Scribblies that don't make sense anymore

Butterfly on tunic is still there from last picture. I tried to do something interesting with the sword, but I frequently forget about that Kokiri-ish pommel stone. I think I remember the sleeve stitches, but I sure as heck don’t remember that funky catseye belt buckle. And I decided she shouldn’t have any hair ornaments like what that head was trying out. The note on the bottom right says “Rana is very plain – no extra arm or leg things, simple clothes”. I have followed that, but I do think that she can put on other stuff now without becoming less Rana.

Look, Ma! No hands!

Rana Redesign sketch 1
drawn June 26, ’07
posted Jan 3, 2008
(446)
I decided that since Link got a redesign for Twilight Princess, Rana should get one too. I gave up on this one, but the butterfly idea did stay, so here you are.

I did some composing over the holidays… not a lot. Here’s the blog I posted on one social website:

The Kalmaeirin Files Blog

Part I: Friday, December 5th
Well. I mean, welcome. Good gravy, I’m actually to tired to try to be witty, so I’ll just start ‘blogging’. If you don’t want to read about wierd linguistic and fictional things, I can’t help you. o_O7 Here goes!

As you prolly know, or you may not, I have a mythology. This involves people, places, and things. One of these things is a language, kalmaeirin. Up until the past week, I had about 60 definite words and I would occasionally mess with them, discard a few and add one or two. Man, was I excited when I had enough words to scratch out a few verbs of them. But! This last week, I decided to get started on a huge project, my spring 204 project. I’m going to write 24 songs-and-dances in kalmaeirin, or eight sets of three songs in the order of fast-slow-fast. Each piece will start out with a song and turn into a dance. There will be two sets for each voice type.

So, I need a language! I wrote a bunch of the songs in English this last week, and created a whole bunch of words to fit in them, though so far they’ve just been copy/paste over the English, which means it’s definitely not the final form because, well, as the master says, that’s just code-making. And that’s no good. But I’m glad that I did that, because it generated a LOT of new material to play with, even if half of it I eventually throw out. And, you can watch the poetry change in my last note, the one called ‘Songs – will update’, which will have the most recent form at all times, hence the name. I intentionally didn’t put up the English; if enough people bug me about it I may, but it’s not really important, is it? Hmm. I guess it’s more interesting if you can try to guess what’s going on. Well, once I go over the sentence structure, I might. Deal?

So, I *have* managed to deal with a bunch of verb tenses, and I have a lot of new words that I really like, so that is some level of accomplishment, anyway. I’m having trouble using Roman letters to represent the sounds I’m trying to get. I don’t think Word has a IPA font, otherwise I’d use it!

Warning: Linguistic content!
Anyway, today I analyzed all the sounds in my language, a, i, e, I, u, o, ow, and aw for vowels, and th (voiced), th (unvoiced), sh, s, r, l, n, m, ng, y, w, hc (unvoiced uvular fricative?), t, d, p, b, f, ff (unvoiced bilabial fricative), h, hh (unvoiced velar fricative, between hc and h), and v. I can’t say that any patterns appear instantly, except that y is always followed by a vowel and nothing else will go there. Same for w, and v. Aw is the least common vowel; in fact, I’m not sure it ought to be allowed to stay since it only appears in one word. Anyway, the chart I made will be handy for when I go to make new words, since I’ll be able to see whether the sound combination will have been used and if it hasn’t I can mull over it properly instead of just making up pretty sounds willy-nilly.

Tomorrow, I may have time to go over sentence structure and have at least the first song text ready to go by Sunday, when I plan to start COMPOSIIIIING. Ahem. Yes. So, my plan is to write one song a day until New Year’s, and then I will have time to edit them all before they’re due in 204. 301 and 220 exams come first, though.

Oh, and I almost forgot about the other half of this venture, that is so important: the music! I’ve been obsessing over the language so much this week I only just remembered now. Well, I’m planning to create a bunch of modes on Sunday. I have some ideas for the first one already (like a tune) so I’m just going to write that one and see what happens – much like how I did the words! Instrumentation I have some ideas, but I’ll figure it out also on Sunday, and same for the form. Oh, and I’m planning to use wierd metres in some of them, like 11/8.

Thanks to Alicia for suggesting I blog about this, and thanks to Hollas for encouraging me and giving me advice (roughly, aim to write about five times as much as you think you’ll need, and then you’ll end up with the right amount! …I guess I better plan to write for a full-scale elven dance-fest, then.).

I really, really need to stop listening to Vitas singing his Il dolce suono rendition. I’ve listened to it about ten times tonight alone. o_O7 Thanks a lot, Cedric.

Part II: Monday, December 8th
Well, the composition project is off to an amazing start, but I guessed that would happen. On the up side, I finished ALL the English texts and found another mode (a cross between major and natural minor). Also, Flairé tells me that some of their harps are transposing instruments, but that won’t have any bearing on this.
So, yeah, I have no first song. Or second song. Tomorrow I have a Linguistics exam, a piano lesson, and a history study session/concert. So we’ll see how much piano practic- I mean, studyin- I mean, 301 essay writ- I mean, composing done. And having a rough idea of what I want to write in the first set will only get me so far. Perhaps I shall pull a Schubert and write multiple songs in a day next week. Or maybe I’ll start at the end with the songs I don’t care so much about and work back from there. I just like speculating.
BTW, I got my CD of my duet for viola and cello and I <3 it very much. Thanks so much, guys! You’re the greatest! I only wish I could upload it here but I don’t know how to do that, and my website might not be able to support the file, though it’s only 5M when I chop off the first minute of silence…
Okay, I’ll shut up now because I have to go to Messiah rehearsal.

EDIT: I also have a vague instrumentation besides a single soloist of one of four voice types: 1-5 string instruments, 1-2 harps, lotsa percussion, as-yet-unspecified woodwinds. Yay!

EDIT 2, Dec 9, AM: I went and found half-a-dozen modes to use. I am set to start! Now I just have to start. I’ll do that… after the History party tonight.

EDIT 3, Dec 9, 11:10PM: Still failing on the composing front…but I studied all the history terms (on my OWN lol) and I found a tune fragment for one of the faster dances. That’s good. I need those. Also I transcribed as much as I could of the songs with the words I have right now. I still need a ton. Anybody got an elvish-sounding word for ‘north’ with connotations of bravery, nobleness, and lonliness?

Part III: Thursday, December 11th
Well, now, I still haven’t gotten any notes down on paper (will at least *try* to start at Thor’s Composition Party tomorrow… yay), but I made some progress on my language.

I have a very small understanding of linguistics still, so unfortunately for sentence structure, it’s gonna look a lot like English because it just makes the most sense to me that way – e.g. Japanese sentence structure (an example in my Ling text) just doesn’t let the idea flow with the “important” information first. However, I went and sorted all my words according to type, and I actually have three adverbs. How exciting! Unfortunately, adverbs and prepositions are the ones that have distinctive endings, and while I know that all prepositions end in -m or -n, I haven’t found the same pattern in my adverbs yet. I’ll think about it. Adjectives have two general tags to add to other words to turn them INTO adjectives; -in and -th. -th is more popular because -in is the conjunction of the past participle; e.g. illin=hidden, so in Illinia=Esgalwen=Hidden Maiden. I’m not quite sure why that doesn’t just turn it into an adjective, to be used like so: fwei=love(n.) and fweia=love(v.) so Fwei-inia=Loved Maiden. Or Inginia=Laughing Maiden. Or Euainia=Maiden who saw??? Whatever. This is getting to be a bit of a braintwister. …Yes, I expected that! ‘Tain’t news to me!

Hopefully some composing will happen tomorrow. Huzzah.

Part IV: Friday, December 12th
Firefeet
Dance is the joy we desire
Spiralling together we delight
Whence the drumming of our feet?

Hciribunei:
Tatamka hean eh aihyah iarei pweia
Wimwun umalin iarei aihyaha
Niowi eh uma sha iareink bunei?

Hooray! I did some composing today! People who were there at Thor’s comp party (Kevin, Kira, Paul, Andrew, Chris Reiche, Nathan) already know all about it, but I wrote the first two pages (one run-through of the text) in layers – soprano first, tenor drum, cello, double bass, and viola – and I can actually hear the whole thing in my head, all the layers! That’s exciting! Although I wrote ‘shaker ad lib’ so I have no idea what that player will do. I hope it’s something simple but catchy. Syncopated, somewhat. I’ll have to write that on the final draft of the score.
For the rest of it, I’m going to write another page of instrumental, maybe soloing a woodwind, and then I’m going to repeat the vocal part again, but transposed up a little. Then I will compose the dance. I hope that with this layering technique, I won’t feel the urge to have EVERYTHING playing ALL the time. Although I will need percussion all the time and at least one of the two basses. They like them bass lines, the kalmaei do.
I showed Hollas this evening at Messiah rehearsal (which sounds pretty good – you should go to the concert if you can get there! ;D) and he said about the harp part (which doesn’t have anything in it yet) that once in 105 a harpist came to tell them, basically, what the harp *couldn’t* do, so he just never writes for harp. Good thing we have Cassandra now! Well, I have the Piston Orchestration book, and Stephen Brown gave me a few worksheets on ‘how to write for harp’, so I think I have an okay start besides that. I’ll check everything with Cassandra, though. I think the harp will play in the dance part. I have some rhythms I want to use throughout the texture, and I don’t know what the melody will be yet, but I think it will be some (hopefully) wicked virtuosic fun melody. I tried that with the Danse de la Canadienne last year, but it didn’t work. I’ll try harder this year.
I don’t think I’ll be able to get most of the songs done before classes start again. Oh, well, if I can just get the 6 soprano songs done, that will be good. I’ll work on the others over the next nine months.
Oh, oh, and I completely transcribed another couple of songs. Still don’t have a word for north, but it’s coming. I also need ‘away’, ‘push’, and the oh-so-complex phrase “no one else on earth can”. and then I’ll have another two texts.
For my other current projects, I failed to get any exercise today, but I’m one third done my 301 essay. Yay! I also failed to get any piano done because my body decided to sleep for ten hours last night and I only got up at about 11. >_<7 Pickles. No piano will be forthcoming tomorrow, either, unless I get up earlier than today and forgo exercise (which, after all, has no deadline like my lessons give). Because I have to clean the house and that takes an hour, and then I go to work at La Collina. Yay.
I should tell you about my bus adventure today. I was on the bus on Quadra with KevinT, coming home from the comp party, and I was going to get off at Mackenzie… I was talking and not paying attention, so when I saw a grocery store I panicked and got off. Then I realized I was still at Cook. I didn’t know what it was at the time, though I recognized it, but I knew it sure wasn’t Mackenzie. (There’s a Hollis Rd around there. I phoned Kevin’s cell and said “I’m an idiot, aren’t I?” and we both giggled like a pair of lunatics. Oh, it was hilarious. The bus was going so slow (rush hour traffic) that I kept passing him. Walking. Man, it was funny, except you can now call me ‘late-for-dinner’, which is not so cool.
The Cherubini Requiem Dies Irae is still fun!
Also, is it true that people are actually reading this and finding it interesting? …Holy cow. That doesn’t happen often.
See you guys later!

Part V: Wednesday, December 17th
Hummmmm…. I still don’t really feel I have much to write about since I wrote the last excited note. Let’s see.
I did manage to get another few notes down, but I realized something. I started on the second poem, just getting a melody down for it so as to arrange it properly later, but somehow, although I think the poetry is fine and even rather pretty, the text doesn’t actually suggest music for me. I think it needs more rhythm to do that, but… I like it the way it is. In the first song I came up with the melody seperately, even before the words, actually. So, the second song COULD be a fail. I don’t know yet. I’ll just have to make sure I write really good woodwind parts! The third song is going pretty well, although it’s actually the first song of the second set – I skipped one for now. The third song I’m trying to think of melodies seperate from the text and then seeing if it fits with the text, and it’s not going as slowly as that sounds, either. I just have a line and a half left to set, and I think I’m happy with what I have so far. I still think the first one’s going to be best, but doesn’t that always happen? Well, I have 21 more chances to come up with brilliant stuff, so I’m going to keep going! And I’m finally finished exams/piano lessons until school starts again! I still have to memorize my Chopin; that’s my piano goal over the break, but I have time after practicing, right? Except on the day cheesecake happens. Glee!
So, yeah, not much to say. Oh, did I ever mention I’d like 14 stave 8.5×11 paper because then I can fit an extra percussion instrument and guitar on, and it would be photocopyable? Oh well. Hopefully I’ll get Sibelius for Christmas or right after and then I don’t have to photocopy anything anyway. I’m going to keep using the paper I have for now. No sense wasting it! It’s not like everyone’s playing at once, anyway.
…I have no dance tunes yet. Bah. Flairé better hurry up there! ;P
-Not feeling discouraged here, just commenting on interesting problems that have arisen.

Part VI: Wednesday, December 17th
I know it’s technically Thursday, but wow! Epic Star Wars Battlefront 1 playing in our house today. My brother and my Dad blew each other up for almost six hours straight and didn’t stop UNTIL midnight. Holy COW. …Moo. I played a couple of levels against Dad, but mostly I played Paper Mario 1 and composed. So of course I have to write about it now! ^_^7
And pickles, I had this half written out and then somehow it decided to refresh when I hit backspace. Blargh.

River
Fluidly the river rolls down the gentle valley
Oh river, how lovely your land!
How clear your waters shine
Your music ripples supplely over smooth rocks
You bring life to the valley
The mosses and grasses and trees
Its creatures and birds and the unicorns
I wish to dwell here forever

Hrulna
Mloin eh hrulna mloluina om eh marth avimal
Ah hrulna, pahean la ba-emlen!
Pahean karalin ba-loluilna ilinga
Ba-yale yalyala dthumin in dthum tarkei
Ba pewisa dthueiam shon eh avimal
Eh ffus kuhn shashya kuhn thuswei
Enenk eomyei kuhn sitrelei kuhn eh lilmei
Ia pwei dthueiat gamutun mathan

Clearly written by someone in the Northkingdom, the Lilmemlen, where unicorns are the most populous of the non-kalmaei… the second of the first soprano set, the one that I mentioned a few days ago that I’m not sure turned out too well because of the ‘writing from note to note’ that I was doing. Well, I don’t think it will turn out too badly; the accompaniment is harp and woodwinds.

Angeldance
Swiftly we tread the dance ground
Like the angels in their halls of light
The angel of my heart dances and I watch
He makes me want to dance
Yet I dare not approach this time

Ffweitatamka
Idda iarei ush eh tatamkank-vumff
Thewa ffweiei um teneink riurmei sha rila
Eh ffwei sha iank bada tatamkan kuhn ia ku-eua
Eson adima ia pwei tatamkad
Us ia garashta emba saun

The first of the second soprano set. I missed one on purpose. I’ll get to it later, when I’m in an ‘unmeasured night’ mood. This one I wrote the tune for the last line first, and then the rest of it over the past couple of days. I think it’s going to be fine. I mean, good. (boy, do I have confidence…)

Sorry, just ‘perfect’ is what I’m aiming for, and if it isn’t, it’s difficult for me to change it once I have notes down.

Slidestep
Oh, the fierce joy and the passionate love in dance!
One whole are we, making music and movement together
Gently, gently, listen to the mad sound
Let it carry your heart away

This one isn’t even fully transcribed, so you just get the English for now. Anyway, I found a great tune for it, so it’s going in somehow, even if the kalmaeirin doesn’t *quite* fit. The first song of the first tenor set. Yay!

Crow’s Dance
Black is the shiny wing of the crow
Dance, crow, my friend, dance
Oh, my dear friend, cheer is in your smile
I shall dance with you
And together we shall fly with our shining blackness

Rarntatamka
Mara hean eh iling syuth sha eh rarn
Tatamkan, rarn, enngluon, tatamkan
Ah, futhuindon, aihyah hean um baonk ii
Ia tatamkama vam baon
Kuhn umalin iarei mwennama vam iareink ilingun maraun

Oh boy! I love the Crow’s Dance. I think it is awesome. …Prolly because I associate it with Flaire. I can sing this one! Yay! First song of second tenor set. Squee. I did this one today. I was INSPIRED. That is, I thought up some terribly cliche’d “Mary’s Wedding” sound. But different. I think I can arrange it to sound slightly ‘off’ – slightly unearthly, twisted in a good way, you know what I mean, right?
If you don’t, you might want to listen to some Mariam Matossian (especially Hayastani Aghchigner – squeegles) and The Chieftains. “…AT the SAME… TIME.” Just kidding!

What else did I do this week total? Not much… I’m watching Fellowship while riding the exercise bike every early-afternoon… Don’t know if I said that already. I’m betting not. I only just got to Rivendell, anyway, and I’ve been watching 45 minutes a day. Oh, well, I read all my Nausicaa manga the other day. Arranging playing at Holy Cross 9:00PM Christmas Eve Mass… We’re going to do Night of Silence as part of the pre-Mass stuff! I love Night of Silence! I prolly won’t be able to find my JJ (Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring) arrangement that I use above all others, for organ, but NoS will make up for it. Oh, and I played the Nutcracker Suite for Piano for Mom today; I can now (sight)read all the movements with both hands. I remember last year AlexJ and I each played a hand and read through most of it… one semitone out (on purpose). Man that was funny!!!

‘Quick’ mention of a lovely webcomic I discovered… Culric’s Chronicles. It seems to be quite disjointed, trying to run about four stories at once… (*counts*) Actually, five. No, wait, four. But that’s still a lot, and I have a feeling there are other stories that should be told, but haven’t been released yet, or have been told and I missed them or something. It’s mysterious. Anyway, the art changes drastically from story to story, and sometimes from page to page, and it’s weird medieval fantasy near-D&D stuff, but… it has a pretty elf, and that makes up for everything with the art and the story. Except for the weird medieval fantasy stuff that doesn’t need making up for. I think I’ll draw some fanart. Of a bunch of webcomics, not just this one. And update my website so I can spare you all this non-composing blah. ^_^;7

So, five songs out of 24… No dances… Whither next?