manuscript

A choir director recently asked me to donate a handwritten version of the first verse of Gabriel's Message to a benefit auction for his ensemble. Since they're obviously a non-profit arts organization and he's been a supporter of mine for years I was happy to oblige. And besides that it seemed like an interesting exercise that might be , at the very least, a little blog-worthy. Here's what I came up with (click the picture for some more detail):




















I haven't produced a legible, handwritten score since I wrote The Boy Who Picked Up His Feet to Fly in 2001 (I owned Finale back then...I just wanted to see how it felt to write it all out) and the sensation of working through the cramps in my hands came back all over again. I think I learned my lesson on that first piece although, come to think of it, I may have written out Snow by Morning as well.

In any case, that got me curious to take a look at the original manuscript paper from when I was writing it in the fall of 2005 and, after a little searching, I found it. Apparently I was pretty happy with how it came out on the first try because, aside from the aborted idea on the bottom of the page, it's essentially the same as the published version.

I'm not sure how other composers work but, as you can see, there aren't any key signatures (aside from my "reminders") or time signatures. For this verse I decided to try and hold over every note of the melody and see what kind of cluster chord it created (how's that for a lot of alliteration?) and, at the end of the process, it wasn't bad. The result even had some cool text painting when the sopranos descend on "Down from heaven came".

So that's that. And just for good measure, here's a video of the Kingwood High School Chorale's performance of said piece at the Chapel at Villa De Matel in Houston. Go Mustangs!