Warm Weather and Worms

I love where I live: It was 83 degrees F this afternoon - the first day in the 80's this year - and absolutely spectacular. 18% relative humidity, which at our 4,700 foot elevation is actually quite nice. Even now - at 10:45 CST - it's still in the sixties, which is very unusual for this time of year, especially at this elevation. I had the front and back doors open all day and a nice stiff, breeze aired out my little townhouse very nicely. My humidifiers are just now starting to catch up with things though.

Unfortunately, I am under said weather: I'm coming down with some kind of creeping crud that's been going around, and if my friend's experience is any indication, it starts out minor and by day three it's really bad. Right now it's just a little chest cold, but when I tell anybody that, invariably the response is something along the lines of, "Yeah, just give it a couple of days." Not good, since I have gigs on Thursday and Friday. Ugh.

I shouldn't complain too much, because my Mr. Clean lifestyle normally assures that these things are rare, and I haven't had a cold of any kind since last winter. Not too bad, really, since this is the third round of some virus coming through the area so far this season. As a result of this development, I probably won't be blogging much for the next few days. But there's more...

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By introducing an episode with the melodic trajectories projected above the zero axis in the fugue, I have opened up a serious can of worms. "Just as the Emperor has foreseen." Actually, it's more like a bucket of nightcrawlers than a can of mere earthworms. I'm not going to have to shuffle around any of the structural landmarks that are currently in place, but there are now two entire new sections within the development that I'm going to have to write. Initial results are encouraging, and I get to use some really cool chromatic countrapuntal techniques in these passages, so I'm psyched.

I have put a PDF and a MIDI file of the most recent version of the fugue on my .Mac Downloads Page, if you'd like to take a listen. I tested it out and downloading the MIDI file opens up QuickTime under OS X and it's ready to play.

*****

I picked up an extra gig this week, which I just got home from, and I actually experienced some finger joint pain when I got the Reynolds-Godin eleven-string out after dinner, so playing on it two nights in a row is out of the question yet. Though I gamely switched back to the Multiac and tried to continue, I had nothing left by that point. That's a shame, because there was an unusually large late crowd and I was simply toast by 9:30 PM and had to shut her down. Decent tips, good base pay, and an excellent free meal though. Probably would have ended up with another Jackson if I'd have stuck it out until ten, but alas... er... "a lass" I mean.




That's actually not a bad idea: Beat the heat and humidify at the same time. Things that make you go "Hmmm."