58 replies to this topic

[M. Dale Prins]

Not that anyone cares, but yesterday I received notice that my another of my handbell pieces has been accepted for publication, increasing that number to four.

Dale

[M. Dale Prins]

That number is at something like 15 now, but that's not why I write. "Comrades, Haste! Faster the Steel Press!" will be released on Bells of the Sound's CD Signatures in early December (along with 10 songs that have nothing to do with me). There's a short sample mp3 of the piece here.

Dale

[Tim Willson]

That's very cool! As a composer, is it weird to hear a performance of your piece? Did they do it the way you imagined?

tw

[M. Dale Prins]

So far I've only heard the 30 seconds that they have online, but yeah, that bit is pretty similar to what I imagined.

Matthew

[M. Leary]

Can you post more of this stuff online, it is great.

[M. Dale Prins]

I don't think I've posted any of my recent pieces to A&F recently, so since my biggest fan MLeary asked, I'll post a few over the next couple days.

* an MP3 of my handbell/piano piece "12"; it's actually the first of three movements, but I don't have the other two handy

* an MP3 of an excerpt of my Christmas arrangement, "The World in Solemn Stillness Lay" (which will be performed by at least two high-quality handbell groups this Christmas, neither of which affiliated with me)

* an MP3 (with fake violins playing the vocals) of an original SSA/harp piece, "Sleep! Holy Babe"

* an MP3 of a little ditty that ended up becoming part of larger work that I don't have any MP3s of

I've written upwards of five dozen pieces, but I've probably taken the time to make MP3s of no more than a dozen, and I only have live recordings of three (a number which should be doubling or more in the next few months).

Dale

Edited by M. Dale Prins, 13 November 2006 - 04:32 PM.

[Ryan]

I don't think I've posted any of my recent pieces to A&F recently, so since my biggest fan MLeary asked, I'll post a few over the next couple days.

I have to agree with MLeary - these are quite nice.

Ryan

[M. Leary]

Thanks. I wouldn't mind a full CD when you finally decide to sell out. This handbell stuff fills a void left by overlistening my Steve Reich CD's.

[M. Dale Prins]

M. Dale Prins, handsome though he is, gave us...

* an MP3 of my handbell/piano piece "12"; it's actually the first of three movements, but I don't have the other two handy

Well. I now also have an MP3 of the third movement of the piece for which "12" is the first movement; I will for now call the movement "Third." (It's submitted to a contest right now, so I'm going to be slightly vague on titles for the time being.)

Second movement maybe in a bit; it's the hardest to turn into an MP3.

Dale

[M. Dale Prins]

My Christmas present to you: The world premiere performance of my (10-minute) Christmas arrangement for vocalist and handbells, "The World in Solemn Stillness Lay." The Austin Handbell Ensemble is on handbells; Beth Watson is the vocalist.

Dale

Edited by M. Dale Prins, 04 January 2007 - 10:23 AM.

[M. Dale Prins]

For the two of you who care: My three-movement piece that I mentioned four posts above, titled "The Sublime Numbers," won honorable mention (i.e. third place) in the 2006 SoundPrint Productions Handbell Composition Contest. I had really bipolar opinions of "The Sublime Numbers" — some days I loved it, some days I could barely listen to it — so I'm quite happy that the judges seemed to agree with the former opinion.

Anyway, for those interested, here's all three movements together in one MP3 file. And those three movements are, in order, "12," "6086555670238378989670371734243169622657830773351885970528324860512791691264," and "The Search for the Third."

Dale

[Jeff Kolb]

Wow.

I'm really quite curious about the sublimity found in 6086555670238378989670371734243169622657830773351885970528324860512791691264

That's quite a number.

[M. Dale Prins]

In short:

A perfect number is a number where the positive divisors (other than the number itself), when summed, add up to the perfect number. 6 has divisors 1, 2, and 3 (and 6), and since 1+2+3=6, 6 is a perfect number. Same for 28: 1+2+4+7+14=28.

A sublime number is a number where both the number of divisors and the sum of divisors (including the number itself) are perfect numbers. The first sublime number is 12, because 12 has a perfect number of divisors (6) and its divisors add up to a different perfect number (1+2+3+4+6+12=28). The second sublime number is 6086555670238378989670371734243169622657830773351885970528324860512791691264. (The proof is left as an exercise for the reader.) There is no known third sublime number.

Dale

[M. Dale Prins]

I am sorry, but this latest (short, interlude-ish) piece of mine has no handbells in it.

 track_5.mp3   746.94K   16 downloads

Dale

[Persona]

I am sorry, but this latest (short, interlude-ish) piece of mine has no handbells in it.

 track_5.mp3   746.94K   16 downloads

Dale

Have you actually attempted to score this? I'd be interested in seeing how the timing works when it is formally written out.

Are the strings recorded backwards?

The piece would work great in a suspense film intro.

-s.

[Darrel Manson]

I give it a 37. Just can't dance to it. I did note that if you hear it as morse code, it says "handbells rule"

[M. Dale Prins]

: Have you actually attempted to score this?

Oh, sure -- I score pretty much everything I write, even if it's not meant for sheet music. Minus the fade in/fade out, here's the entire piece:

 track_5.gif   9.12K   13 downloads

Top line is oboe, second line is harp, third line is piano, and bottom two lines are cello and string bass. (Ignore the brackets; I don't know why they're there.) Nothing is recorded backwards, although the strings do vaguely sound like it for some reason. And I'm not happy with the fade out; use the piece at some point, I'll fix that.

: I give it a 37. Just can't dance to it.

Poo. You don't think Madonna will pick it up for her next album?

Dale

Edited by M. Dale Prins, 22 February 2007 - 10:36 AM.

[M. Dale Prins]

This, I think, turned out quite well. Sorry for posting it five months early, though.

Dale

Edited by M. Dale Prins, 17 July 2007 - 02:01 AM.

[mrmando]

A somewhat different approach to handbells...Spike Jones meets Saint-Saens at Prins' house?