An Echo That's Reversing – Page 16 – more discussions on the Fine Arts, current events, programming, and what-not

The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938)

I don’t know when I first watched this, but somehow it imprinted on me and every X years I must re-watch and re-live the absolute joy of seeing the Merry Men drop from trees in absurd synchronization, Errol Flynn look with furtive slyness as King Richard’s despot brother’s archers advance on him, and Marian (I can never remember it’s with an “A”) play the haughty-then-human royal ward. And the movie’s Technicolor goodness is a perfect presentation of the mood. That and Korngold’s soundtrack make it an absolute classic.

Moving on from my 60s/70s Italian and Iron Curtain sci-fi obsessions but continuing my Japanese pink film and peplum obsession, I’m now obsessed with Robin Hood and man is there a lot of research to dive into. I’ll also start watching the many good (but mostly bad) tellings of Robin Hood in the cinematic cannon.

String Quartet No. 1 – Slow, and keeping my sanity

Today I spent an hour and a half writing three measures the second violin. The time I put towards composing each day is minimal but it also helps me reset. For the past month I’ve had to put in 12-hour days at work, so any time I can put towards composing is valuable. I don’t let my work life bleed into my music life and, ignoring all keen psychological analysis to the contrary, I feel that I’ve kept it separate.

String Quartet No. 1 – Pausing the first movement, beginning the second, stealing

The value in writing a complex rhythm such as, say, a dotted quarter followed by a dotted eighth followed by a dotted sixteenth, is not for the exactitude of the performance but for the communication to the performer that these are all notes of diminished length that should feel like dotted notes. That is: notes that have not-quite-finished and are expecting another note to rhythmically appear just before the end of their time.

Hercules Against the Moon Men (1964)

String Quartet No. 1 – Approaching chamber music

After finishing the symphony and writing nearly every day for nine months, I felt a loss. I quickly moved to getting the audio cleaned up in Dorico and so the loss was brief. Finishing the audio, I enjoyed resting for about a week before feeling restless again and so, not wanting to force anything but wanting to get back to writing, I waited for inspiration.