(picture version, which makes slightly more sense, but just barely, at markalburger.blogspot.com)

Up and away, Mt. Diablo looming and squinting in the light, theory dictation is the Orkney Islands Hymn to St. Magnus (c. 1100)

(Nope, that's not St. Magnus, but rather the excellent Orkneyian Peter Maxwell Davies, whose often wild music may merit a later theoretical look),

in F Lydian, beginning Do Mi Re (quarter quarter half), repeated, Do Mi Re Fi (quarters), etc.,

harmonized mostly in parallel thirds.

Nice piece by Chris Fowler -- a bluesy minor tetratonic Do Me (Ri?) Sol Le (Si?) -- thereafter.

Lab work recording instrumental version of Mice and Men: Act V, Scene 1 c "Jus' feel that hair" a.k.a. Deathsong II from Mice Suite No. 2 + the two Tartsongs and Deathsong I from same, and finally the second movement of Horn Concerto (from the album Cohabitation Concerti), first movement of which is posted over at ilike.com/artist/mark+alburger, as well as complete Psalm 6.

Then it's time to pick up Harriet at SFO

(hmm, suspicious simulation), where we almost miss each other -- but pure chance, mercifully, brings us together again.

Post Stolen Students and Sinfonietta at markalburgerworks.blogspot.com and write up an article on Guillaume Dufay for the evolving markalburgermusichistory.blogspot.com some enchanted evening.

(re pictures, please refer to markalburger.blogspot.com)

Up early to Diablo Valley College to record instrumental version of the interior part of Camino Real: Block 12, for the Horsewomen of the Apocalypse: The White Horse show, 8pm, February 16 at St. Gregory of Nyssa (500 De Haro Street, SF - goathall.org)

Doug's in the lab, grading Assignment 1 for Music 173. Well I remember it, recording Antigone: 10 Come On Now, Miss with haunted-house wind and chains,

just posted at ilike.com/artists/mark+alburger (above are Mark Alburger, Guard III; David Saslav, Guard II [obscured], Leticia C. Page, Antigone; Robert Benda, Guard I).

Jump in the car, through the Caldecott Tunnel,

over Bay Bridge to San Francisco,

for rehearsal with Suzanna,

who continues to make a great Curley's Wife, vocally and dramatically, in Mice Suite No. 2, which we have determined will use the orchestral tracks after all.

Also go over Camino: 12 -- surreal to have finally recorded it, after Karl's excellent recording -- and "June's Song," from Henry Miller in Brooklyn (here's Jennifer Ashworth, below, from the showcase performances, pre the run, with more pictures at markalburgerworks.blogspot.com, and the overture to same at the ilike spot).

Cold, bluster day in SF, with random huge dark clouds and rain spritzes (contrary to some of the sunny pictures above), so it's time to head home, the weather still looming over the English Hills beyond the Chevron in the near environs.

Check in with Harriet, and all's well in Seattle, particularly with Tisha's recital (we certainly still miss having her down here on a regular basis).

Finish preparation of the March 2008 21ST-CENTURY MUSIC (soon to appear at 21st-centurymusic.blogspot.com and, one would hope, eventually at 21st-centurymusic.com, as well as print version from P.O. Box 2842, San Anselmo, CA) for final proofing this week. Cover references Frederic Rzweski

The Fall of the Empire.

(The version of this blog with pictures may be found at markalburger.blogspot.com)

7am, and time to take Harriet down to the airport. Look! There she goes! Not really. It's another cloudy rainy day. But perhaps she has a nice aerial view, upon takeoff, of San Bruno Mountain, just north of the airport (which is actually in San Mateo County, and separated from the city by this heroic open space).

And, OK, here are two other shots, both, one suspects, from John McLauren Park, to the north, looking south, the wideness of the mountain in evidence once again, and looking a bit likc Marin's Mt. Tamalpais.

And let's not forget those eucalyptus trees...

Stop by Goat Hall to pick up the key from Miriam

(I believe she and Doug constitute the front row in this colorful negative Fresh Voices poster from several years back -- if we can't see her very well, it's her own fault, as she is responsible for this arresting visual) so that we may rehearse tomorrow.

Then home, rendevouzing with Steve, who's here to fix the plumbing

and matters electrical.

Finish -- finally! -- publication preparation for Mice and Men, Act V, Scene 1 C "Jus' Feel that Hair."

Record On the Road, Part I, 2. "What the Hell Am I Doing Here?" and post same at myspace.com/markalburger.

Previous to this, make the major discovery (for me, anyway) of iLike, a website that allows the posting of far more than the myspace 6 vis a vis compositions,

so I post 40, basically the first relevant cut of each album, complete or in-progress, at
ilike.com/artist/mark+alburger.

(The picture version of below may be found at markalburger.blogspot.com)

Gustav Mahler Symphony No. 1: III ("The Huntsman's Funeral") (Frere Jacques in D Minor) for dictation today.

Do Re Me Re Do (repeated) Me Fa Sol (repeated)

Sol Le Sol Fa Me Re Do (repeated) Sol Sol Do (repeated),

Lunch with Harriet at local Italian joint, with gray views of the Vaca Mountains -- one only imagines that above they would look more like below (but probably not, since this photo is no doubt a summer fog shot),

then really beginning to write the Music History text at markalburgermusichistory.blogspot.com, with medieval chapters on Jehan, Philippe de Vitry, Guillaume de Machaut, Jacopo da Bologna, and Francesco Landini; plus putting up info and pics re Op. 15 Three Places in America through Op. 24 Orpheus Cycle at markalburgerworks.blogspot.com.

Another page (7) of score preparation for Mice and Men, Act V 1C "Jus' Feel That Hair", too.

The picture component of the below may be found at markalburger.blogspot.com

Composer Brian Holmes

who plays a multitude of brass instruments, including garden hose (topped with a French horn mouthpiece) -- which he performed during his opera Fun with Dick and Jane

during Fresh Voices

at The Thick House

several seasons back, featuring Sarah Hutchison (same series as premiere of my opera after Tennessee Williams's Camino Real) --

and who goes online by the monicker Cabbage Horn (whence the opening picture above), checks in with,

"Happy Birthday Happy Birthday Happy Birthday Happy Birthday" filling up a comment post at myspace.com/markalburger.

I delete it hastily, tell'em thanks, but it's not my birthday...

He writes back, "Oh, it's Philip Glass's

birthday."

What else could my response be than,

"Oh

Oh I

Oh I get

Oh I get it

Oh I get it now"?

Quiz 3 for the Music Theoreticians, with musical examples drawn from the Northern Arapaho Rabbit Dance (Dear Sweetheart),

Gregorian Chant,

and the Scholia Enchiriadis.

In the lab thereafter, to record the original chamber score (English horn, clarinet, voice, and harp) of

Mice Suite No. 2:
I. Breathsong
II. Tartsong I
III. Tartsong II
V. Deathsong I

Full orchestration of IV. Dancesong, previous small orchestration of VI. Deathsong II, and the chamber-score-on-GarageBand VII. Hartsong seem to be appropriate for now.

Next, on to Marin, via California Route 4 between Martinez and Hercules (shot is eastbound on a considerably sunnier day),

over the Richmond Bridge, with its view of Mt. Tamalpais,

to San Rafael

and environs to check the post box and pick up the February 2008 issue of 21ST-CENTURY MUSIC (21st-centurymusic.blogspot.com).

Grade papers at Celia's

eventually finding the way up to Novato

(N.B. it's dark by now) to drop off the new Mice Suite recording to Suzanna.

Then it's over the lonely flats of Route 37,

through the Sulfur Springs Mountains

near St. John Mine,

and home, putting up Block 7 from Camino Real on the myspace site, featuring Brian Rosen

as Gutman.

The version of below, with pictures, may be found at markalburger.blogspot.com

Page 6 of Mice and Men, Act V, Scene 1 A "Jus' feel that hair" prepared for publication.

Theory dictation is Rex Coeli (Glorious King) from the Scholia Enchiriadis (c. 850), but certainly not in the original notation,

rather,

as quickie, first-part-only bass line, then we all provide upper harmony as directed on the boards and sing same, with the old oblique-motion gag. Finally, intriguing piece from Curtis Cochran featuring IM7 iim7 iiim7 and IVM7 in Bb.

Doug and Mark Steidel like the looks of the blogspot sites, and consider starting a composer site and a travel site respectively. Trying to find a picture of Mark, find one of Owen Lee instead, looking like he's ready to start a latter blog himself!

Home along not nearly such an adventuresome path, via local Mexican joing with Harriet, the Vaca Mountains shining away in the distance (although not as golden as in this summer shot).

The evening slip-sliding away, cruising to great heights and putting up the January 2008 issue at 21st-centurymusic.blogspot.com, a few medieval composers at markalburgermusichistory.blogspot.com, and images from The Lord's Prayer, Variations and Theme, Interrupted Interludes, The Twelve Fingers, Henry Miller in Brooklyn, The Playboy of the Western World, and The Pied Piper of Hamelin at markalburgerworks.blogspot.com.

Also put up sound file of Op. 107 Out on the Porch: II. I'm Already in Trouble at myspace.com/markalburger.

Clearly, the real blog is now at markalburger.blogspot.com.... but at least here are the words below....

So Harriet gets an email from Beth Henry (that's her above playing Widow Quin against my head-damaged Old Mahon in our opera on John Millington Synge's comedy, The Playboy of the Western World) which includes an mp3. H can't download it on her computer, so I stop what I'm doing, log on, download the sound file and it plays back a voice, menacingly,

"Bwa-ha-ha!"

That's it.

Ah, technology. What a joy... All in good fun.

And, appropriately enough, with that classic sinister sound, it's Dies Irae Day for the Music Theoreticians, so we have

but certainly not in alto clef in the third week of the course (referred to, but actually never actively utilized in first semester -- there seems like enough else to do). This will be keyboard solfege for next week.

We look at nice pieces by Joel Davis and Ira Feldman, play and talk also about Erik Satie

and the harmonic ambiguity of Gymnopedie No. 1 - are those GM7 and DM7 chords IM7 and VM7 in G or IVM7 and IM7 in D? Turns out, the latter, given key sig and ultimate goal, but initially, one can be led astray...

I am led astray, wandering over to Mimi's for lunch, grading papers in a joint w/ internet access, and even an electric outlet. What more could one want?

The world turns beautiful upon leaving -- shredded stern clouds and patches of sunshine,

crucifix lightpoles,

ruddy trees counterbalanced with the harsh metal of stadium lights and solar pannels in the DVC parking lot,

cars huddled against the cold,

a glowering Mt. Diablo across the sports field,

naked russet branches against the torn sky,

the Music Building in a surreal glow.

Inside, hours before class, the room is empty save for a double Mark;

a few students hang in the hall (composer Sebastian Najand, a new student, and tenor David Chavez);

and open lab time at the DVC Music Technology Center remains a hotbed of activity,

the latter watched over by Doug Michael.

The Music Literature class runs Medievally, from about 400 and Boethius (c. 480)

to Guillaume de Machaut (c. 1300-1377) and 1400,

with a little Kingdom of Heaven (the opening scene's evocative lyre and percussion),

plus Monty Python and the Holy Grail (the penitente-head-clobbering parallel-organum Requiem bit).

Quick quiz and it's time to head home, empty classroom again (reverse image from the reflective window glass),

fifth page of Mice and Men, Act V, Scene I C "Jus' Feel That Hair" prepared for publication and then prepare for temporary oblivion.

Check email just before retiring, and Maggie Tennenbaum

requests an mp3 of her marvelous recording of The Proposition

from Cats, Dogs, and Divas (after Harriet March Page, the CD just recently completed)

that she may post on her website -- a request I am delighted and honored to honor.

For the pictures re below, please go to markalburger.blogspot.com

A big sun in Lynch Canyon, just in case any northern Californians have forgotten what it looks like (the sun, that is; the canyon is easy to miss on the right as one blips along I-80 in the Sulfur Springs Mountains, heading toward San Francisco).

Up very early, preparing page 4 of Mice and Men: Act V, C "Jus' feel that hair" for publication.

Then it's off to Diablo Valley College, racing past the Suflur Springs again, now on I-680, clouds hovering over the hills (higher than the draped fog below),

vaulting over the Benicia Bridge (n.b. new span not shown),

to DVC, with its parking-lot view of Mount Diablo.

All's well in theory (the Music Building is the circular structure just below the pond -- a nice place to teach!),

with a dictation on the Thomas Ravenscroft (c. 1582 or 1592 until 1635) Three Blind Mice (1609), not exactly as below, and certainly without all those extraneous flags, last eighth, and protracted last measure...

Keyboard-solfege for the week is the Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)

Ode to Joy (the simplified C-major version, melody only) from the Symphony No. 9 ("Choral") (1824).

Scales/modes are D Dorian (treble clef),

D Minor,

and

(played on keyboard while singing solfege).

Bit of conducting in simple and compond meters, and we harmonize Three Blind as if early organum,

at the P4.

Retrograde, past the Sulfur Springs Mountains again,

the distant Twin Sisters beckoning,

I start three more blogs at

21st-centurymusic.blogspot.com

markalburgerworks.blogspot.com

and

markalburgermusichistory.blogspot.com

Second day posting on blogger at markalburger.blogspot.com, where all pictures referenced below may be found

***

Prepared the second and third pages of Mice and Men: Act V A, "Jus' Feel That Hair" for publication, then sped off to Kinko's to print up copies of Flying Out the Mouth. Rendezvous with Harriet, and we fly down the freeway, moderately in moderate rain, for rehearsal in SF.

No, that wasn't exactly how Lynch Canyon, in the Sulfur Springs Mountains, looked as we passed it in the glowering gloom, but we can dream, can't we?

The weather was more like this...

...but that was last weekend, along Route 29 in Napa, part of a personal Bay Area Ridge Trail, and we can be non-linear, n'est-ce pas?

And digress, over the Carquinez Bridge

to the Bay Bridge and Yerba Buena Tunnel

arriving in plenty of time (we try to allow for two hours for the hour-trip-when-there's-no-traffic) to San Francisco

specifically, Potrero Hill, just south of the city (Thick House Theater -- where my operas on Tennessee Williams's Camino Real and Robert Browning's The Pied Piper of Hamelin were premiered, along with selections from San Rafael News and Waiting for Godot [after Samuel Beckett] -- is on the bottom floor of the high-rise in the valley to the right).

Lunch at Jay's Deli, formerly Klein's, with this view north to town...

Then, at last, it's off to rehearsal at Goat Hall, undergoing serious renovations, where we are admitted by Douglas Mandell.

The place is a mess and unheated, as we were warned, due to construction, but we are deeply grateful for our accustomed central location, and all goes well.

There we are -- Harriet, Sarah (with new longer locks), Kat, and Suzanna.

With notes on the music as follows:

FLYING OUT THE MOUTH
I. Hide and Seek (adding Charles Ivesian bitonal, birhythmic collage of "A Tisket")
II. After the Movie
III. Yonder in the North (two voices to this Northern Plains Rabbit Dance / Sweetheart)
IV. When I Was Three (Sarah singing)
V. All the Dark Birds (Sarah and Kat - 8va? - on Navajo Ribbon Dance)
VI. Prayer (Sarah vocalise while Kat and Harriet offer contrapuntal children's prayers)
VII. Flying Out the Mouth (Sarah and Kat on Yurok Women's Brush Dance)
VIII. LSD
IX. Here I Am (restored, unrepeated with hilarious, idealistic 3-part overlaps)
X. Mice Skins (still out, although Kat tempted by the twisted overtones!)
XI. Wolf Song (still out)
XII. New Jerusalem School (in, but skipped for now, given previous performances)
XIII. Ringaround (Ivesian nursery-rhyme overlay)
XIV. The Woman From the Sky (Kat, w/Mark call-and-response in this Creek Gar Dance)
XV. Wind Song I (Sarah and Kat duo on fragmentary Seneca Alligator Dance, echo below)
XVI. Cross This Bridge
XVIIa. Wind Song II (Sarah and Kat duo)
XVIIb. Then We Find Out
XVIII. Wind Song III (Sarah and Kat solos, possible need for less eliptic accompaniment)
XIX. Yoda (Harriet verse 1, Sarah and Kat verse 2)

Suzanna is game for all, as we read two Little Prince (after Antoine de St. Exupery) excerpts

(originally premiered by Deirdre Lobo [Flower] and Heather Gavin [Le Petit Prince]),

and Mice Suite No. 2 (after John Steinbeck) -- first given by Deborah Kavasch

at the Newport, Oregon, Performing Arts Center,

as part of the Ernest Bloch Music Festival

Directed by Greg Steinke.

Suzanna and I also go over some oldies from Halfway Mark and before, including "June's Song" from Henry Miller in Brooklyn (after Mel Clay) -- first performed by Jennifer Ashworth

and later by Leticia C. Page (here with Elaine Romanelli, Jeanne [top], and Ric Richetta, Henry) --

and "Block Twelve" from Camino Real (after Tennessee Williams)

for the recording of which we are all indebted to Karl Coryat.

And, yes, we'll do "Brunnhilde" from Cats, Dogs, and Divas (after Harriet March Page) again, this time as a solo (visual from the January 2007 Women on the Way Festival at Dance Mission, SF -- the pole dance on Valkyrie spears routine).

So, that was about it. Stopped at Erling's

to get updates on the repertory for the San Francisco Composers Chamber Orchestra March 8 concert at Old First Church

and here they are, still evolving:

Alexis Alrich -- Fragile Forests: II Cambodia (8:00)
1111 1100 3Perc 11111

Michael Cooke - Sun and Moon (15:00)
2113 1100 Pf 3Perc 11111

Philip Freihofner - The Bell Field (5:00)
0100 0000 Tape 00000

Martha Stoddard - A Little Trip to Outer Space (12:00)
2112 1100 Pf2Perc 11111

Dan Reiter -- Toccata and Fugue (15:00)
3124 2000 11131

Erling Wold- Mordake (15:oo)
2113 1100 Pf3Perc 1111

Run into Lisa Scola Prosek, who just happens to be passing by.

Still kind of rainy, so we don't head to The Connecticut Yankee,

but instead take the great leap home, avoiding all faults, almost to Lake Berryessa.

Harriet watches ice skating

and we take in a little of the new version of Jane Austen(1775-1817)'s

Mansfield Park (1814)

with one eye on [The New York Times]

Just uploaded The Wind God: II I've a Crick (after Harriet March Page) to myspace.com/markalburger

So will check email and dreams, with good fortune, better than Henry Fuseli's The Nightmare, below

which, by the way, was the image for this year's Christmas card, with the sheet music to The Nativity: VII. "And Being Warned by God in A Dream," right up there with the most inappropriate pictures for holiday greetings ever....

Posted the following below at

http://markalburger.blogspot.com/, where it makes more sense, what with all the references to posted pictures....

***

Well, well, here we are on blogger. This is the alarming picture from the Halfway Mark show, last April 20, for starts.

Harriet and I are going over the Flying Out the Mouth music for tomorrow's first rehearsal at Goat Hall in anticipation of the premier Horsewomen of the Apocalypse show (The White Horse, 8pm, February 16, at St. Gregory's - 500 De Haro Street, San Francisco), so this will be brief as a beginning.

Still have to edit the Flying midi tracks a bit -- the number of repetitions does not always equate with reality, and we all know time.... so, must get to work in this regard.

What is Flying Out the Mouth?, you may well ask. Mercifully, nothing biological, at least not in this context. Apparently music by me and words by my partner, Harriet March Page, with a bit of phantasmagorical Native-American-influenced material as well.

Here's a cover....

And the first page, in which one can play postminimalist hide-and-seek with Giuseppe Verdi's La Traviata Prelude...

And the CD image...

The cast of characters at tomorrow's rehearsal will be Harriet,

Kat Cornelius and Lisa McHenry (from left to right, with Robert Benda, Cynthia Weyuker, and Alexis Lane Jensen in this past August's production of my opera after John Millington Synge's The Playboy of the Western World at Oakland Metro Opera),

Kristin Jones (with a passed-out Harriet, also in Playboy, as two drunken wenches [farmers in the original]),

Sarah Hutchison (center, with, left and right, Sandy Castleberry and Maggie Tennenbaum, in last January's Cats, Dogs, and Divas at San Francisco's Dance Mission -- with Flying, one of the four Ring of Harriet operas),

And last, but certainly not least, Suzanna Mizell (also from Cats, who has now sung leads in three of my operas -- CD&D, Camino Real, The Pied Piper of Hamelin -- and who will be singing excerpts in The White Horse from above, as well as Mice Suite No. 2 and Henry Miller in Brooklyn)

Well, this wasn't as brief as it could have been. But in truth, have returned onblog to line out the rest of the evening after meeting with Harriet. Have edited the recording of Flying Out the Mouth (I. on Cubase, II.-XIX. on GarageBand) to suit the score's and performers' needs as follows:

Op. 103 FLYING OUT THE MOUTH (December 11, 2001)
I. Hide and Seek
II. After the Movie (restored the "4xs" sections)
III. Yonder in the North
IV. When I Was Three
V. All the Dark Birds (3xs from the top of the page, with coda as marked)
VI. Prayer
VII. Flying Out the Mouth (followed directly by an additional early IX. Here I Am)
VIII. LSD
IX. Here I Am
X. Mice Skins (omitted for this performance)
XI. Wolf Song (omitted for this performance)
XII. New Jerusalem School
XIII. Ringaround
XIV. The Woman From the Sky (omitting verses 4-6 in this performance)
XV. Wind Song I (3xs section as marked)
XVI. Cross This Bridge (omitting repeat in this performance)
XVIIa. Wind Song II (3xs section as marked)
XVIIb. Then We Find Out (as recorded, without D.C.)
XVIII. Wind Song III
XIX. Yoda (no sax [we're classical],
original 80 velocity-attack down to 50 for verse 1 and 65 for verse 2,
cresc poco a poco from 3.5 to 6 in piano and -36 to -24 in percussion)

Well, that's about it. Bit of work for San Francisco Composers Chamber Orchestra tonight, too. Our evolving repertory for the 8pm, March 8, Old First Church (Van Ness and Sacramento Streets, SF) concert is evolving as follows:

Alexis Alrich - New Work

Michael Cooke - Sun and Moon

Philip Freihofner - The Bell Field

Martha Stoddard - A Little Trip to Outer Space

Dan Reiter - Symphony

Erling Wold - Mordake

Here are some of us from the December SFCCO Board Meeting at Erling's (Alexis, Michael, Mark, Erling, David Graves)

Guess we were having a good time. Erling always serves fine wine....

Here are Phil and Dan, from one of the rehearsals at Potrero Hill Neighborhood House of the Stream of Consciousness Old First Concert (December 7, 2007).

Ok, actually, here are Phil and Dan and a lot of other ensemble members, so let's get specific: Anne Szalba (Timpani), Bruce Salvisberg (Flute), Phil (Oboe), Jon Russell (Clarinet), Diane Ryan (French Horn), Michaels Cooke and Garvey (Bassoons), Hande Erdem (Violin II), Patrick Kroboth (Viola), Michel Taddei (Bass), Clare Twohy (Violin I)

Now it's Clare (alas, still from behind), Michel, Dan (Cello), and John Kendall Bailey (Associate Conductor).

There we are, that ought to do it for this rainy evening of further adventures in sight and sound.