I had a graduate student help me with an interesting project. I have a lot of MIDI files on my old 1980s IBM-AT PC computer, including all the accompaniments for all my GALA cantatas (HIDDEN LEGACIES, LETTERS TO THE FUTURE, and FLASHPOINT/STONEWALL) as well as all my portable pieces (PORTABLE CONCERTO, SHASTA, MIRABEL, and GLAMOUR [...]
I was daydreaming about my family tree in terms of what composers I have studied with and who they studied with. Maybe someday when I have lots of time on my hands, I’ll draw an actual tree. Until then:
Through Les Thimmig, I am connected to his teacher, Mel Powell, who studied with Paul Hindemith.
Through William [...]
When I first started working at UCLA, I occasionally saw a man in the halls who looked a bit like Igor Stravinksy and a bit like Aaron Copland. It was Ted Norman, our guitar teacher.
His students were always on fire. Playing cutting edge stuff, difficult stuff, and always looking for new sounds on the guitar. [...]
I have taken the Myer-Briggs Type Indicator tests periodically throughout the past 15 years or so. (Daniel and I are both ENFJ’s) Without going into what it all means, the “E” stands for extroverted, as opposed to introverted. Over the years I’ve seen my numbers drift towards introversion. Most of my family are introverts. You’d [...]
UCLA has turned out a number of outstanding saxophonist-composers that have gone on to do well. The first was Dave Koz. Dave took my electronic music class back in the 1980s. He orchestrated one of the numbers from John Hall and Amy Wooley’s LUST AND GREED IN THE SHOPPING MALL performed by the UCLA Synthesizer [...]
After watching CALIGULA — a film that for years I had avoided watching for some reason — I discovered a wonderful composer of so-called spaghetti westerns, Bruno Nicolai. He collaborated with Ennio Morricone and Nino Rota in the Italian cinema universe. He has a modest website that was put up by Bill Reynolds. He scored [...]
The Fresh Prince Of Bel Air (Theme song in Italian) Uploaded by mrjyn
Composers get used to civilized and noncommittal responses that usually mean “I didn’t get/like it.”
Top of the list is: “Congratulations!”
Next is the seemingly interested by ultimately not “I thought it was INTERESTING.”
Both “interesting” and “congratulations” can actually mean what they mean, but the composer must learn to perceive TONE in order to know which one [...]
I am thinking about the word “moved” as in “I was ‘moved’ by her performance.”
This state of being “moved” is perhaps a self-induced sense of well being, often at the point of tears — being overwhelmed by an emotion, an emotion that if you give into it you will cry, and if you don’t, [...]
HOMER IN CYBERSPACE has finished its run. Since critics are discouraged from reviewing student events at UCLA Theater Department, I can’t offer you reviews. One rather rather grouchy and clueless review appeared in the Santa Monica Mirror online that sounded as though it was expecting a play and was annoyed to find it so cluttered [...]
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