31: Pre-Rehearsals (1)

When Robert Johnson and I had our first run throughs I muddled along on the piano but my ears soon rebelled in horror. Rob, being the scholar that he is, said nothing about my two-pawed pianism but became quite eager when I suggested I make up a synth mock-up of the orchestra for him to rehearse to.

Normally that is quite an easy process of loading in the appropriate samples and having the notation software (Finale) create an audio file. This had worked well during the early stages of composition but somewhere along the line the full score files caught a bug and refused to make audio files, even though it would play back perfectly well on the computer. I hadn’t noticed because everything else was operating as required and I didn’t need these rehearsal files until the composition was finished. A lot of time was lost trying to sort this out.

In the end I had to rebuild the files up from scratch, staff by staff. Part One then went as it should, but I was unhappy with the balance of Part Two, so I bounced each instrument to an audio file, then imported them into Digital Performer and did a detailed mix.

I gave Robert a CD with three versions of the piece:
1. Orchestra and horn
2. Orchestra (no horn)
3. Orchestra (no horn) and click

Obviously the preludes to both parts were ignored as these are in free time, but for the rest of the work this CD enabled Rob to become familiar with the harmonic movement and the landmarks in the orchestra.

Speaking of two-pawed pianists, here is the supreme maestra performing the music of Lithuanian composer, Mindaugas Piecaits, with the Klaipeda Chamber Orchestra conducted by the composer: