I'm trying to decipher the notes I've made for a piece called "Fingerpaint" which I started in late 2004 or early 2005. At the time I had basically had the piece written in my head; I just needed to work out the details and write it down. That's a fairly labor-intensive process, and I was distracted by a number of other things, so I put it off. Eventually it got to the point where I didn't remember anything that I didn't have down in my notes. And there it sat for two years. Now I'm trying to figure it out so I can finally write the damn thing.
I have 4 things:
1. The finished first movement (I'm very lucky I have this, as I can compare it to the corresponding notes to see what most of my shorthand meant, not to mention see how the piece was going to work.)
2. Four brief passages of music, titled "Blue," "Green," "Yellow" and "Red." These are a sort of set of "themes" - the material off of which all the material in the piece is based.
3. A list of subheadings (the piece is extremely programmatic, and every few measures there is a descriptive note in the score). I'm extremely lucky once again that the piece works that way, as I can use this list to reconstruct almost the entire piece (except for the items which I don't remember/understand, which I'll simply have to re-write fresh.)
4. My memory. Anyone who knows me can guess that this is fairly worthless. What I've written above is most of everything I remember.
Here's the aforementioned list of subheadings:
- blue [this is in a double box - don't really know why]
- b. lines (3-4) ["blue lines" in the score. The numbers in parentheses correspond to the number of measures that section lasts]
- b. print (1) ["blue thumb print" in the score]
- clean f. ["clean fingers" in the score. And that ends movement 1]
- green [in a double box]
- slow, curvy line
- heavy, short line
- mix blue + green [this is in a box]
- blue-green [boxed]
- clean f.
- yellow [double-boxed]
- 3-finger print (?) [I assume the "?" means I didn't know how many measures it would be, but that doesn't make a lot of sense since most sections don't have a parenthetical number.]
- quick line (1-2)
- mix yellow + green [boxed]
- yellow-green [boxed]
- mix yellow-green w/ blue-green [boxed]
- (mixture)
- clean f.
- dab of yellow
- dab of blue
- mix yellow + blue [boxed]
- yellow-blue (not green) [boxed]
- clean f.
- red [double-boxed]
- dab of blue
- mix red and blue [boxed]
- purple [boxed. Presumably the red-blue mixture.]
- clean f.
- a color on each finger
- led to mess [bracketed. I have no idea what this means, whatsoever, but it seems to be crucial.]
- something on the wall
- bit of low w/ pauses [presumably not an actual heading, just a note to self (?)]
- paint the walls
I really like this piece (obviously - otherwise I wouldn't be going to this trouble). It's sort of like a 4-themed "Theme & Variations," except the variations are ridiculously simple, almost the sort of things you could get by remixing a recording of the theme(s). The movement that was written down pushes the "blue" music around the way fingers push fingerpaint around. As I recall, I played with actual finger paint to research this.
[update:] Notably absent from that list of things I have is an original pen-on-paper copy of the finished movement. I write at the piano, on paper, and probably wouldn't throw that paper away at least until I was completely done with the piece. But the only music I have is a finished, printed copy. This leads me to believe that I wasn't exaggerating much when I said I had the piece written in my head. Very unusual for me.
Monday, December 3, 2007
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1 comment:
Relevant slashdot news story?
This is fun to read about, thanks dan!!
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