Well I bought a recording today called "In the Spirit" by a male vocal choir called Chanticleer. The recording was not what I have been calling here art music, but man the stuff was so incredible. The sounds coming out of the speaker are not from a synthesizer and they are beyond belief. It is also very beautiful. I think it deserves to be called art, but there are one or two passages that offend me. A lot of art is that way I guess.

I'm studying vocal music because I'm thinking about an Opera... I talked about needing the Italian portion of it earlier here. I want to call it something along the lines of "The Harlequin's Masque." There will be a murder at a castle, and then the Harlequins will appear. The drama will work itself out, and the Harlequins will leave at the end.

I'm also studying chant because it is sort of the roots of everything in the West. All of that old plainsong is really where it begins, and Chanticleer does modern variations on that.

I've looked back at the old scores and realized they need revision. My goal is to finish the seven pieces I've got right now, excluding the Opera, and to save them and revise them when I've got more knowledge of how to develop the themes properly. Undergrad music composition is kind of a crapshoot, and I'm basically teaching the permutations to myself.

Plainsong is commonly called Gregorian Chant. The absolute best plainsong recording is by Penguin Classics, and it's called just Gregorian Chant from the Choir of the Carmelite Priory. The Priory is in Italy if I recall correctly, and the Latin is perfect. (it's actually not even what people commonly call Church Latin, it's very historically correct!) That CD has changed my life a million times. That stuff is the beginning of Western Music, as I said before.

Well I'm off to do something else for a piece.