September 1 - Reviewing the Situation

Rex


Coeli



(King of Heaven) is the dictation and board harmony for the Theoreticians, featuring parallel, oblique, and contrary motion (finally figure out how to get the new computer working with the visual display in the classroom).



Paper grading follows at China Garden and 101, where Jazz and Pop Vocal Workshop is wrapping it up for the day.



The Music


History



class covers selections from the beginnings of Ethiopian Orthodoxy (c. 300) through Charlemagne (800), including a fair number of Gregorian chants and Islamic Middle Eastern pieces, with the listening for next week being



Gregorian Chant - Kyrie IV
Morocco - Lala Fatima
France - Bombardes et Binious (the album's first selection)

Doug, Owen, and I head out to Elephant Bar, which looks like it will be our substitute Left Bank, then decamp for home and a second orchestrated page of John and Salome: VI. "Ah, Marvellous."

March 5 - Rochambeau Roulette

The sky is falling. But meanwhile, this is evidently how we determine who's up for the weekly keyboard-solfege. After a very long session with Quiz 7 (excerpts from J.S. Bach, C.P.E. Bach, W.A. Mozart, and Franz Gruber), finally make it to the lab to record Saul! Saul!: XI. Make an Offer andXII. Infernal People (ringing true),



then home, past the devastatingly lonely Mothball Fleet and distant forlorn hills, to speed through the orchestration of S!S!: XIII., XIV., and 7 pages of XV. O fatal Day.

February 5 - A Tale of Two Schools of Thought

Another beautiful day in Northern California, sheets of rain glancing in through sunlight, big billowy-hostile clouds,



the sky in rainbows, shall we say, all to enhance the atmosphere as we take



Quiz 3 in Theory (this is the endgame of the line which forms passing off the performance exercises each week -- today D Dorian, D Minor, and E Phrygian; with a simplified C-Major Ludwig van Beethoven Symphony No. 9 "Ode to Joy" as keyboard-solfege).



Then it's off to Fry's to pick up a



digital projector for use at SF Cabaret Opera (libretti, other visuals) and



St. Mary's, where the classroom, wonderful as it is, would welcome the addition (will be bringing just about all that's needed:

Laptop
Ethernet, Visual, Audio Cables
Portable Stereo Speakers
Projector)



Fill out more forms required as part of the hiring process, take a brief trip in the gathering dark to the back part of the campus, where the road turns into a fire trail near the illumined cross on the hillock (picture from 2/4),



then home (Harriet at another Magic Flute rehearsal) to continue transferring files from desktop to laptop, and finish the orchestration of Saul! Saul!: I. (8 pages total) before collapsing.

January 15 - Smart Smokin' Start

It's Spring Semester '09 in Theory


with a new crew of 30 gifted students.


Just after class while doing late add codes, the power cord (as opposed to power chords in Week 3...) gives off a puff of smoke (open 5th's are, of course, smokin' too...), corroborated by Nick Dowdy (did you see that?). Googling for images, this is evidently not uncommon.


So it's off to the Apple Store in


Walnut Creek (the plug had been misbehaving the past few days by cutting in and out, powerwise), but first to the lab to record



Samson and Delilah (The Frank Judges), Op. 65: XII. Dan (The Levite's Idol), with its melting down of Camille Saint-Saens's S&D and Igor Stravinsky's Nightingale.



The Apple experience today means a 45-minute wait in a very active environment, dealing with four representatives -- the majority helpful -- who assure that the cord can be replaced on the spot, which turns out not the case, alas. So will have to return in several days, limping along in the meantime with the original run-over-with-the-piano cable, which, miraculously, still works, sans smoke....


From here, on a semi-whim, stop off at the Smart Car store for a test drive (have been thinking about this for months, in preparation for the drive to Wisconsin in May for Crystal's graduation), and with -- again, three out four helpful salespeople -- it's almost a done deal (concept, driveability, economy), save for a bait-and-switch price, aggressive manager (my take on the smarmy version is opening photo for January 14), no loaner-car program, and lack of space and spare tire (turns out I really do value having the room to cart around three file boxes and a compact bike). Rather a lot, really, and looks like all this is the cure for the Smart interest of late.



So, looks like a return to good old Novato Toyota (young ladies no doubt not included in the deal),


seriously exploring the 2009 Yaris option. Hmm, this blog is a freakin' car dealership today, so, on a more typical front, orchestrate the rest of The Creation, Op. 97: I. In the Beginning (page 3-8) and begin orchestration (first two pages) of



Babe Ruth, Op. 66: I. Prelude in the Night (Turn Back), an embrace of Maurice Ravel's Rapsodie Espagnole: 1. Prélude à la nuit (1907) and Stephen Schwartz's Godspell: Turn Back, O Man.