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leejacksonaudio

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  1. leejacksonaudio
    A composer of ill-repute.
  2. leejacksonaudio

    I just got home from the hospital a few hours ago after spending the night there for observation for a possible stroke. Yep. Lotsa fun. Everything started at around 3:30pm Sunday. I got a headache on the right side of my head, the right side of my face went numb, and I started having some trouble talking out of the right side of my mouth. After about 30 minutes, I brought up the subject to my wife, Brenda. We discussed the matter, and then I finally called 911. They came out and took me to the hospital with lights and sirens going.

     

    They ran some blood tests on me at the hospital and did a CT scan, both of which came back negative for anything scary. Still, the doctor wanted to keep me for observation, so I was admitted for the night. There were the usual snafus with my pain medicines, of course, and the IV they stuck in my right arm back in the ambulance hurt every time I tried to bend it, so things were less than fun.

     

    The worst thing that happened was when they gave me a potassium chloride drip in my IV. IT HURT LIKE HELL. We're talking pain level 9 on the 0-to-10 scale here. Still, I toughed it out as long as I could, since the doctor told me my potassium levels were very low. (I'm wondering if that may have contributed to me feeling so bad on Sunday.)

     

    Anyway, they finally decided I'd had a Transient Ischemic Attack, or TIA for short. Basically a "mini-stroke." They've increased my cholesterol medication and have given me a 21-day course of Plavix blood thinner to take, just in case I've got a baby clot hiding in my brain.

     

    I'm glad the situation is over with for now.  I'm beginning to hate hospitals with a passion.
     

  3. leejacksonaudio
    I've released a revision of the Bruckner 6th, 1st Movement, Band arrangement. This version has been gone through with a Fine-Toothed Comb<tm>, looking for the tiniest errors and wrong notes. Several were found and squashed without mercy. For your easier listening pleasure, I've uploaded the track to Soundcloud. Here's the link: https://on.soundcloud.com/HqXeb Please let me know what you think, especially if you listened to the first version - is this version any cleaner? Thanks!
  4. leejacksonaudio
    I've released a revision of the Bruckner 6th, 1st Movement, Band arrangement. This version has been gone through with a Fine-Toothed Comb<tm>, looking for the tiniest errors and wrong notes. Several were found and squashed without mercy. For your easier listening pleasure, I've uploaded the track to Soundcloud. Here's the link: https://on.soundcloud.com/HqXeb Please let me know what you think, especially if you listened to the first version - is this version any cleaner? Thanks!
  5. leejacksonaudio
    Fair enough. I have classical composers that I don't like as well. Brahms being one of them, as some people will be shocked to learn.
  6. leejacksonaudio
    Full transparency - this recording was generated in Dorico Pro 5.0.20 using NotePerformer 4. No actual bands were harmed during this recording. :)
  7. leejacksonaudio
    Here we go again, this time with my biggest project yet! Today I've uploaded a version of Anton Bruckner's Symphony No. 6 in A Major, 1st Movement, arranged for concert band / wind ensemble. Bruckner's 6th is an underappreciated masterpiece, and the first movement is a massively powerful work that stirs the emotions or the listener. I've tried to capture the soul of the work with my arrangement by translating the strings to the saxophone choir and by keeping other voices as authentic as possible. Here's the WeTransfer link to it, good for the next 7 days: https://we.tl/t-ik1jOWb53l As always, please let me know what you think. Thanks!
  8. leejacksonaudio
    Here we go again, this time with my biggest project yet! Today I've uploaded a version of Anton Bruckner's Symphony No. 6 in A Major, 1st Movement, arranged for concert band / wind ensemble. Bruckner's 6th is an underappreciated masterpiece, and the first movement is a massively powerful work that stirs the emotions or the listener. I've tried to capture the soul of the work with my arrangement by translating the strings to the saxophone choir and by keeping other voices as authentic as possible. Here's the WeTransfer link to it, good for the next 7 days: https://we.tl/t-ik1jOWb53l As always, please let me know what you think. Thanks! Full transparency - this recording was generated in Dorico Pro 5.0.20 using NotePerformer 4. No actual bands were harmed during this recording. :)
  9. leejacksonaudio
    Vodka.
  10. leejacksonaudio

    If all goes well - and if all is as it seems on Facebook - this could be a very big day for me in the real world of music, for today could mark the first real world reading of my second woodwind quintet, "Theme and Tangents." Someone on the Facebook "Composers for Performers, Performers for Composers" group offered to have their woodwind ensemble play through my work once I got it finished. It's taken me a while to wrap it up neatly and put a bow of completion on it, but I finally got it finished and sent off to her. I found out last night that today was her group's rehearsal day, during which they would go through the piece.

     

    To say that I am nervous would be putting it mildly. I have no idea what kind of woodwind ensemble she has, much less whether or not the thing really exists. Time to put ye olde faith into action and hope for the best. I believe she's in Colorado, so it'll probably be sometime after 6pm Central before I hear anything if it comes to pass.

     

    Please wish me luck on this one, folks. I can use all I can get.

  11. leejacksonaudio

    Quick FYI - I've joined the Bruckner Society of America today. Anton Bruckner, for those of you unfamiliar with him, was a 19th-century composer who wrote some magnificent symphonies, including my favorite, Symphony No. 6 in A Major, which I'm working on right now in Dorico Pro. He lived a fascinating life and left behind more than just music, which is why I joined the Society. If you're interested, check out the website below and look for yourself!

     

    https://www.brucknersocietyamerica.org/index.html

     

  12. leejacksonaudio
    I got to thinking about chocolate today, during the brutal Texas heat which prevents any of it from being shipped here. What's your opinion about the "best" kind of chocolate? I personally like white chocolate and 65% dark chocolate, but I'll take whatever is handed to me. Sound off, Doomworld!
  13. leejacksonaudio
    Thank you. I'm now putting out a call for an actual woodwind quartet to come and play the piece through a composer/performer meetup forum on Facebook. Too soon for results, but I tell you now - it's going to be a massive job for whichever quartet takes it on. Wish both of us luck.
  14. leejacksonaudio
    Here's another Dorico Pro rendering for you to check out. I just finished an arrangement of Beethoven's Piano Sonata #18, Opus 31, No. 3 in Eb Major for Woodwind Quartet (not Quintet - the difference is no French Horn). It was a real workout getting it done - four movements, 23 minutes' worth of music, over 110 pages in the full score! The bassoon part is 20 pages long, for crying out loud. Still, I'm hoping someone will play it, and that one or more of you will listen to the MP3 of it. Here's the WeTransfer link of it, good for a limited period of time: https://we.tl/t-3ocNr7egjX Please tell me what you think, and if you got all the way through the recording. Thanks!
  15. leejacksonaudio
    Here's another Dorico Pro rendering for you to check out. I just finished an arrangement of Beethoven's Piano Sonata #18, Opus 31, No. 3 in Eb Major for Woodwind Quartet (not Quintet - the difference is no French Horn). It was a real workout getting it done - four movements, 23 minutes' worth of music, over 110 pages in the full score! The bassoon part is 20 pages long, for crying out loud. Still, I'm hoping someone will play it, and that one or more of you will listen to the MP3 of it. Here's the WeTransfer link of it, good for a limited period of time: https://we.tl/t-3ocNr7egjX Please tell me what you think, and if you got all the way through the recording. Thanks!
  16. leejacksonaudio
    I have just come out of a nearly week-long Dorico Pro binge session where I've finished the score and parts for two, count 'em, two woodwind quintets, complete with audio renderings of each. The big news is that I now have a full rendered recording of my *first* woodwind quintet, something that's never been heard publicly before. If you'd like to hear - for the first time anywhere - a fully rendered recording of all three movements of my first woodwind quintet, complete with slurs and articulations (!!!), then here's the WeTransfer link for the MP3: https://we.tl/t-aS9fZkZlAx Please tell me what you think. Thanks!
  17. leejacksonaudio
    Whew! That was a blast! (faints and falls over) Seriously, I've just finished my first major set of marathon sessions with Dorico Pro, and my results? Two completed woodwind quintets in about a week's time! I got both Woodwind Quintet No.1 and "Theme and Tangents" done, full score & parts plus rendered recordings of each. I just finished editing WWQ1 about an hour ago (I did T&T first, since I have an offer by someone to perform it). If you'd like to hear - for the first time anywhere - a fully rendered recording of all three movements of my first woodwind quintet, complete with slurs and articulations (!!!), then here's the WeTransfer link for the MP3: https://we.tl/t-aS9fZkZlAx Please let me know what you think. Thanks!
  18. leejacksonaudio
    I finally have access to a notation program! Dorico Pro 5 is loaded on my laptop and rockin' and rollin' like you wouldn't believe. All I had to do was force myself to spend a couple of hours upright in the seat at the big Music Computer upgrading things, including upgrading Dorico Pro from v3.5 to v5.0.20, and blammo! I have multi-machine permission now! I can use it with my legs elevated, and use it I have - boy, howdy, have I ever! After stumbling through the initial learning curve, I've managed to pick up some speed on the thing, and I'm now in the process of converting "Theme and Tangents," my second woodwind quintet, from a MIDI file into a full score and parts. I can't wait to get this thing played!
  19. leejacksonaudio
    At what level would you consider yourself currently? How much music do you know right now, in other words?
  20. leejacksonaudio
    This is why stoves have back burners.
  21. leejacksonaudio
    I have learned the hard way that I am lactose intolerant. However, a couple of Lactaid tablets lets me enjoy my favorite milk: Cultured, Bulgarian-Style Buttermilk. Borden sells it via our local WalMart superstore, but on occasion I can find a better version of it at Sprouts, Whole Foods, or Central Market. Whatever the brand, it needs to be as cold as possible. Om nom nom.
  22. leejacksonaudio

    I finally gathered enough strength and health to tackle round two of gazpacho-making today. Turned out to be quite a fight. Before I had the tomatoes chopped up, I had to sit down and rest due to lower left back pain (I really need another rhizotomy on my lower left lumbar region, and will postpone further gazpacho bouts until I get one). Anyway, it took me a couple of hours, but I finally got it done, and with my wife's help cleaning up, I wound up with some outstanding gazpacho this time around. Both of us pronounced it a vast improvement over the first batch from a few weeks ago.

     

    I made a couple of changes to the recipe:

    1. I used Roma tomatoes instead of regular "beefsteak"-style tomatoes you find in the store.

    2. I added a pinch of ground cumin to the blended vegetables and increased the amount of sherry vinegar by a teaspoon. These went in prior to adding the olive oil.

    3. I switched olive oil to Bertolli extra virgin "Rich Taste" olive oil.

     

    I also may have used a larger purple onion. The recipe calls for a small one; I definitely did not use a small one either time, but this time I really used a big one. I didn't taste a huge onion-y difference. It just blended into the final product.

     

    This was also the first time I got a chance to use my chinois ("China cap") strainer. It worked like gangbusters at getting all of the pulp out of the soup. The end product must have looked mighty tasty, because my wife wound up eating it. She said it tasted good enough, but she changed her mind when she got her first taste of the chilled, strained soup. That beat the pulp to a pulp. ;)

     

    Overall, I wore myself out doing it, but the end product was well worth it. Look for my previous status update for the link to the New York Times' recipe.

    1. Biodegradable

      Biodegradable

      Good on ya, Lee. :^)

  23. leejacksonaudio
    Let me preface my remarks by saying that I have absolutely zero knowledge of how MIDI2MUS or the MUS file format work. I only claim knowledge of the MIDI file format and how Cakewalk deals with it. When I wrote MIDI files, I did not fully coordinate my efforts with Bobby Prince. We talked, and we looked at each other's work, but we then went off and did our own things. It is possible that he may have picked up some of my idiosyncrasies in making his own MIDI files, but I do not know. I picked up much of my basic skills from studying Bobby's files, along with the habit of keeping things orderly as much as possible. As for the percussion parts, I think I initially started off writing everything on one line, then switched to spreading them across to multiple lines when editing parts got to be too much of a hassle (or when I saw someone else do it, one or the other - my influences and my writing were very fluid back then). I don't recall putting pitch bend or volume on tracks other than the ones that they would directly affect. I do recall using MIDI "tricks" when necessary, but good lord, it's been 30 years - you'd have to prompt my memory for me to remember exactly what I did, aside from the whole EMIDI suite of stuff that's documented elsewhere. Please, ask me some specific questions, and I'll do my best to answer them.
  24. leejacksonaudio
    There's a technique for getting rid of game-induced motion sickness. Here it is: 1. Back away from the screen. 2. Make sure you can see the frame of the screen while you play. That's it! You're getting too immersed in the game and losing your peripheral vision. Regain that, and you'll lose your motion sickness. Simple!
  25. leejacksonaudio

    I wound up skipping the gazpacho fixing for a couple of reasons: one, I never did get myself to feeling back up to par, and two, my wife didn't clear off the dishes from last night's cookery (I can't, physically). So, I asked her to get things ready for me to try and make gazpacho on Thursday, and I tried to rest up and recuperate.

     

    And wouldn't you know, I've been hit with strings of Premature Atrial Contractions in my heart for most of the night. Damn it to hell and back. Those things sap all the energy out of me and make me feel like crap. I've got nothing to do for them except take my nighttime meds and try to sleep them off.

     

    Cross your fingers for me, please. The tomatoes aren't going to last forever in there.

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