A side quest
/There I was, minding my own business, avoiding working on Lichtenbergianism for Kids when my offspring sent me a link to this: You can send something to the Moon, for free!
Essentially, Redditor Valphon is accepting anything under 10MB, which they will put onto one of two microSD cards in a ‘Moonbox’ heading to the moon via NASA contractor Astrobotic. It’s a cool idea, right?
So I bethought me, and of course I decided I would send the mp3 of “Blake Leads a Walk on the Milky Way,” from William Blake’s Inn.
Problems immediately arose. For one thing, the video services wouldn’t accept a pure mp3, so I had to turn it into a video. Break out the iMovie.
But then I had to find the mp3 to send. Here’s the problem: the original orchestral accompaniment does not have the melody of the first lyrics, so to the virgin ear it would just sound like so much noodling, and the recapitulation at the end would lose its impact. So just open up the Finale file and export it with the choral aaahs left in, right?
Nope, because between my finishing the piece in 2007 and now, Finale dropped the windchimes from its sound files and futzed with the percussion map in general, so the mp3 generated now would be… inadequate.
I found an mp3 that would serve, although it has some kind of weird stuff going on here and there. Then it was a matter of dragging it over to iMovie, and adding titles and lyrics to a starry background.
You’d think something that simple would be simple, yes? Alas, I spent hours tweaking and fixing and working around iMovie’s inflexibility. But I got it done. It’s uploaded, accepted, and “Blake Leads a Walk on the Milky Way” is going to the moon.
What can I say? I love this piece. I love this piece. It is probably the best thing I have ever written, or ever shall. As one of the singers said when we had a semi-performance in 2007, it takes you on a journey, even without the lyrics.
That’s deliberate, of course, and I’m inordinately proud of having hammered this thing out of my head and into reality — MAKE THE THING THAT IS NOT.
I’m terrible at self-promotion and nearly didn’t do this yesterday. If you will indulge me, however, please listen to “Milky Way.” It’s seven minutes long, and I think you’ll find it time well spent.
Because it’s truly beautiful.
