#codename fructus unicus

[emilyhopebunny]

Have a listen to my choral setting of text post memes that originated right here on tumblr!

My piece, Copypasta (performed here by the First Readings Project) is in three movements and uses these texts:

Spiders Georg by @reallyreallyreallytrying

Hot Plum by @utopians

I Think That's Beutiful by @nerdgul

Sheet music is available here.

(If your choir performs this piece, please let me know!)

[emilyhopebunny]

I got a good grade in blazing a post, something that is normal to want and possible to achieve

[emilyhopebunny]

I'm planning on publishing another batch of pieces in late August, and here's what you can expect to see:

First: Copypasta!

My meme piece is finished, text permissions (mostly) settled, and I've commissioned a recording of the piece from First Readings Project, which will happen in August. I was so pleased with the recording they made of The Lone Wild Bird, and I can't wait to see what they do with this piece!

The finished piece is in three movements, with text from these tumblr posts:

Spiders Georg by @reallyreallyreallytrying

the Hot Plum Poem by @utopians

this "I think that's beautiful" meme about canned pineapple by @nerdgul

I'm also publishing an a cappella setting of the traditional English cumulative rhyme The House that Jack Built. I actually first had the idea for this back when I was procrastinating working on my master's thesis. The topic of cumulative tales came up tangentially in my research, and suddenly I had about half of this setting written in my head. I sometimes talk about the years during and after my master's degree as a fallow period for me creatively, because of how burned out I was from academia, but there were still little islands of creativity and this was one of them. This piece did remain unfinished for many years, but recently I remembered it and decided it would be a fun piece to pair with Copypasta.

That might be all for this batch, but I also have this setting of Emily Dickinson's "Hope is the thing with feathers" that I've been making very slow progress on for a while now. I kind of feel like, my pen name being what it is, I'm kind of required to set this poem, and I like the ideas I'm working with, but it's just taking a while. But if I do finish it in the next few months it'll go in this batch as well.

In the meantime, I still have much to do, so I'll get back to it.

[emilyhopebunny]

The Copypasta recording hasn't dropped yet, but the listings are live for my August June batch of pieces:

Copypasta

Hope

To Make a Prairie

The House that Jack Built

[emilyhopebunny]

So First Readings Project had an opening in an earlier recording session, which I very happily filled, which means Copypasta will now be recorded in a little over a week!

This is good because my "August batch" of pieces is all pretty much complete and in the final editing stage, so if I'd waited until August to publish them, they would've all been gathering dust for a few months. However, I've got a whole lot of work with my day job right now, and while that gives me plenty of time to look over pdfs of my drafts on my work computer, it does not give me as much time to sit in front of my own computer and edit them in Dorico. I may still be able to get all of it done by the time the recording drops, but we'll just have to see.

All that to say, the August batch is now the June batch! And just as a reminder, this will include:

Copypasta

The House that Jack Built

Hope

To Make a Prairie

[emilyhopebunny]

Haven't posted in a while, hi!

It's funny how I originally said I wouldn't necessarily be focusing on the meme piece, because now it's... basically finished. And I might just have some further plans for it, but there are a lot of details I need to work out before I can say more about that.

Anyway, you know what I've discovered recently? If you get a membership to IMSLP (kinda like Project Gutenberg but for music scores), then you get access to the Naxos library of recordings (or at least the ones that are of pieces in the public domain) that you can basically use like a streaming service (but a lot cheaper).

This seems to be the thing that has finally gotten me listening to music regularly. I know that sounds weird for someone who's literally a composer, but my autistic sensory issues are pretty severe, particularly sensitivity to sound. Music can often be an exception to this, but isn't always. Any time I'm doing anything that requires my full attention, I can't have music in the background. Because my brain is bad at putting anything "in the background." I'm always paying attention.

But this is an easily accessible source of car music, and driving is one of those things that I can do while also listening to music. It's still a bit of a negotiation though. Because there's always that level of car noise happening when you're driving, and so it's a balance between getting the music loud enough to be heard over that without being too loud for me to tolerate. (and then because I drive a hybrid sometimes the motor cuts out and suddenly the music is very loud!)

All this to say, as someone who doesn't have a lot of disposable income to throw at a streaming service, I find this to be a useful alternative.

[emilyhopebunny]

Really getting into writing some spoopy piano 👻

[emilyhopebunny]

Ok so when I said I wasn't going to start notating the meme piece yet, I was lying. I guess I may need to start thinking more seriously about contacting the meme creators, and figuring out what I'm going to say. Fun!

What remains to be seen is whether I'll keep this initial tempo marking spelled as it is, or if I'll be a coward and change it to "spooky."