Exhaustive

After finishing the scores to send to the ECM, and many sighs of relief, I began to reflect on the process that was composing this piece. The realization came to me a little late that notes weren't enough. Pitch and rhythm don't make music. In fact there's music out there that disregards both (maybe not so much rhythm, but pitch). So what does this leave us with?

Expression
mood
gesture

The discovery of this came after the fact that most of my piece was completed. But I now know and see how much a gesture can effect the music that precedes and proceeds it. It has so much to do with the mood and the tone established, that the notes are not as important, and with these things we get closer to what we want to convey....musicality.

I now feel silly looking back on my other compositions with how little direction I have given the performers. I am thankful that my works were not performed by robots and that the performers were able to interpret what they thought I had wanted instead of play the expressionless notes that I had written. My intent has to be in the score, and every note needs direction, a way to help determine the phrase.

If nothing else, I am happy to have had this experience if for nothing else than to realize the amount of detail I was neglecting in my composition.

Stuck Like A buck in a truck

Many times when composing things will be going great until the section I'm working on ends, or an idea just runs out of steam. That' s where I am now. My ideas in the way they are presented have got me in a bind. I feel like I am in a creative bind and I don't have the problem solving skills to get me out of this bind.

Normally when I'm in this position, I listen to as much new music as I possibly can and see the way in which those composers treat their material. The main things I listen for is not so much the way that they develop their ideas, rather the way they introduce new material, or use old material in a new way, and make the cohesion of this material with the material already present in the piece.

Presenting my work in class, it seems to be an attractive piece with good ideas, however I feel like my development of the ideas thus far, has been weak. If my piece were a buffet, I merely walked down the serving table and looked at everything, rather than took anything on my plate and ate it yet. I think this may be an interesting formal design, where I could spend the rest of the piece developing these ideas and concluding it. Or this could be a terrible idea, considering I am stuck and cant find direction, and I should probably go back and develop my ideas before leaving them so quickly.

What to do....what to do.....

Back to The Drawing Board

Starting off this project was a difficult task for me. With such an odd group of instruments, I was wondering what stylistically and sonically would work. Like every composition, starting an idea with promise is the hardest part (or at least for me).
For my main idea, I decided to base all of my material on what Schnittke does in his first string quartet and in other places of his music. Present a melody in a cannonic style and allow the melodic notes to form into the harmony. This idea in a way is a further development in counterpoint I guess, or at least it's a way of looking at it.

So I had this idea! Great! however, it took me a while to get running with it.
I Planned a form. I generated 2 themes and extracted multiple motives from this theme. I superimposed the motives over one another to make sure they make good counterpoint. But when it came down to it, I had no idea how to actually start this piece. I went through a good 10 trials before I just let go of the idea a little bit.

After letting go of that concept, Music finally started to happen. I just wrote out a rhythm I thought was pretty cool and expanded on it. My idea was in a way still present and able to be used later in the piece, however I'm going to follow through with this new motivic thing as long as possible.

Deep Dark Woods. responses reactions 1

I'm absolutely loving writing this new piece. It is providing me with new opportunities i haven't been able to explore before. I love the guitar, it's such a rich timbre. and every time I hear this performed I am more and more satisfied with it.
anyways,
I don't blog enough about the suggestions I get in class, so this is exactly what that is. And it works out perfectly because I was eating up every single comment/suggestion I got yesterday.

The piece is quite guitar heavy at this point, and as Dr. Ross pointed out, everything has a roll except for the cello and after considering this comment I agree. The bass is obviously doing a bass roll and the guitars are in the forefront, however the cello was just kind of floating around serving different purposes, just kind of being a loose cannon.

well I fixed this pretty well. I really like what I have, so most of the A section cello stuff is the same, however I've developed an entire new B section, and in this section, the cello and the bass have a ton more rhythmic interplay and have in a way become the counter duo to the guitars.

There are many other things I have altered/changed, but stay tuned to the next blog, for there is more to come!

The way of greatness

Last night at bitters myself and Jess Blenis had an interesting conversation I thought was really worth blogging on. It was talking about how sometimes composition can be such a chore and it's rough, and you just gotta plough through. But than on the other hand, sometimes when you get an idea all you wanna do is compose cause you're totally in love with the idea.

This discussion came about when she was asking me about my new piece. And That's how I feel about it. I wrote more music in one week than I have in 4. And that's why, that's exactly why. I am in love with the idea and always want to keep adding to it and making it better. Where as with the concert band piece, it was a astruggle to get to the computer or to the keyboard to expand on what I have.

Here's the thing... I don't feel satisfied with my first project of the three piano pieces. They were the sort of compositions that took a lot of grunt work and I'm not overly happy with the way they sound. My second composition from last term was the same way.... a lot of forced work with unsatisfied results. However the piece I entered in the arts and letters, as well as my first composition project from last semester I lived in and was very inspired by them.

So my question is;
does it take inspiration to make music that I will be personally satisfied with? and if so is there any way to seek this inspiration or come up with an inspiring idea? or would it be better to steer clear of the inspiring ideas and become the best at working with ok ideas and making them good technically? or like, approach them as practice instead of something that people will see?

perplexing

Road Block

Last week after class, I felt really insecure and unhappy with the piece I had written thus far for concert band. It was very linear and still very introductory. I really loved the theme I had and some of the development of that theme, however I felt as a whole it was unorganized and sloppy. I didn't have a plan really, I was just going with what I had and developing that as much as I could, leaving any aspect of form thus far out to dry.

I also couldn't think of anything else to add to what I have done. There are limitless possbilities of places for that piece to go, the problem is none of them satisfy me at this point. I could just not get anywhere with what I have and that was that. I was frustrated.

I than decided to leave this piece for a while. I realized that I've given it everythign I could for now, and I'm tired of the type of composing when it becomes monotinous (see next blog). I wanted excitment and passion when I compose, as lame as it may sound. So I found something that I loved. I was playing my classical guitar one night and this little dark motive came to me. I was so pumped...and please note that I had not yet given up on the concert band piece until I was sure I could really go somewhere with this new idea.

I plan on revisiting the band piece and finishing it soon. Just not in time to enter the composition (sadly). But you gotta go with what's working.

Cross Roads.

So,
I Haven't been blogging in a good long time. I never really feel like I have much to say I guess. I guess it's also possible I expect to need to have something of some significance to say in a blog, but maybe not. Either way, here is what I beleive to be significant, and just an update of what has been going on with my piece for concert band.

I stuck with the feathering out of single lines, and building and diminution. And so far that has been great. I now have the Introduction more or less complete. I always tweak it, for instance I decided to give more of a pedal tone in the tuba, to give it a darkness which I am kind of going for in this piece.

Anyways, much of the introduction has kind of gotten away from me...in a good way. It didn't quite go how I was expecting, but I am much happier with the project so far. There are a great deal of motives that developed from the supporting instruments which gives me a lot of options for the grand middle section.

And that's exactly where I stand. I have a sort of middle section beginning to take shape, but I honestly had a little fugue like idea with the beginning material planned to take the middle section. I really like both ideas, and I'm trying to incorerate them both some how, although they are both so different I am not sure that this will be entirley possible. However, whichever idea i end up going with, will need to have a more concrete feel that the introduction.