2sday

Today is a much nicer day in Brunswick, ME. The sun is out, it's a perfect 71°F, and lots of work has already been accomplished.

After working through most of the morning I took off for my newly adopted 11:30 gym routine. The gym, at least one of them, keeps odd, spaced hours here. 11:30 is an opening time (goes until 2:30, I think...) and so the treadmills are totally free. I even have my own adopted machine...

Lunch was nice, but breif (I have been perpetually hungry these past few days) and I made some pasta salad for later... hopefully that staves off some of the hunger this evening.

Working this afternoon I tried something new. I was speaking with Harold a few months ago, when he was writing his song cycle, Beautiful Ohio for the NY Festival of Song. He said to me, after having recited a number of the poems he was setting, "Don't you find that you have to memorize the poems before you start setting them?" I replied, "No," at the time, but thought that something like that might benefit me in the songs I am working on now. It's a set of 6 for Soprano (or Mezzo) and Guitar. I have been a bit paranoid about the way that the songs should weave together - I feel like the message of the set should shine through the music...

So, I wrote all of the poems out on separate pieces of paper and began to draw.

I looked for similar words, the same word that carried different meanings in different passages, important rhymes, rhythms, cadences, etc. Through all of this, I gleaned not only a better insight into the text, but a more secure (and hopefully productive) plan about how to go about getting to the double-bar.

It's always fun to try something new, especially when it feels like the strategy supports your saying whatever you want to say, rather than moving your style in a direction in which you are uncomfortable going.

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First lesson's at 4... brought a lot of music. We'll see if Claude Baker takes a shine to my music.