Steps Next...

Hi all! I have been meaning to post weekly on Thursdays about what is going on with Project Next, but I have not posted in a couple of weeks. Things are moving along, as they do, but my recent focus has been mainly guitar practice and not so much the rest of things. Specifically, I have mostly neglected my new instrument. What is it with musicians naming their instruments? I have never done that. So here we go.. I'll give it a try: behold Cthuletta! Possessor of minds! Fear ye mortals! (How am I doin'?)

Seems pretty cool, but I have only powered it up a couple of times and reviewed a couple of Ableton tutorials. Anyone an Ableton fan out there? Actually, is anyone at all reading these? Oh, and also, Henry, I still need your complete/correct instrument list if you don't mind emailing or posting in comments here.

Anyway, as far as the project goes, the next thing is our initial meeting, and I am going to boldly postpone that until after the election, because time is short and I may find myself calling more voters soon and not creating new music. BUT, I'm practicing, and also attending an online course with RF and crew, so that is a thing. What's new with you? Are you receiving?

I will eventually be doing some FB Live events to challenge myself in front of the "public", because I have noticed a large gap between practice level and performance level. So.. performance!

Be well and stay safe. Watch here for news weekly. Thanks, d

All-Star Lineup

HI all-stars,

I mentioned writing a line-up last week. At first this may seem like a large group, but considering the level of people's other commitments, you know, life stuff, we hope to build in a degree of "fault tolerance", so that if some members are unable to rehearse in person consistently, we can still make it work. As of today, here is a list of our conspirators, and what instruments they generally play. I have not quizzed all of you, so please correct my guesses and lies. Motley crew indeed. If you are not listed here, please contact me. A couple of people have not checked in yet, so they may not be on the list.

Name Instruments/Roles

Bruce Stevens guitar

Clare Strayhorn violin, vocals

David Oskardmay director, guitar, vocals, mridung, Ableton, bass

Henry Lowman (VA) guitar, lute(?)

Jeff Lindsey drums (kit, djembe)

Lisa Oskardmay violin, vocals, guitar

Marvin Levi drums (kit)

Neil Englert bass

Patrick Grant (NY) advisor

Steve Burnett tenor sax, bassoon, surbahar, waterphone, theremin, effects

Tom Ed White viola

That is what we look like sorted by first name. More organizationally, we have:

Strings: Tom Ed, Lisa, Clare

Guitars (yes, I know they also have strings): Bruce, David, Henry, Lisa, Patrick

Bass: Neil, with help from Steve and David

Percussion: Jeff, Marvin

Vocals: David, Lisa, Clare

Other: Steve, who plays a lot of weird things

One interesting feature is that many of us are multi-instrumentalists, so we may have our default configuration and the alt-instruments change-up configuration. Interesting.

I have also invited the neighbors, and none have yet jumped on board. Hopefully they won't mind when we take over the neighborhood. In other news, I realized that I have woefully neglected the capabilities I have with Ableton Live, a decent composition tool and live accompaniment environment. Who needs humans anyway? It does open another dimension.

I will be ordering a MIDI keyboard and some kind of foot trigger thingy. I have lately been composing directly in MuseScore, but there are many ways of working, so we also have our electronic-based configuration, playing within a programmed set. In this way, we span the musical space from an organic mostly acoustic orchestra to an electronic dance band.

That's the news for this week. We will have our first meeting in October. Watch this space!

Introductions This Week!

Hi all. Quick two things.. I have updated the link for downloading music (the first piece, Theme) so that when you click it will automatically download as a zip file. This is/was reportedly giving problems (thanks for pointing that out Steve!), so I changed the link to download as soon as you click. You will have all files for Theme then, probably many you won't need, but this should be a little easier to work with. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, this is on the Music page under Member Info, which you have to login to see.

Anyway, also this week I will be posting a list of members, so if I don't know every instrument you play or where you live, please send me your brief bio, just your city and list of "stuff" is fine for now. We will most be posting more extensive introductions and having our first meeting in the coming weeks. (email is best: doskardmay at gmail)

Have a nice Monday.