June 20, 2012

In the morning I remember my first Choro “Nadando Em Luz” (Swimming in Light) written a decade ago, pre-Rio, that I have brought with me in the hand-written copy. I enter it into Finale, my computer music-writing program, and send it off to Marcilio as well, since the poor old piece has never had a good harmony to go with its melody. I leave mid-morning to take the bus & metro to Praca XV, the ferryboat to Niteroi, and then the bus to Marcilio’s apartment building. He greets me, smiling as always, and we start to work. He has already put a few chords into the score of “Nadando,” and I am delighted at the changes. The pieces I’m creating based on Gershwin’s “Summertime” and Piazzolla’s “Milonga de Angel,” have ended up partway between a North-American and Brazilian aesthetic, so the search for the right harmony is more complicated than usual, and we leave my 3rd piece undone, but he promises to send me some ideas. As I pack up to go he asks me to do him a favor, to give a music folder to a fellow musician on my way home, as he has someone sitting in for him at Trapiche tonight. I am so happy to oblige and save him a couple of hours of travel to do this task, as he spends so many hours with me on my projects. So I retrace my steps– bus, boat, metro– getting off halfway home to walk upstairs and hand the folder over the turnstile to Marcilio’s guitarist, and then return to my journey home. I arrive tired but happy, and stop at the bar at the bottom of my hill for a bowl of the delicious Brazilian black bean soup and a dark draft beer, thinking ahead to my trip to Sao Paulo on Friday. What will it bring?

Written by mairmusic

June 25, 2012 at 1:16 pm

Posted in June, Rio

6 Responses

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What an interesing composition you’re working on…cannot wait until you record it so we can all hear it.

slpmartin

June 25, 2012 at 2:41 pm

Reply
- I’m excited about this series!
  
  mairmusic
  
  June 25, 2012 at 5:31 pm
  
  Reply
It all sounds most interesting and I love the collaborations … and having read that last sentence, I think it might be time for dinner.

Jamie Dedes

June 25, 2012 at 10:47 pm

Reply
- (: Boa comida!
  
  mairmusic
  
  June 25, 2012 at 11:15 pm
  
  Reply
amazing shots marilynn.

Sharmishtha Basu

June 26, 2012 at 1:06 am

Reply
- Thanks, my friend.
  
  mairmusic
  
  June 26, 2012 at 6:41 am
  
  Reply

Who am I?

A mandolinist, a bandolimist, a writer, a photographer, a wannabe Brasileira. Check my webpage for information on my music and my sometimes life in Rio.

What is this?

I made a plan, beginning on my birthday- October 16, 2008 - to keep creativity in focus in my daily life, spontaneously, reflectively, and with intention, by setting in motion several series of small events. Every day I take a photo and record a thought. Every week I write a poem and post a photograph of myself in the context of my life. i don't post every day, but I maintain the schedule of each series and post as often as I can. Before I began I wrote, "I think this will be fun, may be interesting, and will result in a considered year of small moments stolen from a busy life and strung together to make... who knows? At this point it's just a plan. Wish me luck~ here goes!"

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“Years 2 – 6” — so what’s changed?

I decided to continue on after a year, because this document had become a treasured reflective spot in my life. There are some changes in "Year 2," expanding options for my weekly poem beyond sonnet to add some other forms-- rondeau or triolet, villanelle. I added the decima in late January 2010, and the pantoum in August. Definitions of each form appear below. I continue to post a photo daily, but may post several pictures taken on one day over the course of a week if I have an interesting series. I may even post an old photo if I'm writing about something I'm thinking back to. I'll continue to have fun with this project; I hope you will too. For Year 3 I tried including other people in the self-portraits that accompany my poems, adding "Musical Sundays" to post mp3s of my music, but these petered out in a few months. This is simply a place for my daily thoughts & photos, and weekly poems in the forms I love. Onward...!

The material on these pages belongs to me

Everything published here was created especially for this project and is owned and copyright by me. When the project is complete I may do something concrete with some of it. So enjoy, but please, if you want to share more than a quote or two send people here, don't displace my work from its context or authorship.

What’s a sonnet?

A sonnet is a 14-line iambic pentameter poem with a unique and characteristic rhyme scheme. They have been written in Europe and England for centuries, and usually combine viewpoint and reflection in a personal yet universal way. I call mine blank-verse sonnets and try for a simple casual scan that observes yet obscures the form. Inspirations are the American sonnets of e. e. cummings and Edna "Vince" Millay.

What’s a villanelle?

A villanelle is an early French form with 19 lines using only 2 rhymes, traditionally broken into 6 verses. It's kind of obsessive, with lines 1 & 3 repeating alternately, the 4th time as lines 18 & 19. The lines can be any length, but don't seem to vary within a poem, and subjects include love, loss and challenge. Dylan Thomas, Elizabeth Bishop and Sylvia Plath all wrote them, and from the minute I typed villanelle in "Year 2 begins" I was itching to try it out because I've never written one. My first appear in Weeks 53 & 56. I've run some verses together, as many modern writers have done, for continuity and a cleaner line.

What’s a rondeau?

A rondeau is a form of medieval poetry that pre-dates the villanelle and also uses only 2 rhymes. The earliest come from an 8-line song form with 2 lines of music that repeat-- line 1 as 4 & 7, and line 2 as 8, rhyming the rest in a characteristic pattern. The result is a sturdy little poem that makes its point thoughtfully, and less obsessively than the villanelle, perhaps because the generating couplet is unrhymed, and the lines don't need to be the same length, just able to be sung or spoken in the same amount of time. The first ones appear in weeks 55 & 57. Sometimes the poetic form, sans music, is called a triolet.

What’s a decima?

A decima is an early 10-line Spanish poetic form, with a distinct break after the first 4. It uses an 8-syllable line and has an unusual but characteristic rhyme scheme. It's also a 19th-century form of improvised Cuban song so I thought it would work well in this blog format. My first appear in weeks 66 & 69.

What’s a pantoum?

A Malaysian form from the 15th century-- how exotic! It's a series of quatrains, w/ lines 2 & 4 repeating as lines 1 & 3 in the next. The last quatrain also uses lines 1 & 3 from the first quatrain, with the first line ending the poem. So every line is used twice. My first one is week 95.

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