I’m still scrubbing bird-poop stains off my keyboards. There’s 2 knobs that have been missing for several years — Quark pulled them off and flew away with them. Maybe someday I’ll find them…
I dusted off a book I’ve had in my library, Keyboard Musician for the Adult Beginner. It’s a little confusing. What are the numbers over certain notes? Do they want me to play RH or LH depending on if stems are up or down? I guess these questions will be answered in Keyboard Lab!
My husband was out of the house for about 1.5 hrs, so I used the alone time to do some improvising. I set up my digi recorder and used the Korg Karma (play a chord and it just burbles away). I used my simple system flutes in G, D, and C. My tone is best on the G; I can’t hit the lowest notes on the C yet. Then I tried the Boehm flute. I don’t know the fingering so I was just messing around, and came up with something based on a whole-tone scale. Also did some singing, clapping and stomping.
Something I really like about the bamboo flutes is, say you start an improvisation on “re” or “mi” (and set up the Karma to use that note as a drone), right away you’re off in modal territory (Dorian, Phrygian).
Now I have the craving to buy a new bamboo flute in the hideous key of C# / Db. Patrick Olwell isn’t making bamboo flutes anymore (because he is so far behind on his blackwood ones), but supposedly there is someone now who is following in his footsteps. I think he has a booth at the Renn Fest. I HATE the key of C# — getting a flute in that key might help me to get over my resistance. Playing the flute in its home key would be easy enough, it’s improvising along on the keyboard that would be horrible.
I also played around with my Dixon pennywhistle and my 2 ocarinas. All of those would be good for making bird calls. I think my “Home Planet” piece could start off with slightly off-key bird calls and wind rushing through the grass. Then this could solidify into a theme. Maybe this is being too literal, but the next thing that happened in the game was Neochadwickia (and the Lunatoucans) were destroyed; then I wandered around a while and eventually found a new home planet. No birds on that one, but it did have Gervays. So could overlay the Gervay theme on the Lunatoucan theme (or develop the one into the other)?
Thinking out loud. So, I guess LOT300W will have a storyline.
Intro
(Travel — first voyage)
Empty Planet (peaceful, simple)
Ice Planet (more complex, sparkly)
Home Planet 1 (birds, folk tune-like)
(Travel — second voyage)
Toxic Planet (discordant, weird, funny)
Desert Planet (austere, awe-inspiring)
Gervays (comical, charming)
Home Planet + Death
(Travel — third voyage)
Broken Planet (unpleasant, spare)
Paradise Planet (complete opposite)
Ocean Planet (simple, waves)
Home Planet 2
includes oceans, home, Paradise, gervays
Home Planet 2 + Death
Might be able to indicate in some way — death all the things?*
Gervay death, ocean death, toxic death, broken death, empty death
fragments, hints of all the previous themes
as if you are remembering your travels
intro / extro
*”death all the things”
