For the past decade or so, I've used a series of Moleskine Art Plus Music Notebooks to map out ideas: motivic materials, rhythmic schema, notes to myself, sketches (musical and otherwise), etc. They've become an integral part of my creative process, but they've also served as creative waypoints; I flip through them every few years to see how I've developed, where life's taken me, that sort of thing.
Now that I've crammed the last bit of material into one (a sixteenth-note G sharp on a bass clarinet, for those of you keeping score at home), I figured I'd flip through this puppy and highlight some especially memorable moments from the past couple of years.
And so it begins ...
Left: Memorizing lines for Wax Wings Productions' THE TRAGICAL HISTORY OF DOCTOR FAUSTUS; Right: Mapping out clarinet multiphonics for CHARLES & RAY
Left: Measuring furniture in preparation for our move to Lincoln, MA in February of 2013; Right: The first harmonic sketches of STEEL SYMPHONY
Left: Notes from our "birthing class" at Mount Auburn Hospital (where our son was born a few months later); Right: Figuring out the ending to STEEL SYMPHONY
Left and Right: Mapping out an array of extended techniques utilized throughout THE TOWER
Left: While walking through the Lincoln wilderness, I stumbled upon a new "office" (to which I've returned many times since); Right: Mapping out isorhythmic material for THE TOWER (used in the "winding staircase" section
Sketching out ideas for the poster design of Wax Wings Productions' HAMLET: PRINCE OF DENMARK
Left and Right: Notes from an especially productive Fifth Floor Collective meeting at a coffee shop in Brighton---we were mapping out our first-ever collaborative composition, TRIPTYCH, about which much more information will be coming soon
Rounding out the final page---182---of this current notebook: motivic sketches for my upcoming loadbang piece, COME SOON, YOU FERAL CATS. More info on this one coming as well!