Monthly Archives: December 2010

2010 through the eyes of a blog

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It is December 31 and I just wondered “what exactly has happened this year?”

So through the eyes of this blog, let’s have a look. We’ll start with January and the tail end of our South America trip, along with the workshopping and recording of my music in Brazil.

January 4th Leg Four – Argentina to Paraguay to Brazil
January 11th Leg Five – Rio de Janeiro to Paraty to Auckland
January 12th A day with Sphaera

After spending too many hours hunting down good repertoire for my school orchestras, in February I explored the efforts of conducting. I also set up my newsletter with MailChimp.

February 20th Conducting – 90% perspiration, 10% exhilaration
February 26th Automating the monthly issue

It was a plentiful month of posts in March, many on great discoveries I recently made but also highlighted a new piece, Picture for Emily, for my niece.

March 14th Sibelius First – if you’re so inclined
March 15th Moana Ataahua programme launched
March 16th Picture for Emily – aiming for the small market
March 16th Scoring Avatar
March 18th My indispensables
March 19th If Lake Taupo was a piece of music, what would it sound like?

In April it was all about preparing Moana Ataahua for its massive premiere at the ERUPT Lake Taupo Festival.

April 24th Moana Ataahua set to ERUPT in May (article from SOUNZ)
April 28th Moana Ataahua, the rehearsals begin

I explored digital music stands in May, how they compare and how I wanted one. Do I still want one now? That is another post!

May 15th Digital music stands, hook me up – Music Pad, Music Reader, eStand

I summed up the Moana Ataahua premiere in June and did a very popular post on music apps for your iOS devices.

June 1st Moana Ataahua, the premiere
June 2nd iPhone/iPod Touch/iPad apps for the music professional

It was great to see plenty of music getting performed through July.

July 12th Wild Daisies premiere
July 18th Breathe In, Breathe Out – a concert of overtures and finales
July 27th SoundCloud, move your music
July 29th Three pieces performed by Brazil’s Sphaera Ensemble

The Auckland schools orchestra festival happened in August, so did some pondering on music theory.

August 27th Sounds great! I want it, I want it now
August 30th KBB Music Festival 2010, thumbs up
August 31st Music theory, do we need it or not?

Spent a fantastic few days in Wellington in September recording Rakaia with the NZSO. Also, Rhian Sheehan’s amazing score for The Cult, which I helped out with, won best score!

September 9th More iPhone/iPod Touch/iPad apps for the music professional
September 20th The Cult wins at Qantas Film and Television Awards
September 23rd NZSO/SOUNZ Readings 2010

In November I did a three part post looking at music printing, engravers, copyists and how things are changing. I also hooked up Sibelius users with some great resources!

November 29th So, you’re a Sibelius user?
November 30th Music printing, a journey for engravers (part 1 of 3)
November 30th Music copying and confusion (part 2 of 3)
November 30th Changing times for music preparers (part 3 of 3)

As you would expect, I got festive in December but also looked at a new feature for sounz.org.nz.

December 7th A Christmas wish list for composer-musicians
December 24th SOUNZ moves forward, again
December 24th Merry Christmas and very best wishes for the New Year

Happy New Year everyone!!

Merry Christmas and very best wishes for the New Year

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A huge thanks to everyone who has supported anything to do with my music this year, people who came to concerts, those I have worked for and worked with, the many who have left such positive feedback on Twitter, SoundCloud and Facebook, readers of this blog and everyone else – it has been a fantastic year. I hope it has been the same for you and that things are heating up for another great one next year.

20101224 Christmas

I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas with your family. Make sure you put your feet up, relax, eat lots of food (don’t feel guilty) and enjoy everything this season has to offer.

SOUNZ moves forward, again

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SOUNZ, the Centre for New Zealand Music, has a fantastic new addition to their website - www.sounz.org.nz. Until now you have had three ways to explore New Zealand music – via browsing the music, the people or the events. Now, with thanks to NZ On Air, you can actually experience it.

This is a great new addition, here is why. No matter how amazing a piece of new New Zealand music is, people always seem to be cautious about grabbing hold of it and giving it a life. Looking at a sample score often doesn’t allow you to imagine it, reading about it or hearing from somebody else that it is a great piece doesn’t help either. To give you confidence you really need to have experienced the music yourself.

With this new addition you can do exactly that, view videos and experience the music – see the mallets moving, see the staging, feel the atmosphere and be introduced to new music in comfort. Chris Watson, a New Zealand composer, knocks it on the head by saying:

“I think moving pictures are, short of getting bums on seats in concert halls, the most effective way of communicating contemporary composition – and the YouTube/Vimeo paradigm provides an international, 24/7 audience.”

Of course composers with their own websites have been implementing video for some time, but for New Zealand music to have a central resource where you can put your feet up and experience the music is fantastic.

This new addition is aligned with two other projects: digitisation of audio held by Radio New Zealand Concert – a joint project between the Alexander Turnbull Library, Radio New Zealand and SOUNZ. And Resound, which is reactivating recording licences and auditioning them to get them on to Radio New Zealand Concert and making them available online such as on the SOUNZ website. Excellent!

So, go experience.

A Christmas wish list for composer-musicians

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It is that time of the year again and your family and friends are most probably asking for ideas of what to get you for Christmas.

Here are my top ideas for all composer-musicians:

SoundCloud gift voucher – SoundCloud is one of the most valuable online resources for composers and musicians. To really unleash its power you need to go premium and even better, get someone to gift you a subscription.

“How to Write for Percussion: a comprehensive guide to percussion composition” – Percussion is always a challenging group of instruments to write for properly – this book in absolutely incredible and an essential resource. It was given to me by EJ Dobson, get it on Amazon here.

Mollard conducting batons – Most composer-musicians will conduct their music, many twilight in conducting further. Mollard batons are absolutely supreme, I have several – they will even engrave your name on it.

Evernote subscription – Every composer-musician has so many ideas to remember and projects to oversee, with Evernote you can now remember everything!! Gift a subscription here.

New Zealand Symphony Orchestra subscription (or your local orchestra) – Every composer-musician needs a regular dose of the finest music in the land. Buy them a subscription or tickets to just one great night (PDF).

iTunes voucher – Not only necessary to top up your stock of Beethoven, Rachmaninov, Mahler and Ligeti, you can purchase all of the incredible iPhone/iPad/iPod Touch apps that are made for professional musicians. In fact, check out my two posts on the best pro music apps to get: the first post here and the second post here.

A gift of time – If you don’t want to spend money why not give a voucher to say you will do all of their jobs and chores for a weekend (or heck, a week) so they can hibernate and write some very fine music. That is priceless!

I hope there is something there to add to your Christmas list. Let me know your best ideas!