Please... No More Charts

I hate writing charts. There, I said it. I guess it's the curse of being a composer who works primarily in a DAW (Digital audio workstation. My preference? Logic) but when I compose, I do it through playing music in, as opposed to writing it out. Writing charts is entirely tedious to me. I understand the need for charts, and I've noticed that every so often seeing notes in a score form on a page helps me make more intelligent harmony choices... but translating already composed music to score form is so goddamn boring.

I bring this up because for the past 2 days I've been frantically writing charts out for the Salvation Denied live ensemble. With less than a month to go before my recital, it's been a whirlwind of activity here, with coordinating rehearsals, sending out charts, sending out music, and ordering pants for my costume. Thank God my chili's lasted me for over a week; I barely have time to cook.

Anyways, if you want to see a brief snippet of how I write, here's the first 2 pages of a song we're performing. Not a full score by any means, but these are the parts I pulled out for second synth and solo violin.

Obviously the score's missing a lot of information. These are just the individual parts my players are performing; the rest is going to be playback through my computer. I don't have enough money to buy things to trigger parts live, sadly.

Another realization I came to while writing these parts: my individual parts are really simple. Layer 5 or 6 of them together, though, and you get something that becomes epic and complex. Missing from the score right now are the staccato violas, drumkit, and low low low low low bass pad. Like, almost inaudible deep. Awesome.

Next on the agenda: booking a space to practice, working with Rachel Edelman on poster design, and beginning the orchestration of Alice. Gonna be a busy month.