Electrical Memories

I was freelancing as a set builder when the economy crashed. Packed myself off to Boston for a winter season, sleeping on the floor at a friend's house, while I recovered financially. Followed a show back to California and three days after I got back there was a call from someone I'd designed a show for at a six tin-can pub with a ten foot wide stage.

I ended up spending ten years working as Master Electrician at a small theater tucked into an unincorporated area near Hayward. That's where I started getting serious about sound, and composing. That was the time most of my MIDI-keyboard and rack mount synthesizer stuff was written.

So here's another blast from the past:

We'd do about six shows a years; two musicals to get butts in seats and four plays that with luck would earn back their costs. Then two to four concerts from our associated 80-member community chorus.

My friend Don Tieck did most of the composing chores on the straight plays. I had Lend Me a Tenor and A Man for All Seasons to myself. A couple more shows -- like Play it Again, Sam -- that were drop-needle. And when we had the 20th anniversary gala I was asked to write something to accompany the slide show.

So that's it. Bombast around a simple fanfare, ducking into a few different moods and styles to represent the variety of our shows, heavily referencing some of my friend's favorite orchestration tricks in honor of his work, and ending with a long trail-out because the slide show wasn't exactly timed.

And, yes...almost all keyboard work, but there is a wee bit of "Baaaand in a Box" in a couple measures. (The friend who'd made that phone call always pronounced it like the chorus in that Wings song.)




Pretty primitive. I look back on those days and there were a lot of times I pushed for more musical respect than I had earned. I'm not saying my stuff is that bad to listen to, but I lack the theory and associated musical skills to communicate and integrate and there were times when I butted heads with a conductor because I wanted to try something but I didn't have the skills to carry it off.

And now? The big thing is I have a day job that pays better and gives me free time on a more regular schedule. That means I can finally afford "real" instruments and even a little time to practice on them. Makes me no more of a musician than I was before, though; just faking it in a new way.

Today wasn't terribly unproductive. I got 20-30 minutes of practice in (dragged my horn out to Guitar Center after brunch but the piano rooms didn't open that early in the day.) I can hit the notes on the Hellboy trumpet part but it's still a nasty leap. Can get through a bar of Godfather before my pick can't handle faking a mandolin any longer. And the Terminator penny whistle part is getting close to recording quality.

I finally found the combination that works on that piece, at least for the beginning. It's mostly back in a MIDI mock-up, with just the low bodhran part and the "great highland crumhorn" as acoustic material. 

I still don't know if I can go full Celtic, and if it is worth continuing to mess with the mockup or if I should record what I have so far. There's a tough finger-picking arpeggio on the folk guitar that I wouldn't mind a few more days of practice on before I turn on the microphones. And I'm so far off the bar lines now I'm really not sure the best way to notate my parts for the recording session.

The vague plan is to blow through this one, then see if my horn is up to doing Hellboy yet. For which I'd love to give Don a call because buying bongos, much less a 14 x 5.5" wood-shell snare with stand and brushes at this moment would be silly.

I also have vague thoughts as to doing a mini-lecture on the evolution of the Nathan McCree Tomb Raider motif over the multiple games. Which reminds me -- I dreamed up a possible motif for my own "Tomb Raider: Legacy" sketch, which is sitting on my phone right now if I am lucky.