Sunday, September 19, 2010

An Experiment

I presented my piece to the class on Monday and it was fairly well received; bearing in mind, of course, that it was very much in the infancy stages. I've decided to step outside my comfort zone with this piece and compose it aprogrammatically. Generally, when I compose a piece I have an image in mind that helps me to shape the piece in form and content. This time I've decided to just dive in without an image in mind and it's proving to be very difficult. I feel like it lacks direction.

The comments that I recieved were that I should vary the material sooner using inversions, octave displacement and the like. It was also recommended that I make the opening rhythm easier to read by turning the quintuplet figure into a pickup and to also use the triangle to punctuate the rhythm and show the downbeat. This turned into an idea to use the triangle to play with the downbeat and fool the listener. The idea of using timbre changes as another means of variation was also suggested.

I'm trying to base this piece more so on rhythm and color than actual pitch or harmony as another step outside my element. It's hard going but I feel like it's good experience.

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