breath dance done

 

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I did manage to finish a complete draft of “Breath Dance” yesterday. It took most of the day. As a precautionary measure as the piece unfolded I printed up a pdf of what I had done so far and uploaded it to my Google Drive. I didn’t want to lose it to a tech glitch of some sort after putting all this work into it.

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I had to cheat my church duties a little bit because by the time I got to the church to do my usual prep for Sunday I was exhausted. The main thing that I would have done differently if I had had more energy would have been to rehearse the prelude and postlude a bit more thoroughly.

 

My prelude was written by a fellow classmate at Notre Dame, Lynn Trapp.

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It’s based on “Pescador de hombres” (“You who came down to the seashore”).

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I’m not sure about the history of this song. I do know that the Roman Catholic version(s) are superior to the Episcopalian one. The music is all the same. It’s the words. Both the English version and the Spanish version differ in each case. It’s a pretty little sentimental melody and I admire Lynn for writing a piece on it. He pulls it off pretty well which confirms an impression I had of him that he liked all kinds of music, not just your basic classical music.

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The postlude is Buxtehude’s E minor Ciaccona. I love this piece. it will be the first time I have played it in public. I have both pieces pretty much in my fingers but would have felt better if I had had more practice yesterday.

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I inserted proofing and editing “Breath Dance” into my morning routine today (after doing dishes, making coffee, and doing Greek).  I have really pushed myself on this composition. Usually I let pieces ruminate over some time and find ways to improve them. This morning I looked carefully at the piece and noticed that I left a phrase out of the return of the A themes. I then decided it was better for its absence especially since it would add a bit more time and maybe wasn’t that strong an iteration of the theme. I think the performance time is going to be close to 3 minutes or a bit more.

I printed up my draft and sat and red penciled it. This afternoon I will put these edits into the doc on Finale, extract parts, print it all up and deliver it to Rhonda.

I don’t know what I think about it. At least I haven’t had that experience where you look at it the next day and hate it. Yet.

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Eileen comes home tomorrow evening after a long flight. I am looking forward to having her back (to say the least).

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