fare, posts by tag: composition - LiveJournal

In a previous life, Lucía sang me a few notes of a lullaby, that she remembered her daddy sang to her when she was a kid, to the non-sensical words "Rocky, Sabaki". I hadn't heard such a song before, but I promptly completed those five notes into a complete melody, that to me sounds as a most obvious continuation. Later, she would tell me what her dad had been singing to her really was that lullaby everyone knows and every baby machine annoyingly plays, which I identified as Brahm's lullaby, also known in English as "Lullaby and Goodnight". Therefore, from these misremembered notes, I had made a melody of my own. As I finally have a daughter of my own to sing it to, I wrote words of my own to this melody. And out of the rhymes that I originally rejected from the song, I could not resist writing a second stanza. Note that I often sing "Véra, my Véra" instead of "Rocky, Sabaki". Obviously YMMV.

As usual, you may download a PDF, the Lilypond source, or an autogenerated midi file, as well as this a cappella rendering: Rocky, Sabaki, take 2 (Ogg Vorbis).

Update 2014-10-13: Now that I realized that it's easier to learn the guitar than to find a guitarist to accompany me, I've modified the score so it shows actual guitar chords instead of chord names. I can also imagine an accompaniment with a harp, with sixteenth notes that descend the chords; but I'm not likely to ever be able to debug it, so I'll pass trying to write down a necessarily buggy version — though maybe I could recycle it as a piano's left hand part. Hopefully, at some point I'll get good enough at guitar to record a semi-decent interpretation.

Update 2014-11-25: As my fumbling at the guitar improved, I've updated the score to use 4-finger chords instead of 3-finger chords. This way, it's an improved song that I'm failing to play adequately!

At PorcFest 2011, people offered to accompany me on the guitar as I sang the "And a Pony" song. As a benefit, here is the score with chords.

You may download and print the PDF or get the Lilypond source. You can listen to a generated MIDI file, or you can go get the previously recorded MP3 (a cappella). Next I want someone to record it with me. And a Pony!

PS: wish granted. Here's a video from PorcFest 2011. We'll do even better next year.

NB: en Français, "Et un Poulain" se chante la4 sol4 mi4 sol4 au lieu de la4 sol4 la4 sol4: PDF, Lilypond, MIDI.

In Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand tells us of a composer named Halley, whose Fifth Piano Concerto she describes thus:

It was a symphony of triumph. The notes flowed up, they spoke of rising and they were the rising itself, they were the essence and the form of upward motion, they seemed to embody every human act and thought that had ascent as its motive. It was a sunburst of sound, breaking out of hiding and spreading open. It had the freedom of release and the tension of purpose. It swept space clean, and left nothing but the joy of an unobstructed effort. Only a faint echo within the sounds spoke of that from which the music had escaped, but spoke in laughing astonishment at the discovery that there was no ugliness or pain, and there never had had to be. It was the song of an immense deliverance.

As I was reading the novel, back in the Summer of 2001, this description inspired me the theme below, to be played by various brass instruments as the opening for a Piano Concerto. As usual, you may read of print the PDF, view or edit the Lilypond source or listen to a nuance-less generated MIDI file.

NB: There is a lot of buzz around the upcoming movie Atlas Shrugged: Part I. The preview I saw had good elements and not so good; all in all, it looked like a B+ movie, though considering what takes place of an A movie these days, it might still do better than some, which is not bad especially considering the cut rate production they had to do with. Moreover, by having elements of both B movies and A movies, it might be true to the original, which can be both great beyond anything else at its best, and a bit lacking in some respect. Many people who saw the movie actually liked it. I reserve my judgment for when I see it.

Having tried something as simple as translating a song from one language to the other, I can tell why it's rare that a monument of literature is satisfactorily adapted to a different medium: because it's damn hard. That the original be imperfect is actually good in that it gives more leeway for the adaptation to improve in some ways, as much as it necessarily has to sacrifice in other ways, or possibly even more, as compared to an overly perfect original all the subtle constraints of which you couldn't transpose. We'll see.

To celebrate my new toy, a Yamaha YPG-635, I composed this short one-minute piece, which started as an improvisation of chords, now the left hand part, while ignoring the friends I had invited over for dinner. As for the title, I found "minute left" appropriate for this relentless march to a certain ending. Enjoy!

You may download and print the PDF or get the Lilypond source. Of course, you can listen to a generated MIDI file, but I don't know how to get it to sport the right nuances. A human interpretation would be great... does anyone of you know a pianist who would create this short piece?

Update: piqueselio put a good version on youtube which has a very good treatment of nuances, but which doesn't play the first sentence and the ending as I imagined them.