Big Ideas, Little Progress

A long time ago, I started outlining a massive project called Fantascapes. I composed a few pieces for it and then put it aside for months on end. Last month I got into it again, and I realized it was unnecessary to wait until its total completion to post about it again.

If I don’t post about my composing, no one knows I’m even being productive. They just have to take my word for it. But if I do post about every little piece I add to the portfolio, then it’s just annoying. And then people have progress markers to use as reference points to nag me later.

This paradox pisses me off.

Since Fantascapes was always meant to be an on-again, off-again project, I might as well just talk about its current state. Also, I’m losing steam on it and might not touch it for a while to come.

I really wanted to “finish” it (three or four full CDs worth of music) before posting the entire tracklist and times, but that’s not going to happen for a long time (if at all).

Basically, Logic won’t let me properly mix a file imported from Finale. It freaks out when I try to do that, because the MIDI source already has the “human playback” feature. And I have to make separate channels for standard bowing and tremolo strings, because I have nice patches for each and the MIDI tremolo data makes the regular string patch crap its pants. That’s only a little extra work, so whatever. If I can’t use the volume track automation, it sounds hackey and… well, MIDI.

Anyway, I’ve become very frustrated (AGAIN) by trying to import Finale into Logic and have decided to abandon Fantascapes in favor of something else. At the moment, I’m leaning towards Mantra: Volume One and/or Concerto for Tuba. Just in case you were going to ask.

Here’s what I have so far on Fantascapes, only not mixed to my satisfaction and therefore wouldn’t play it for you even if I could:

Prologue: A World of Legends [3:48]
Battle in the Fog [4:52]
Walled City [2:47]
A Pint in Each Hand [3:09]
Marketplace [2:58]
Temple of Saragis [1:51]
My Past, My Sorrow [4:44]

TOTAL (so far): [24:09]

Here, I’ll save you the trouble of posting the first comment:

So… what, you’re posting about something that isn’t done, and you’re not even talking about the material of the pieces? What’s the point? Do you want a cookie or something? It’s not finished ‘til it’s finished. And MIDI realizations don’t count for squat. If you’re not going to post the final recordings on your blog for us to listen to, and you’re not going to even describe the pieces, then what are we supposed to say about it?

You bastard. My point is that I have been doing something, and that it seems like everyone is wondering what I’m doing since I talk about composing but I never reveal what it is I’m working on. My point is that I’m moving on to another project, which hopefully I can talk more about later.