Thursday 1 August 2013

Exercice de Style

I just finished arranging two Vietnamese songs for string quartet. Kiêt, who was my contact for the Thanh Giong project in Berlin asked me as a favour to score those two songs for him and three other players from the Berliner Symphoniker. There was to be a concert in Postdam and they wanted to put two Vietnamese songs in the program. 
One was fairly easy to score, but the other followed some typical local tone which was difficult to transpose for a Western instrument. I tried my best to respect the melodic line and harmonise the songs in a way that didn't alter them too much. 
But it was the occasion for me to use a music scoring software for the very first time. Until now, I had been very old school: music paper, a pencil and an eraser were what I would need (to my musicians' despair)
Now the musicians have the score. They should be rehearsing tomorrow for a concert in Postdam the following day. I have no clue what else they will play. I hope they'll make a recording. So far, I still hear those horrible midi string sounds in my head and that's beyond awful! I'm currently washing my ears clean with some Haydn's string quartets. 

I now want to write more for strings. I have told my cellist friend Emily I wanted to write a piece for her and her trio. Maybe now is the time...

But my next task will be to do the editing of To the Sun. Adrian kindly offered to help me. We shall start next week, when I receive the software (another one!) 
Welcome to the modern world!!!!




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