New music, maybe. Maybe.

I’m still stymied by my unfamiliarity with either MuseScore or Dorico as a replacement for Finale, but I’m slowly working my way through training videos. (Ugh — just give me a step-by-step manual, please. For one thing, I can follow along while practicing, which is not a real thing with videos, is it?)

However, time moves swiftly on, and if I’m going to continue composing at my advanced age then I probably need to get busy on that. Fortunately, some ideas have been jockeying for position to make me pay attention to them, and I think what I’m going to do is start sketching out this orchestral suite that I’ve had in mind for quite some time.

The suite is quasi-programmatic; it is based on a literary character of whom I am quite fond, and since it’s a copyright issue I’m not going to share any specifics with you. (After I’ve written the music, I’ll ask permission from the author to label the piece with their character’s name; if they say no, then I still have the music, right? Hey, it worked for William Blake’s Inn!)

Cecil the Pest™ looking uncharacteristically elegant

I will say that one of the linchpins of my musical ideas is a specific motif/theme for the main character. (For expedience over the next few months, let’s call him Cecil.) I’ve made a few stabs at this motif over the past few years, but nothing has convinced me to pick up my pencil and start working.

And then this weekend, a theme I’ve held in reserve for over 50 years re-emerged in my head and I thought, “Huh, that’s interesting… what if…” What if that haunting theme, for which I have only ever envisioned in a soaring coda, i.e., at the end of the music, could be reverse-engineered into the thrilling adventure theme for Cecil?

If this works, then the motif will be immediately recognizable whenever it appears — “Ah, there’s Cecil’s theme!” — and then at the end, a serenely beautiful version takes us up, up, and away into the mysteries of the Universe.

Hey, it could happen. Like and subscribe to follow along with my struggles adventures in composing. Don’t forget to keep your Lyles Scale of Compositional Agony handy!