Bradley's Casting - "Fame and Fortune"

Hello!  I've recently gotten a bit into the art of Muzoracle - a storytelling/divination tool similar to the Tarot card deck, but with cards with musical concepts and 12-sided Musician's dice and Solfege dice.  I did a casting of a friend named Bradley - he asked the Muzoracle if he would ever gain "fame and fortune":

My interpretation of the cards and dice are attached in a pdf if you care to get into it.  I decided to compose a short piece to represent the casting using pitched percussion (since the Minor 7th card at the left is in the suit of Percussion) and choir (since the Conductor card on the right is in the suit of Voices).  If you'd like to find out more about Muzoracle and how castings are interpreted go here:  https://muzoracle.com/

The piece isn't meant to be long or showy - it's in the key of C since that is how the 12-sided Musician's Die up top landed and uses the scale degrees of So, Me, La and Te (G, Eb, A, Bb).  The casting as a whole is a descending one which means that the default direction of the diatonic scale degrees is to fall to the next rolled solfege die.  However, if a solfege die lands on a chromatic scale degree it goes in opposition to the predominant direction of the casting (in this case - ascending).  So the melody of the casting is G falling to Eb, rising to A, and falling to Bb, which is the melody you will hear in the music.  If you've gotten this far - thanks for reading and I hope you enjoy listening to the short piece!  Any comments, critiques, suggestions or even questions (if you're curious about the Muzoracle) are welcome!

I didn't notice until I wrote this composition that the same exact motif represents Uranus the Magician in Holst's Planets!

Edit:  actually it's off by one note from the casting.  The last note in the casting is a Bb while in Holst it's B natural.

Hey there Peter

This is a pretty cool concept. Although definitely not my preferred listening, I really appreciate the leaps you take with your inspiration. Just when I think you'll post another theme and variations, you take the theme and variations to the extreme with your curiosity for the sources of inspiration. Your theme came from the most varied source, randomness itself, and your craftsmanship as a composer helped bring this to life. 

Copying your handwritten notes is ok, it actually shows us more of your character with your handwriting. But it's very hard to read, and I'm too dumb to figure out how to rotate your images. What about MS Paint? Or if you don't need the arrows and circles, what about typing it out? I honestly prefer to see your handwriting, but it's hard to read the copied image. 

I admire your intellectual nature, and only hope my brash Neanderthal mind can continue to learn from your endeavors. It's a cool study, but do you have any plans with it? Or was it just a fun checkmark for you as a composer? Are a suite of short prophetic orchestral pieces for a group of friends planned for the future? 😄 [Maybe some could be YC folk (start with Henry lol)]

Hey Vince,

Thanks for your comments!  

14 minutes ago, Thatguy v2.0 said:

Copying your handwritten notes is ok, it actually shows us more of your character with your handwriting. But it's very hard to read, and I'm too dumb to figure out how to rotate your images. What about MS Paint? Or if you don't need the arrows and circles, what about typing it out? I honestly prefer to see your handwriting, but it's hard to read the copied image. 

Actually, I do have a solution for that.. when I do my next casting I'll scan the pages into the computer as jpegs rather than pdfs as my experience with those has been that they're much higher resolution and easier to read.

17 minutes ago, Thatguy v2.0 said:

I admire your intellectual nature, and only hope my brash Neanderthal mind can continue to learn from your endeavors. It's a cool study, but do you have any plans with it? Or was it just a fun checkmark for you as a composer? Are a suite of short prophetic orchestral pieces for a group of friends planned for the future? 😄 [Maybe some could be YC folk (start with Henry lol)]

LoL - I definitely plan to continue to learn more about the different cards and their interpretations, as well as wanting to gain more experience with castings for my friends!  Making short pieces of music inspired by each casting also seems like a fun idea and is a great way to connect with the casting on a more visceral level.  Representing a person's fortune through music just seems like such a fun concept to me.  Hopefully I'll get good enough at these eventually to be able to recite the interpretation immediately.  Of course the real interpretation happens in the mind of the person who queries the Muzoracle.

Thanks for your review Vince!

P.S.:  If anyone wants a casting done for them I definitely need the practice!

On 3/31/2024 at 12:11 AM, PeterthePapercomPoser said:

Hello!  I've recently gotten a bit into the art of Muzoracle - a storytelling/divination tool similar to the Tarot card deck, but with cards with musical concepts and 12-sided Musician's dice and Solfege dice.  I did a casting of a friend named Bradley - he asked the Muzoracle if he would ever gain "fame and fortune":

My interpretation of the cards and dice are attached in a pdf if you care to get into it.  I decided to compose a short piece to represent the casting using pitched percussion (since the Minor 7th card at the left is in the suit of Percussion) and choir (since the Conductor card on the right is in the suit of Voices).  If you'd like to find out more about Muzoracle and how castings are interpreted go here:  https://muzoracle.com/

The piece isn't meant to be long or showy - it's in the key of C since that is how the 12-sided Musician's Die up top landed and uses the scale degrees of So, Me, La and Te (G, Eb, A, Bb).  The casting as a whole is a descending one which means that the default direction of the diatonic scale degrees is to fall to the next rolled solfege die.  However, if a solfege die lands on a chromatic scale degree it goes in opposition to the predominant direction of the casting (in this case - ascending).  So the melody of the casting is G falling to Eb, rising to A, and falling to Bb, which is the melody you will hear in the music.  If you've gotten this far - thanks for reading and I hope you enjoy listening to the short piece!  Any comments, critiques, suggestions or even questions (if you're curious about the Muzoracle) are welcome!

 

MP3

 

 

Play / pause

• BradleysCasting

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BradleysCasting

 

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PDF

• BradleysCastingFull
• BradleysCasting

That sounds fascinating! So, what did the Muzoracle reveal about Bradley's query?

17 hours ago, murphybridget said:

That sounds fascinating! So, what did the Muzoracle reveal about Bradley's query?

There's a pdf attached up above with my interpretation hand-written on it (BradleysCastingFull.pdf - admittedly as remarked, it's a little hard to read, but in future castings I'm planning on using jpegs rather than pdfs which should make them a bit easier to read).  Thanks for your interest!

Peter

On 4/2/2024 at 6:12 PM, PeterthePapercomPoser said:

There's a pdf attached up above with my interpretation hand-written on it (BradleysCastingFull.pdf - admittedly as remarked, it's a little hard to read, but in future castings I'm planning on using jpegs rather than pdfs which should make them a bit easier to read).  Thanks for your interest!

Peter

 

Thank you for pointing that one out.

Yo Peter,

My complain is also it’s too short. The beginning really reminds me of Gamelan music! I really hope that interlocking pattern keeps going and going! I think this one is actually a great idea LoL! Or even some aleatory music!

On 4/2/2024 at 9:54 AM, Thatguy v2.0 said:

Copying your handwritten notes is ok, it actually shows us more of your character with your handwriting. But it's very hard to read, and I'm too dumb to figure out how to rotate your images.

Peter is showing his real colour here (from an MBTI perspective)!! Like me I would NEVER write such a detailed description on how to write my music logically since I usually just have a big picture never these details and with zero logic LoL!! And me find myself dumb too to rotate the images when my iPad I am holding now keeps rotating my rotations and I can never find the right way to read Famous PeterPapercomPoser’s Paper….

Nice sharing Peter!

Henry

On 4/5/2024 at 8:55 AM, Henry Ng Tsz Kiu said:

And me find myself dumb too to rotate the images when my iPad I am holding now keeps rotating my rotations and I can never find the right way to read

The thought of you in HK rotating your iPad around with possibly other distractions playing in the corner of the screen (like basketball haha) trying to read Peter's handwriting made me literally laugh out loud. 

You're the best Henry, I hope you win the lotto or something