Jeffries Tube Rendezvous

 I had some fun with this one!

Some backstory: in August of 2022 I had a surgery (for large acoustic neuroma). The surgery was successful and my facial nerve preserved. While I lost hearing in my left ear I'm still able to record (and frankly music has never sounded better!) but obviously I'm not so concerned with a stereo mix as much! 

For a time (maybe a couple months?) I wasn't sure if I'd ever be able to play more horn(s) again. My recovery was physically very hard. Lots of pain in my head, neck and back. I wanted to return to swimming and biking but those would have to come in time. I did not lose my balance but I remain the klutz I've always been! As for playing trumpet, I couldn't play anything at a few weeks post-op. The left side of my lips had lost some sensation. The mouthpiece felt asymmetric and very odd. Still, I persisted and did lots of facial exercises.

In time I could play low notes up to middle C. Months later, after lots of PT, acupuncture, and exercise, my embouchure finally came back. It was a joy to finally be able to play, although I was straining for a long time to get to the top of the staff. Now I'm playing just about at the level I think I was at pre-surgery, albeit my range and endurance are still continuing to improve.

Bottom line: it feels great to be playing, singing, writing, and producing music again and I'm looking forward to lots more to come!

This song is a personal celebration for me - it's just me checking in with a bit of humor, an interesting chord progression and melody, I'm playing synths and ukulele (!), and playing what I think to be some solid flugelhorn lines!

I Believe In Dog

"I Believe In Dog" is a symphonic work scored for full orchestra - the music is underscore for my poem/narration, "I Believe In Dog" - the score and parts/poem are now available on Sheet Music Plus! https://www.sheetmusicplus.com/title/i-believe-in-dog-digital-sheet-music/21322551?ac=1

Bella

Bella was a loving member of our family for almost 16 years.  She lived a long and happy life. She was by my side in my studio for many music scoring projects - kept me company and made sure I took lots of breaks to get outside and enjoy the outdoors!  All dogs (and cats) deserve loving homes.  It's my hope that "I Believe In Dog" can be performed and used to raise awareness and resources for organizations that foster and care for dogs and cats in order to find them homes.

Bella with "Dead Cow" - she'd shake that stuffed thing but never broke DC after over a decade!

Score excerpt from "I Believe In Dog" for Full Orchestra and Poem Reader/Narrator

Scores and Parts for Rob Birdwell's Original Tunes

Been busy working on new music, gigging and enjoying life! I'm in the process of migrating my scores/parts for my original and public domain works to Sheet Music Plus!

The Sheet Music Plus service is a good fit for me, will save me time (more time for music!), and will hopefully expose my composing/arranging work (and even some of my songs!) to a much wider audience!

St. James Infirmary Blues is one of my arrangements now on Sheet Music Plus - it's a public domain song so I can make it available!  Enjoy the amazing Katie Smith's fabulous performance as well as that of everyone in the Corvallis-OSU Symphony!

I have several other derived work "arrangements" - making those available is much more complex.  There are some incredible publishers and rights organizations out there - but getting licensing for an orchestral arrangement is expensive folks - the best offers I've had offer a 12.5% markup price if I'm selling - that's actually good, but I have yet to sign any paper work for that deal.  The WORST are the offers (and I won't dignify them with even mentioning names) for an "arranger license" of around $400 or more!  That wouldn't even include any costs for the score or parts.  I've had to turn down MULTIPLE requests from some GREAT orchestras because I simply don't have the rights.

So yea, I get it.  Intellectual property, and all that jazz.  It's important.  I've been threatened with infringement fees in the past, but hopefully never again.  The "arranger license" fees will pretty much mean there's no way any of my 3 to 5 minute arrangements of other authors' songs will ever be heard in a public venue again!  Well, not unless something changes or there's some sort of reasonable solution that has an economy of scale suitable for the small-town arranger and local orchestra.

I do like the 12.5% markup idea.  Wouldn't it be great to write an arrangement of a cool tune, make the score/parts available for $50 bucks and send $6.25 of any sales to the publisher/rights holder?  Ah, if only it were that simple!

I'm going to stick to writing/composing ORIGINAL music/songs/lyrics!  The pay may not be great but wow is it satisfying!

I've got some projects in the works that I'm excited about - these things always take time so check back soon!

Meanwhile, keep playing it pretty!

RB

Corvallis-OSU Symphony Final Frontier Concert 2016

I have the honor, once again, to be part of another great Corvallis-OSU Symphony concert on Sunday, February 28, 2016 at 3pm at LaSells Stewart Center.  For more information and tickets, visit the Corvallis-OSU Symphony web site.

I'll be guest-conducting the following works:

Star Wars Medley - music by John Williams
Flying Theme from E.T. - music by John Williams 
Star Trek Through The Years - music by Alexander Courage, Jerry Goldsmith, et al.
Space Oddity - words and music by David Bowie, arranged by Rob Birdwell; featured vocalist: Marc Callahan
A Brave and Startling Truth - poem by Maya Angelou, music by Rob Birdwell; featured poetry reader: Shelley Moon

Other works to be performed and conducted by Corvallis-OSU Symphony music director Marlan Carlson include:

• Tomasi: Concerto for Saxophone and Orchestra featuring Nathan Boal on saxophone
• Richard Strauss: Thus Spake Zarathustra

Am I excited?  Way beyond that!  There's a tremendous amount of talent on and off stage - professional musicians, teachers, extraordinary students, and pro-level community players comprise this orchestra.  A hard working symphony board and masterful music direction by Marlan Carlson make this, like so many other concerts, a one-of-a-kind event.

It's an honor to be able to "play" (as conducting is my instrument for this gig) with such talented musicians.  As usual, I'm humbled but soaking in the experience and always learning new things.  The 30 minutes or so that I'll spend on the stand during the performance imploring musical expression out of the orchestra for my selections - and flowing along a good deal of the way too - won't compare to the hours/days/nights of preparation, dreaming, scoring, communicating, persuading, doubting, and hoping.  That's true with just about everything though - probably why I like watching those "making of" documentaries of films or music as much (if not more) than the finished product.  

Marlan Carlson and I were chatting in his office in early December 2015 about the possibility and logistics of adding David Bowie's Space Oddity to the program, preferably with an operatic baritone singer. To my delight he said he knew just the singer.  I followed him from his office as he speedily lead the way to the studio of Marc Callahan.  Marlan asked Marc of his availability, introduced me, and then I mentioned the Bowie song; Marc took maybe 20 seconds to stew this idea around before he said, "why not?" and just like that a new arrangement, song, and performer were slated for the concert! It's been a joy getting to know Marc and his exceptional vocal talents.  I can't wait for him to unleash that thunderous voice of his on this song - it is musically and emotionally fitting that a wondrous voice and talent such as his will be performing it.  Coming in the shadow of David Bowie's recent passing makes it all the more poignant.  I'd been scoring the arrangement of Space Oddity and completely immersed in all things Bowie for several weeks when I heard the sad news.  The gift of Bowie's Blackstar album and the stories from his collaborators shed light on his relentless artistry despite what he was facing.  Can't get much more final frontier than that.

There are always pleasant surprises and happy accidents when putting together any music, program, show or concert - getting to know poet, author, and storyteller Shelley Moon is certainly one, and Maya Angelou's poem "A Brave and Startling Truth" is another.  The concept of the "final frontier" theme is clear in every line of Dr. Angelou's poem - written in 1995 in honor of the 50th anniversary of the United Nations - and Shelley Moon's reading of it will be a gift for all as she lends her artistic voice and life experience to every word, phrase, and meaning in the poem.  As Maya Angelou so eloquently states, "We are the miraculous, the true wonder of this world " - that's final frontier stuff all the way.

Shelley Moon's reading of "A Brave and Startling Truth" will be underscored by my original music inspired by Maya Angelou's words and message.  It's an experiment and there's always risk in this sort of thing but I'm grateful for this collaboration and opportunity. 

And finally, don't even get me started on the Theremin and all that I learned about that instrument and its inventor over these past couple months!  More on that later - hopefully much more!

Rob Birdwell

MuseScore 2.0 Preferred over Finale

I've been a Finale user for many years - and I will be for many more to come.  However, it probably won't be my go-to music notation software for new projects.  I'm pretty much using MuseScore 2.0 for every new project these days - it does just about everything extraordinarily well, is reliable, feature rich and fits nicely with my own workflow and preferences.

Here are my top 10 reasons why I now prefer MuseScore 2.0 over Finale:

1. Note entry - MuseScore 2.0's features in this department rival even Finale's Speedy Entry feature, something I never thought would be possible.  
2. Navigator - the ability to navigate quickly to any part of the score.  The Page and Continuous view modes directly correlate with Finale's approach but the Navigator (bird's-eye view) greatly enhances both of these views.
3. Slurs and hairpin dynamics - these are just two examples of common input shortcuts made simple.  Pressing "S" will slur any selected notes; hairpin dynamics are input using the < and > keys.  Pretty intuitive!
4. Chords Symbols - I love MuseScore 2.0's ability quickly enter chord symbols just the way I want!  No, chord symbols don't play back as they do in Finale - but that was never a desired feature and one I often had to scramble around figuring out how to turn that feature off.
5. Metronome - I know this is a simple thing, but I love this feature.  I no longer have to compose a drum part as my click (although drum and percussion entry in MuseScore 2.0 is very powerful).
6. Page and Score Layout - I've gotten pretty good at page layout with Finale although much of that learning was the product of a great deal of time and experimentation.  MuseScore 2.0's layout features (with the "Breaks and Spacers" and the vertical & horizontal frames) are easy to use and work pretty much as I'd expect.  
7. Inspector tool - very useful for selecting a group of notes and changing their attributes en masse.  At first it seems like an "Advanced" tool but once explored you'll be clicking F8 to get at these features - for example, making notes invisible, making a group of notes smaller, etc.  All very easy with this tool.
8. Looping Measure(s) - the ability to select one or more measures and loop them in playback!  That's really useful for practicing lines with the score!  Used in conjunction with the metronome and this is a double cool feature with many practical uses!
9. Playback - the score playback in MuseScore 2.0 is actually quite wonderful.  The ability to control the mix and pan are especially intuitive.  Do I miss Finale's Garritan Orchestra playback?  Maybe a bit.  But it really is about notation first.  We're writing music for a player to see and bring to life.  The playback must be good, but not at the expense of bogging down the system. Besides, people who need super high resolution playback simply have no imagination! ;)
10. Open Source - I love the fact that this software has a huge community and support network.  It's a true marvel, creating such a feature-rich tool for creating musical scores and lead sheets given the wide range of musical styles and preferences within the world of music notation.  The barrier to entry is incredibly high, but MuseScore 2.0 clears the bar and then some.  And because it's open source, the anticipation and support for new features will hopefully continue long after this MuseScore 2.0 honeymoon is over!
11. Repeat Last Selection ("R" shortcut) - I know I said "Top 10" but my list of favorites would be incomplete if I didn't mention the "R" feature - which is to say the "Repeat" feature whereby you simple select any measure or note group within a measure and press the R key - those selected notes notes and/or measure items will be repeated to the next beat or measure.  This is extremely powerful and reduces millions of key strokes!  

I love many, many other aspects of MuseScore 2.0 - from the ability to import a variety of formats, including MIDI and MusicXML, to being able to export a score's playback to MP3, WAV or other audio format, to being able to use MuseScore 2.0 on Windows, Linux or Mac.  The list of favorites goes on.

However, there are many features I still greatly appreciate about Finale - most all of the same things I like about MuseScore 2.0, but these features are particularly powerful in Finale and are either missing, lacking, or unknown to me in MuseScore 2.0:

1. Note Mover Tool (ability to move/merge/replace select notes from one staff to another) - yes, I can copy notes many different ways in MuseScore 2.0, but when it comes to fine-grained note movement I believe MuseScore 2.0 could improve on this lack of functionality.  Finale's "Note Mover" tool would be a nice feature to have in MuseScore 2.0.
2. Exploding Notes - although MuseScore 2.0 does indeed have a very useful "Explode" note feature, it's limited to the staff directly below the one you are exploding too.  Finale has more fine-grained control over this feature.  I wish MuseScore 2.0 would allow me to explode notes from different voices as Finale does.  Still, I can work with MuseScore 2.0's explode note implementation - works good enough for what I most commonly need. 
3. Copy/Paste only certain items (via filter) - Finale's features in this department are powerful.  While MuseScore 2.0 rivals many of them, I miss being able to (easily) copy only articulations, slurs, et al.,  from one melody to another un-detailed..  Maybe this feature exists in MuseScore 2.0 - but as of this writing it's not obvious to me how to do this.