My publishing company, Yelton Rhodes Music, publishes several choral works that use the folowing poem, a poem we all had thought was written by someone called Mary Frye. We knew nothing of her, what her dates were or anything else.
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Do not stand at my grave and weep
For I am not there I do not sleep
I […]
A new device called the Monome features an 8 X 8 matrix of buttons. It reminds me of the analog sequencer modules from the early days of Moog where one can get a maximum of eight notes on one grid. It would repeat over and over (remember Donna Summer’s “I Feel Love”?) like a loop. […]
I am a somewhat regular member of the Rufus Wainwright Message Board, hosted by Dreamworks. This group has been a tremendous help to me in researching my book. I’d like to share a few recents posts.
One of the strings I posted was “Does Rufus read music?” I asked because of the thousands of pictures I’ve […]
Here is an 80s group from Finland called Armi and Danny. Living in a multi-national city like LA, one rarely hears criticisms like “too white” but this number is too damned white, even for my white ass tastes.
Armi and Danny
My father, ready to buy a stationary bicycle, wrote me to ask Teresina’s advice on what kind of bicycle to buy. Here is her response (I’ve kept her e e cummings punctuation and poetic lineation).
Dear Roger’s Dad,
I prefer a good sturdy upright bike.
however, you have to work harder to support
the upper body.
the recumbent bike makes […]
Daniel and I love to celebrate. We celebrate our first meeting, our first date, our first conjugal embrace, and the date we moved in together. Not having a marriage option we don’t have a wedding anniversary and we don’t celebrate the day we signed our domestic partner papers. I celebrate getting a commission to write […]
I spent much of today digitizing old cassette tapes of improvisations I made between 1974 and 1976. I’m not exactly sure why, I don’t want them released commerciallly as they have no commercial interest. I guess I’ll leave them with my musical sketches.
I am amazed at the energy of a 30 year younger version of […]
Page 8 from the sketches for “Hebzibah” by Roger Bourland
People often ask composers: “What comes first? The melody or the words?” For me, the words always come first. Many lyricists enjoy writing to an existing tune, many hate it. For this teeny “opera” or maybe I’ll call it a chamber opera (3 voices, violin, cello, […]
Photo by Roger Bourland
Ride 4 Your Life! is a program that developed in my life as a result of overcoming chronic fatigue, self-deprecation, an injured knee, and ultimately, fear of becoming FAT. It became a way of life, a day-to-day application of putting my efforts where they would get me the best results, physically […]
Photo by Roger Bourland
My partner, Daniel Shiplacoff, tells all of his friends and clients: BACK UP YOUR COMPUTER! Last weekend, he decided to back up a hard drive, one that he had not backed up for quite some time. It failed the next day. Daniel’s maxim is that ALL HARD DRIVES WILL FAIL, IT’S ONLY […]
When I’m either pregnant with a new piece of music, or actually composing, I don’t listen to other music. Instead, I listen to rain, and thunder. I have hours and hours of it on my computer. I have several friends who hate rain and actuallly get quite depressed when it rains. Not me. I love […]
You asked for him: he’s back, Shooby Taylor, the human horn.
Some years back, Rick Goetz and Irwin Chusid put together a website devoted to Shooby in hopes of finding out as much as they could about him. Even though they thought he had died, they called every William Taylor in the five burroughs in hopes […]
1st Art Gallery has a novel idea: gather a studio of talented painter and sell fake paintings. But why stop there? Morph your true love into the face of Mona Lisa. Now THAT would be a unique present!
Taken literally, “vacation” means to vacate, presumably one’s home or city or country, in search of some kind of rejeuvenation and rest. Now vacation can mean sitting on your ass for two weeks watching TV, or travelling, or doing house renovations, or putting your old stamp collection in order, or going skiing, or going camping, […]
I had the great fortune and joy to know and work with poet James Merrill. I was hired to provide a soundscape for his theatrical abridged version of “The Changing Light at Sandover.” Peter, James, and crew toured with this sit-on-a-stool-and-read show called “Voices from Sandover.” It was pure electronic; pretty, ghostly, ethereal, bat wings […]
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