God Rest You Merry Gentlemen

[M G Jacobs (mgj32)]

I worked up a piece for the season, which is a set of variations on the old carol, "God Rest You Merry Gentlemen." I posted it at www.Soundclick.com/mgjacobs (http://www.Soundclick.com/mgjacobs). It is the first piece in the list. The song info is there. Since I wrote it to be played freely, the .not file isn't annotated and uses several non GM instruments.

Season's Greetings to all.

mgj

[Sherry Crann (sherry)]

Howdy MG,

I just finished listening to the recording - whoa, baby! I think I've related elsewhere that a jazz arrangement of "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen" was the first taste of bass playing that I had. If the arrangement had been as varied and interesting as yours, I don't think I'd be playing bass today - I'd never have made it past the second variation for standing in awe of what was going on around me rather than attempting to play http://www.notation.com/discus/clipart/happy.gif

This is a really interesting amalgamation, as I can hear bits of many of your other works sort of hinted at here. Perhaps it's that I hear some "signature sounds" - not licks, but "tendencies" that I've come to associate with your music. I'm sure Sarah would have approved of her section http://www.notation.com/discus/clipart/happy.gif

Are you planning to post the .not here? I'd love to see and hear that as well.

glr,
Sherry

[M G Jacobs (mgj32)]

Hi Sherry,

I'll post it after cleaning up notes to myself. There's very little annotation, other than some like, emph.(asis) sec. emph. I wanted to leave a lot of room to tinker with volume of individual instruments and those that are playing accompaniment as well as those making "comments." You may have heard some "signature" sounds, or accompaniment/commentary figures that go well, I think, in a lot of situations.

all best,
mgj

[M G Jacobs (mgj32)]

Hi Sherry,

Here is the .not file. Not much in it but notes ;)

all best,
mgj

<center><table border=1><tr><td>http://www.notation.com/discus/icons/attachment_icon.gifGod Rest You Merry
God Rest Ye 251.7z (http://www.notation.com/discus/messages/35939/God_Rest_Ye_251-36920.unk) (241.8 k)</td></tr></table></center>

[M G Jacobs (mgj32)]

Try this one.

<center><table border=1><tr><td>http://www.notation.com/discus/icons/attachment_icon.gifGod Rest Ye Zipped
God Rest Ye.zip (http://www.notation.com/discus/messages/35939/God_Rest_Ye-36922.zip) (390.4 k)</td></tr></table></center>

[Mark Walsen (markwa)]

Hello MG,

Merry Christmas! And thanks for your distinctive MG-style version of God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen.

Cheers
-- Mark

[Djim Tio (djimtio)]

Hi MG
Thanks for this very moving version of God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen.
I have added your MP3 version to my growing compilation of " MG´s Best " home-made CD.
I will listen and have a look at the not.file as well,just to learn where the magic comes from.
All the best to you and lots of inspiration for coming year,
Regards
Djim

[M G Jacobs (mgj32)]

Hi Djim,

Glad you liked the variations. The score is intentionally pretty vague in many respects, mostly because I realize I could change a lot of things in the performance and still like what I was hearing.

Happy New Year!!

all best,
mgj

[Sherry Crann (sherry)]

Howdy,

<blockquote><hr size=0><!-quote-!><font size=1>quote:</font>

The score is intentionally pretty vague in many respects, mostly because I realize I could change a lot of things in the performance and still like what I was hearing.<!-/quote-!><hr size=0></blockquote>

I'm glad I'm not the only one who does this http://www.notation.com/discus/clipart/happy.gif

I'm just curious, and this is for anyone reading this. Do you have a definitive "This is IT!" moment for your compositions, or do you find that they are constantly "works in progress", sort of like an ongoing jam session?

One of the strengths I find for my personal use of Composer is that it allows me to endlessly tinker with a composition and explore a lot of different arrangements, progressions, etc. After I find an instrument grouping and arrangement that works, I can save that as a particular iteration. Then I might try a whole different stylistic or instrumental approach to the song. It sure beats the heck out of my old method - record to 4-track a variation of the song (limited to what instruments I could play), record another variation, record another one, and another, then get lost in the tape trying to review the different variations, ad nauseum.

Typically if I have a song that's growing, the main aspect that I want really polished is the lyrics. I'll get those so that they are in their final form, and then I pretty much don't tinker with them any more, except perhaps to replace a word or two with a more apt one (or two ;) ). But the music that is the foundation for the lyrics - jiminy, I sometimes feel like I'm hearing a different arrangement every time I think about it. And like you, MG, I find that I often enjoy all of them - perhaps each more so at one time than another. So much so, that I typically have a folder for each song that I'm working on, so that I can keep track of all the different iterations of the song because there are usually so many.

Perhaps my situation is simply that in such cases I'm working on music to fit the lyrics. I've only written a few truly instrumental pieces, and I haven't tinkered with them as much, but I still do tinker. Maybe I'm just indecisive http://www.notation.com/discus/clipart/happy.gif

So how about anyone else - do you have a definitive "This is IT!" moment for your compositions, or do you find that they are constantly "works in progress"? I really enjoyed your variations MG, because they reminded me of myself at times - "I wonder what this would sound like as a ..."

ttfn,
Sherry, who just loves making music as often as possible http://www.notation.com/discus/clipart/happy.gif

[M G Jacobs (mgj32)]

Hi Sherry,

quote:

Do you have a definitive "This is IT!" moment for your compositions, or do you find that they are constantly "works in progress", sort of like an ongoing jam session?

I often experience the THIS IS IT moment. But I have never that I can remember got a stone tablet and carving instruments and probably never will. Two reasons. One is that when I hear something from a year before, I often get a That is the way I should have done it moment. Two is that however detailed your instructions, the performances of the music are going to differ from performer to performer or conductor to conductor. So I have been moving toward giving only instructions for what I think absolutely necessary.

Last summer I was listening to a performance of Berlioz Symphonie Fantastique by the Midlands Symphony, in which there were tempi I had never heard in any performance before--much faster that I had got used to hearing over the years. And I remember thinking that probably wouldn't have happened if Berlioz had put in a specific TPS numbers. It was still Berlioz, but Carl's vision of what Berlioz meant by a tempo annotation. So it was a good lesson in really thinking about how specific it is necessary or desireable to be.

An example of a This is it moment that became a this needs...realization, is my first piano concerto. The material beginning about about measure 230, or 4:04 minutes wasn't there until I returned to it about a year ago, and it struck me that a movement of its length needed a pronounced contrast. I wound up using the first theme backward in a contemplative dialog for piano and some other solo instruments. Now this seems to be IT, but I still haven't taken up stone carving.

So yes, I tinker. I usually start with a pretty good idea of what I want to do and can usually estimate to within a minute the length of a piece before I put down a single note and I don't (or didn't use to) do a whole lot of tinkering as I wrote. (That has changed, but for non-musical reasons that I don't really understand.) But once I have a draft I re-evaluate and make changes, that is, tinker, a lot. And after time has passed, I often tinker again. I guess the THIS IS IT moments should be considered tentative certainties, and working with stone tablet isn't something I'll ever have to do.

Or is it that Composer just makes tinkering, from minor to wholesale changes so easy? ;)

all best,
mgj