In the summer of 2007 I was transcribing several pieces of music from their recordings. Since I was getting so familiar with writing and notation, I challenged myself to write a complete piece of music on paper, without an instrument handy.
It was marvelously difficult at first. I took my staff paper all over the place, writing a just a measure or two of a single instrument’s part in each sitting. Having read Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott during the same period, I called the music “Sense the Sublime” after a phrase in the book describing Rebecca’s thrill as her captors’ stronghold is attacked.