Rodney

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Rodney last won the day on October 6 2019

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About Rodney

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    https://www.linkedin.com/in/rodneyrawlings/

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  • Interests
    Songwriting and music; philosophy generally.
  • Location
    Toronto
  • Gender
    Male

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    Rodney Rawlings
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  • Description
    I am a Toronto Objectivist. In 2011 after many and varied struggles in the field of music I turned to writing specifically art songs. Now, so far, I have had my art songs and concert band pieces performed in Toronto; in Austin, Texas; in Chicago; in Chautauqua, New York; in Geneva, Illinois; in Elgin, Illinois; and in Munster, Indiana. I write the lyrics to almost all my songs, which concern reverence, aspiration, romance, independence, and the future. These themes also occur in those songs for which I have adapted an existing text.

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  1. That of course is the effect, but I do think that this "naïve" view of their motive applies in many cases. In any event, the inclusion of classic pop-rock recordings in many TV shows and movies in recent years has the quite predictable effect of making the songs hits, or re-popularizing them, all over again. But today's value-atmosphere will not allow today's writers to present these works "straight"--so they have to put it into a modern, cynical or degraded context, either because they are too much soaked in that viewpoint or are pandering to it to get those works heard.
  2. “Children, It’s a New World” For some reason I recently got the idea of arranging, on the computer, one of my more “successful” songs (“New World,” performed three times in IL) for a small orchestra. I’ve done such digital arranging before on tunes of mine, but this time, to my pleasure, I was able to achieve my planned sounds much more easily than in the past (when I largely relied on trial and error). It’s just the same song with a new title. I know that I would have more difficulty using such a recording as this to get the song performed, but I wanted to make it anyway for my own reasons. I have not even edited the score properly, because I only cared about the audio result. (Thus you still see some breath marks.) I have made this video of it. One nice thing is that the lyrics can be followed so I don’t have to paste them here! The theme is of advice from the older generation to the new. https://musescore.com/user/25477/scores/8886420
  3. That link is dead. Here is another: "Wien, du Stadt meiner Träume" - Elisabeth Schwarzkopf
  4. Unfortunately, that video is fake. There was only one heckler. Still, I think there's going to be a sweep.
  5. Yes, in fact when I started using a computer to make music, I arranged for other instruments than piano most of the time. When I first put out this one, I got 179,000 views: https://youtu.be/ENVhSWGm_Ck Me too, but I kept reminding myself that it referred to the speed of one's finger's descent to the ivory! The thing is, I was not, and am not, much interested in becoming a good arranger, just a melodist and songwriter. But the only way I could see my way clear to achieving this--to get heard and noticed--was to approach local concert bands or to create computer arrangements not meant for human players. So I had to study orchestration and arranging to an extent. I started with a notation program called Rhapsody, given to me gratis by a young flautist who was in one of those concert bands, after my first-ever premiere, a very ambitious piece called ANTHEM. (Afterwards I inputted the whole massive score into Finale but never used the result. The concert used my onerously handwritten score and parts.) Then I switched to Rhapsody's later version, Encore. Finally, I took up MuseScore, which I still use. From MuseScore you can create both PDF scores and parts and sound files. I prefer MP3 because I can fix the exact sounds in the final product; with MIDI the end consumer can change the sounds and I don't like that.
  6. I think it's because in the score the melody is set low. A human piano player, whom I hope the piece would have one day, could make sure the melody is more exposed. I could have simply changed the velocity on the melody notes for recording the playback, but I didn't think the issue was worth the trouble (also I had a submission deadline).
  7. That has always been a favorite of mine. Only later did I learn it was an old song. Here's a very operatic pop song from that same period, which was also a favorite--you probably know it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pXfNGRcDYpM
  8. Years ago I wrote what I like to call a “serious operetta” titled THE WATCHER ON THE SHORE (WOTS). Recently, I revised its first scene in order to enter a competition held by Hartford Opera Theater. Though I did not win, I got an email stating, “[We] want you to know that we regard your work highly and that ‘The Watcher on the Shore’ was in the Top 10 selections that were finalists.” (I also entered it into three or four other competitions for which the results have not come out yet.) The entire scene is about 13 minutes long (of continuous music), of which the first third is an instrumental introduction, which is the sound file here. This short piece begins with a melody used later on in WOTS for a song titled “I’d Like to Welcome Everyone,” making it appropriate for this instrumental opening. Next there is a representative section of the title tune. The ending is a succession of waltzes (a dance form given significance in the story), some truncated and one of them more romantic in style. The basic theme of WOTS is the tension between different approaches to life, represented by the characters in that first scene (soprano and tenor). My focus is not on Objectivism, but the influence is likely much apparent.
  9. For some years, there has been a ghastly trend of film- and meme-makers' using some of my favorite music and pictorial art to subversive ends (subversive of the very values by which the works even attract an audience). Disturbingly, I suspect that the reason they do it is because they in fact LOVE these works themselves, but want to bring them before today's public in a way that today's intellectuals will not heap scorn on. Schwarzkopf is my favorite soprano. I love the vowel sound she gives to the city name "Wein" at the end, which I believe she does because the note is high and loud and certain vowel sounds do not work well in that situation. Normally this annoys me a bit, but not in this case--I love how she sings this whole thing. I hope to one day be known for at least one song myself. I think I already wrote it a while ago, but as you know there is a lot involved in such success besides the quality of one's work. Crucial is getting heard to a certain "critical mass."
  10. Thanks for fixing it, Michael. On second thought, I misunderstood. I had decided in the end NOT to embed the video. But I do not mind that you did.
  11. This recording has been one of my earliest inspirations as a composer and songwriter. It is a love song to the city of Vienna, written by Rudolf Sieczyński, sung by Elisabeth Schwarzkopf.
  12. To be convincing, the video would have to be done in one take, and many more times. It's not, and the lack of that makes me think the video creator simply spliced together the successful runs. I love cats and would like this to be true, but the video does not show it.
  13. My recommendation is to start with AR's fiction--and not ATLAS SHRUGGED, but THE FOUNTAINHEAD or even WE THE LIVING. Thus you can see where it all germinates. It is, after all, in her intention "a philosophy for living on Earth." The novels show a working-out of her ideas in life itself, and the terms in which she is conceiving it.
  14. One does not even need any math to resolve the paradox (explain the apparent contradiction). It was resolved at the beginning. It only takes a little thought and a discovery of the fallacious assumptions in the statement of the "contradiction." One can state things in mathematical terms afterwards, but that is not necessary. The thread is useful only in showing how screwed-up a mind can be, and still seem brilliant (and perhaps be such, in certain quite limited aspects).
  15. In my top favorites by him, how could I neglect to mention Pitney's "Only Love Can Break a Heart" (thanks for the reminder of it) and his "Half Heaven, Half Heartache "? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=71ctQukD5ZA https://youtu.be/MMzzQQRFsQI Both of these records sit at the pinnacles of songwriting and arrangement excellence, in my view. (Bacharach wrote the first one.)