For the first time in my life I have written a piece of music the tempo of which is marked as 'Grave' (that's 40 bpm, very slow) so in a cunning play on words I thought I would find some shots of graves to put with it. This will be the second movement of my first String Quartet (If I finish the other movements that is)
My first 11 String Quartetettes - miniature String Quartets - are now released on Bandcamp. Further platforms to follow later in the month. I first started writing these when I bought a Windows tablet after my stroke in 2014, and installed an app called Staffpad on it, which lets you write music out longhand with a pen, recognises your writing (if you are careful) and renders it as printed notes. I thought the discipline of having to carefully write music so it could be recognised by the program would be good for the recovery of my right hand, which barely worked. Over the next few years I would write one out every now and again between other projects, then export it to my computer to finish it off, but as they are very short it has taken a while to build up enough of them to make it worth releasing them. When I have built up my stamina and patience, and also finished writing Digitiphonies, I hope to start writing full length Quartets, but we’ll see. They're just a bit of fun really.
Talk about a musical Long Haul. I am now halfway (14 minutes) through my Digitiphonic re-invention of Richard Strauss' Metamorphosen. I am not sure I would have attempted this if I had realised what I was taking on, but I don't regret it. How could I, with such an epic piece of music. My sheer terror of letting down this awesome composition, together with the thrill of discovering the depth of Strauss' notes and modulations, coupled with Goethe's timeless words (which RS was originally planning to use for this piece) have given me the momentum to keep going. Also the help given to me originally by Music Engraver Graham Hall, and then the sweet alto vocals of Claire Dunn and Mella Barnes. Without this support I may not have got very far into this 28 minute classic. It can all still go wrong – it has taken me about a year to get this far and it perhaps will be another year before I finish it.
I finally got around to releasing this unplugged studio solo vocal version of Light of the World, which someone suggested I release when I made the video, over two years ago. Better late than never - https://smarturl.it/MLD-LOTW-Unplugged
The orchestral score for my Symphonic Poem 'Kingley Vale' (beautifully engraved by master engraver Graham Hall) is now available online at Sheetmusicplus https://www.sheetmusicplus.com/title/22108247