Thoughts, and too damn many notes

Well, I had to get the gloom and doom off the blog's front page, so here's something different.

We're going out to lunch with some wonderful friends, today. A charming dim sum place that gives you choice of tea to go with your meal (jasmine? oolong? pu erh?) and, I think, not so much if any MSG.

We'll see how well that does. I can only sit up for so long, nowadays, very different from my 15-to-18-to-20-hour work days. The latter of which, you can be sure, I do not miss.

Still got to get back to writing for band... I think I'm getting closer to that. A thought was that maybe "warming up" with smaller works mightn't be such a bad idea, I'm poking around looking at maybemaybemaybe some texts from Hildegard von Bingen (composers do love using the works of lyricists who lie in the public domain, which given her dates, definitely contains the work of Hildegard).

You can see why I think "warming up" might be something worth considering... here is just a few measures of the Big Project that I'm currently working on (wanting to work on, praying to be able to work on):

This is a preview of one movement; the original concept for the whole work was that it have four movements, each with its own dramatic theme and accompanying unique musical stylings. This movement is about a storm. Storms take a LOT of notes. A whole lot of notes. You can also see why someone who can't sit up for long has ... difficulties... writing music like the above.

A lot of notes.

If I were living in the compositional world of "Writing 'Come to Jesus' in whole notes," that'd be another thing. (And oh yeah, for you not-that-technical music folks, there are still instruments not shown that kinda flew off the bottom of the screen, and each line often carries the notes of two parts, so instead of sorta-kinda-roughly around thirty parts, we're looking at around sixty parts. And there are the instruments like the organ that take three lines, and the percussion section which has a trailer-truck full of instruments which may take multiple, or many, lines.

Takes a whole lot of notes to write a storm for a big band.

Just in writing about this, I've developed a headache, and I'm already unhappy about "sitting too long." Doesn't augur well.

Plus, of course, we're hoping to have lunch with friends this afternoon, which will require more... uh, I dunno, sitting?

I did some "stay uncomfortably active and engaged with the world" yesterday around the house, just poking around, so I wouldn't be going from zero to long-time-sitting at today's lunch with no "warm up." Today, plan is talk to Garden Guy who's coming by in a half our or so, who thank goodness doesn't need my supervision (or "help," for that matter), and then three hours later, off to lunch. That's the plan, anyway.

Although, in my current world, "plan" doesn't always work very well, because my condition is such a moving target. Is it "hope" for lunch? "Wish" for lunch?

The Science of  Mind church says, "Thoughts become things." So, for today's lunch, and all other activities, let's start simply with ...

Thought.