the legend of the trojan bird

So. This is the title for my ayo piece for new york. Don't ask me about the legend, I haven't made it up yet, but I though it had a certain mystery to it.

I am hoping to get an illustration to go with it.

Tonight the blackbirds played at this nice restaurant in town for a marriage proposal. She said yes! which is good, and we arranged a song by John Mayer. Anyway anyway that's not the point. The point was, we were seated in a private room adjacent to the couple's room, both rooms of which are like japanese zen gardens. They have dark coloured walls, an eating pit seating arrangment, soft woven japanese mats, and one of the rooms is surrounded by water with goldfish about a foot deep. I was dead scared I was going to fall or drop my cello into the water as I was right on the edge. Down one dark stone wall was a constant stream of water, a few shiny bits of granite with the metallic light blue shimmer were imbedded into the flat rock which looked cool.

Anyway my point is, It would make a nice set up for a compositional studio. How peaceful and meditational.. with the fish and all.. or a good room to record in even. No idea what water does for accoustics, but the fish don't make much noise.

First rehearsal of the trojan bird tomorrow night. Not sure if we have a harpist yet but I hope so. will sound pretty weird without it. Also need some crotales which the university are being anal about letting us borrow. They can't be that expensive or hard to come by, there's a heap of internet sites selling them for less than $1500.. hmph..anyway, maybe the good old APo will help us out.

One day, I hope i'll be able to complete a composition without doing 'night shifts' to get it done on time.. It's way too hard to compose through the night when your body's going "sleep sleep sleep now now now."

Now i've finished the piece I'm thinking about new york more. It's not long now.. I'm hoping I'm not going to miss nz too much because I'll be too busy.. perhaps i'll do some work there for NZ people too.

Was contacted last week by someone asking Nz composers for submissions for a new album of children's piano pieces, so will write a few next year if her funding comes through. Should do as she's done the first volume already.

I bought this massive orchestration book, Samuel adler. Despite this being the set textbook for my entire uni degree, I never purchased it. So when I coughed up the $90 a few months ago (I thought, what the heck it's a business expense..) I expected a lot from it. However I am finding it's knowledge is pretty basic and when I flip through with an urgent question about..say glissando ranges on the trombone.. I don't have any answers. I guess when it's covering every orchestral instrument it's knowledge has got to be pretty light.

Ok I fear this post has got a bit too rambly so off I go!

C