emilyhopebunny

[emilyhopebunny]

I almost forgot about writing up a year in review, so here it is. My attempt to add something new to my previous New Year's resolution... failed. Notevember... failed. But I'm okay with this. Lately I've been more focused on working on my big choral orchestral project and also making myself known to some people in the orchestral scene who have crossed my path lately. Not sure if any of this will go anywhere, but I enjoy going in this direction so I'll just keep doing that.

My weekly composition goal (which is literally just to do any one thing that's in any way composition related every week) continues to work for me. It's just that low bar I can set for myself that often works to get the momentum rolling and trick myself into getting far more accomplished than that small goal requires. This year, I tried adding a new monthly goal, and that didn't end up working so well, so I'm just going to go back to what works. Maybe also I'll start the new year with a vague intention of making more inroads and connections in the orchestral world. Not a structured goal or resolution, just... keep an eye out for opportunities, and see what happens.

Happy New Year, friends! 🥂

[emilyhopebunny]

My wonderful aunt asked me what I wanted for Christmas, and I asked for the full score of Stravinsky's Symphony of Psalms and/or Bernstein's Chichester Psalms. She kindly sent me both!

I asked for these because my work in progress, which I've been referring to as codename quasi cinis, is also a three-movement choral/orchestral setting of a selection of texts from the Psalms. In fact, my intention is for my piece to be programmed between the Stravinsky and the Bernstein. It will also be a complete work in its own right that can stand alone. I'm aware that asking an orchestra to perform these three pieces together would be logistically rather demanding, as they have different instrumentations, so I wouldn't insist on it being programmed this way, but I am specifically writing it to transition between the two works, both of which I've sung before and love very much.

So now it's time to study some score! 📖🎶👀

[emilyhopebunny]

I've been working on the second movement of codename quasi cinis, and I'm going Ivesian again, and this time it's definitely going to require some notation shenanigans, which I did mostly manage to avoid in codename canticum antiquum. Over the years, I've kind of developed a process for notation shenanigans in Finale, but now I need to figure it all out in Dorico. I'm moving slowly, reading up in the user manual and the forums, plotting and scheming in my head. The musical ideas themselves still require some time to properly ferment, so hopefully the execution will fall into place as the ideas come together.

The third movement has a fugue in it, because I like making things difficult for myself. I've put together a first entry that I really like, and even sketched out an idea involving the inversion of the subject, but I still need to figure out the overall shape of it and what key areas I want to visit and how I will get to them. That part feels pretty daunting, to be honest, but I will continue to ponder on it.

[emilyhopebunny]

Welcome to my blog! My name is Emily Hope and I am a composer of choral music, among other things.

If you would like to listen to some of the music I have written, check out my #playlist tag.

If you would like to contact me, here are some ways to do so.

I'm happy to have you here! Let's make some music :)

[emilyhopebunny]

I think I will go back through my blog and use a consistent tag for the posts with audio of stuff I wrote, and then pin a post linking to that tag, so people coming here because I gave them a business card or something like that can easily get my music in their ear holes. That sounds like a good idea. Maybe I'll do it tomorrow.

[emilyhopebunny]

Symphony Chorus concert week always gives me an opportunity to push past my autistic social ineptitude and try to initiate conversations with people who could help me advance my career. Some such conversations have occurred this week, aided by my newly acquired stack of business cards. We shall see if anything comes of this.

In other news, it's looking increasingly likely that tiktok will be banned here in the US, for reasons that don't make a lot of sense to me. It's a little sad, because I've always been intrigued by the type of musical collaboration that can happen there, but my attempts to participate in that myself have been hampered by tiktok's strange and inscrutable content moderation practices, as well as my own struggle to figure out how best to present the type of content I create.

I'm not sure if there's really a different social media direction for me to take if I don't have tiktok anymore, so that may just be the end of that journey for me. But I'll keep an eye out for other possibilities.

[emilyhopebunny]

I find myself returning to a large scale choral/orchestral work that I've been sketching ideas for off and on for quite a few years now. I'll just say that the election has made the premise of this work more relevant again. A lot of the early work I did on this piece was in a notebook that I've lost, but in the past week or so, I've reconstructed and reworked the text I want to use for it, and I've got in my head an outline of a three-movement structure that I think works well.

So it's not Notevember, but I haven't been entirely idle. I would like to return to maybe a few select Notevember prompts before the month is out, particularly the one for the 23rd, which is my mom's birthday. Like last year, I chose the prompt for that day as a tribute to her.

In other news, I got some business cards printed, and I've even given one of them out already!

It's nice to have business cards. It makes me feel more like a real composer.

[emilyhopebunny]

“Do it scared” but please realize that, if you Do It Scared too much and don’t let yourself rest + relax + have fun in between, you will fuck yourself up. If you “do it scared” all day every day, you will burn out badly and quickly. Sometimes this is temporarily necessary but please keep this in mind.

[emilyhopebunny]

The idea I had for Notevember day 8 was a poem I wrote that I was going to write sort of a soundtrack for, and I just never ended up doing that, so here's the poem.

Dawn, November 9, 2016: I woke up in my childhood house that was no longer home. I needed to get out; I walked the dog. Mom had attempted to reassure me just hours before as I'd sat sobbing on the couch: "We've survived bad presidents before." Not everyone survived. Mom would die of cancer less than two years later; I guess she didn't survive. Outside the air was harsh and cold and brittle. Dead leaves blew over the hard earth and concrete. Lola nosed around in the barren bushes. Nothing was real. Nothing was real.

Dawn, November 6, 2024: I now inhabit the basement of a condo, still not home. I have work today; no time to wallow, no dog to walk; I left Lola behind when I moved here. At work I will recite the liturgy of customer service, smiling eyes over the mask that I still wear, a reminder of those who didn't survive the last time. Outside the air is misty, too warm for this late hour of the year. Dead leaves have piled up, windswept from a nearby tree, against the garage, along the front walk, damp from the recent rain. Nothing is real. Nothing is real.

The numbness in my soul rebels against the passage of time, but there is a dawn now before me, and there will be another one tomorrow.

[emilyhopebunny]

Oh no, I think I need it...

(currently on Kickstarter)

[emilyhopebunny]

pandalalai

[emilyhopebunny]

Day 8 is turning into a bit of a Project, and it definitely won't be done today. Also next week I've got a symphony chorus concert, and I mean... we'll see what happens, but I'm really starting to think Notevember updates are gonna be more sporadic, and some prompts may be skipped.

I guess if 2023 was the year of setting goals for myself and achieving them, 2024 is about learning to set the bar a little lower when I need to.

[emilyhopebunny]

If I were a seal, I probably wouldn't worry 'bout election results, 'Cause I would sleep beneath the sun all day I'd galumph galumph galumph up onto a rock, And I would sleep beneath the sun all day

And if I were a seal, I probably wouldn't worry 'bout a fascist regime, 'Cause I would play beneath the waves all night I'd galumph galumph galumph down into the sea, And I would play beneath the waves all night

But soon climate change will be out of check, And seal habitats will be under threat, So I guess escapist fantasy's not for the best, We've got to come back to reality We've got to figure out how to move forward from here, 'Cause we can't escape reality

-

As you can see, I'm having a perfectly normal time over here. 🙃

At some point in the wee hours of Wednesday morning, I was starting to think, how can I possibly continue Notevember given what is happening? And I thought about the next prompt on the docket: aquatic. I'd been vaguely imagining something bright and shimmery, but I knew that was right out. Then I thought about aquatic animals just going about their business in the water. What do they care about any of this? Which then made me think of this guy I follow on tiktok, Michael Boyd (turns out he's on youtube too!), who hangs out with and films harbor seals, and has a soothing, slightly goofy style of narration that I always enjoy having on my feed.

And thus, "If I were a Seal" was born.

[emilyhopebunny]

As was the case last year, I've been writing my Notevember entries about a day or two in advance, because it just makes the whole process smoother. That's why today's entry is so full of peace and calm and good vibes instead of rage and despair. Of the many thoughts swirling around my head as the reality of last night's election results sunk in, one of them was, I don't know if I have it in me to continue with Notevember after this, but then I pretty immediately came up with ideas for the next two prompts that are directly related to my feelings about the election, so prepare yourself for that, I guess.

After that though, I'm really not sure what will happen. It's possible I will seize on Notevember as a distraction from it all, or it's also possible that I'll get overwhelmed and just not have the bandwidth for writing music. If the latter, I apologize, but I also want to give myself some grace, because this is just a lot for me.

[emilyhopebunny]

Stay cozy, friends ☕

[emilyhopebunny]

Here's my mini-fugue for clarinet trio. I decided to write it up in Dorico and just use the playback, which turned out okay. The higher range in the bass clarinet sounds like a saxophone for some reason, so I don't know what that's about.

At any rate, the timing of this prompt for Election Day here in the US was not accidental! So just a reminder if you live in the US and haven't already: go vote!

[emilyhopebunny]

For today's prompt, I started with Native Instruments' Kinetic Treats, one of the VSTs that came with my keyboard when I bought it. After playing around with that for a bit, I found something that worked as sort of a base rhythm, on which I layered some percussion from BBCSO, with crotales taking center stage.