math homework (and sleep) almost all day!
Joshua Bell, the violinist, did a little experiment in a metro station in Washington, D.C., which I blogged about in the “Stuff I Found” blog, so I sort of did a little rant about its snobbishness.
I’ve been thinking of changing the main page of Wizard Walk to some sort of site map, so that instead of being thrust onto the first page you’d see a web of options on what I’ve got on my site, such as the blogs, the music pages, whatever. It might make everything more easy to navigate for newcomers… I really don’t want to confuse everyone with a big main blog and then all these links on side menus that people might not even notice. I’m just not sure how intuitive it all is. So… a site map on the first page might make things easier to see.
Forget the whole “until I doth blog again” … that’s just stupid. Let’s keep it simple.
Until tomorrow…
I’ve been planning out a story which I imagine being a musical… it’s called The Kidnapping of Belmount and the draft outline is about 60% complete. It is about a prisoner who is released from prison by a wizard who hires him to kidnap the princess.
I really need to get back to work on my novel though, The Game of Gynwig. I’ve been taking a nice long break on that, haven’t I? I can’t even remember what exactly is supposed to happen next, I’ll have to find my notes.
I’ve been putting some music videos on my YouTube channel. The whole notion of music visualization is quite suddenly captivating!
I finally did get my hands on Hofstadter’s new book, I Am A Strange Loop. I’ve only finished the first two chapters, but I’m considering starting another “Book Quote” blog because I keep making notes on interesting points I come across while reading that I’d like to comment on.
On the fiction side of things, I’m about 66% percent through Arthur C. Clarke’s Childhood’s End, a very thought provoking science fiction book, which is a great contrast to the pathetic horrible torture I endured while reading Time’s Eye, which he wrote with Stephen Baxter. Time’s Eye is quite possibly the worst book ever written and it made me fantasize about book burnings. Childhood’s End, however, is way on the other end of the spectrum… at least it is so far. The ending better be good… it’s one of those books in which many things depend on a well thought out ending.
On the music front, I’ve been listening to my library’s collection of Sondheim musicals, and tonight’s treat was Follies while I labored away on some Computer Science homework. It’s not a bad musical, but it’s not nearly as catchy as some of Sondheim’s other work, like Sweeney Todd and Into the Woods, but I do remember hearing some nice tracks, though there names are not yet ingrained in my memory. Next up, I’ll try listening to his musical called Passion. Then again, I am expecting some classical music I ordered from Amazon to arrive some time this week, so it may have to go on the backburner as I rock out with Mozart or whatever I ordered… they were having a sale, $3 a CD for some of them… one CD I ordered was Carmina Burana by good old Carl Orff… fantastic choirs in his music! I also ordered the infamous Symphonie Fantastique, which I remember enjoying but haven’t heard for a loooong time, and some French symphonic poems, including the infamous Sorcerer’s Apprentice! Woohoo! So I guess I have to give those a listen sometime.
Wow, I didn’t mean to blather so much. I think what I’ll do is try to blather on this blog daily, and then do a weekly briefing on the main page. Good idea, no?
Over and out. Should I keep saying that? Let’s try something else for this blog… how about: Later. Hmmmm… that’s overdone… how about: Until I doth blog again… ooh, that sounds nice, especially since it’s grammatically incorrect, isn’t it? Yeah, let’s use that…
Until I doth blog again…
Hope you don’t mind yet another blog… not many people read my blogs anyway, mostly just me.
Anyway, the point of this blog is for when I have a little thought or update that’s just not important enough for the main page. The “Stuff I Found” blog will be totally dedicated to links and videos I come across that seem interesting, while this blog is totally dedicated to my own blather about myself.
My hope is to update this blog at least once a day… let’s see how long that lasts. Well, obviously when I don’t have access to a computer it won’t happen, but otherwise I should be able to find at least one little stupid thing to say!
I can’t wait to blather!