The Last Bits

I'm very pleased with the way my presentation went in class on wednesday. It was a very strange case when I was writing the final section of my piece. It just seemed to pour out of me, which sort of concerned me because I was thinking I'd finish it and then realize it wasn't what I'd wanted at all but ultimately it turned out well. I wasn't really sure what to do to create a sound world for the moon. But after thinking about it for a while I decided to give it a sort of static feeling both rhythmically and harmonically. I chose to do this because personally, when I look at a full moon on a clear night it totally traps my attention and holds it. Kinda spellbinding, actually. In terms of rhythm I put it in 3/4 time but tried to vary it so that there are never more than two or three consecutive bars that feel like 3/4. On the harmonic side of things, the whole section is based on two chords which consist of the notes of the 'c' and 'd' hirajoshi pentatonic scales. This sort of slow, bare-bones harmonic rhythm I feel did give me the static mood that I was going for.

I was also quite pleased with the comments I was given. In particular the one about the ending sounding somewhat unintentional. This comment gave me an idea of how I can still keep the detachment that I wanted but not have it sound like a mistake. Instead of having the pattern stop dead, I've made it so that the last notes are held just for an extra beat then silenced. So it's still detached but it doesn't lose the flow (ironically enough).

Just a couple more finishing touches, a rehearsal or two and this ship should be ready to sail!

It's gettin chilly in here.

Tonight I put the finishing touches on the middle section of my piece, the one depicting the stanza about the cold. I kept the phase-shifting idea that I had made a few days ago only I made it slightly less complex. It is still based on the whole-tone scale however, it mutates over time into a more dissonant and climactic end. In the cello I've decided to use artificial harmonics in imitative figures with the voice and also it outlines certain changes in the harmony of the piano, not to mention it adds an element of chill as well. The vocal line isn't consciously based on any particular scale, I decided to let it be a bit more free than in the opening section. Overall I'm fairly happy with it, I'm not quite sure how climactic it is, because ultimately, this is meant to be the most tense part of the piece. I'm just hoping I'm not putting it too far from the end. I think the next stanza of poetry will move faster though. We'll see.

Creating Cold

So for the past couple of days I've been turning my energies to creating cold sounds. I've come up with a neat idea or two out of it. Initially I was working on a phase shifting figure. It's melodically based on the whole tone scale and consists of four different patterns (it's a piano part). In the right hand the rhythmic pattern is a two-bar figure in 4/4 and the melodic fgure takes up 7 of those eight beats. The left hand part consists of another different two-bar 4/4 figure and the melodic material took six of the eight beats. So it wound up taking 40 or 50 something bars before it repeated. I thought it was kinda cool but it was a little static so I'm trying to see how I can incorporate parts of it in perhaps a more interesting way. I think in this section I'm going to use the cello for more of an atmospheric sort of element, perhaps using some extended techniques. We'll see what happens!

The Mystery Continues

I never thought that composition could be so intense. I feel like I'm trying to give birth to a child. My new piece is called "A Musical Journey Through a Moment" for now. The words are:

Wind,

Whipping through my hair,

Taking with it the thoughts of Babylon,

And carrying them back

to where things now look so small,

I no longer have the time to come here.

Cold,

Bitter, uninviting,

Drives the sane ones back to warmer days,

Leaving only dreamers

whose dreams have brought them here,

We chose to stay.

Moon,

With its perfect round face,

And raven hair that swallows up the sky,

Giving us its light,

Asking nothing in return,

And here I stand,

With all the time in the world.

So each stanza represents an aspect of a moment, which I will paint with the music. Only thing that plagues me is which paints to use. I feel fairly satisfied with how the piano part is going but my melodies aren't at all what I want them to be. They don't really fit, and it's not like the kind that don't fit but it's still cool, they just don't fit, period. I've been using the A locrian mode, perhaps I should explore others. Composition always seems to be a mystery to me.

A breath.

Now we take somewhat of a breath after all the toil of the first project. Overall I thought that my pieces went well in performance, the first two especially. The third one I'm not overly happy with, compositionally. The guitar part still bugs me and I feel as though it's lopsided. I may make a couple of changes to it on down the road after all this madness settles down.

Who knows.

The Avant-Garde Ceilidh

I feel like this is an article that I can relate to very easily as I lived in that sort of environment growing up. While there were a few acts that came into town now and then, Goose Bay never often saw big names. After a while there were hardly even any local acts. So my friends and I for years would have ceilidh-like times where we just got together and jammed and everyone contributed. There was a very strong sense of community there.

I totally agree with the author's musings on the excessiveness of show business these days. I feel like live music these days has become very impersonal in many ways both in the way we see live music and the way we listen to music on our own. Most people don't even buy cds anymore. This is one of the things that really interests me about avant-garde music. There is often little choice but to see performances in small, personal settings. Certainly, if our society continues in the destructive way that it's going there will be no choice but to return to the fundamental, communal musical practice of the ceilidh. And I can't say that I wouldn't welcome that.

Three.

So today I finished my third piece. I've shortened the title simply to 'River'. It's meant to represent how the character has reached a place where they are in tune with the timeless clockwork and now takes the things that made life complicated in the first piece (i.e. the tense and jerking interactions between the two instruments) and accepts them and moves with them through this river.

I've done a fair bit of simplifying to this piece. I've entirely gotten rid of the 7/8 idea that I originally had and instead have written the guitar part with swelling chords. I've also decided to write the whole first section of the guitar part in harmonics, the timbre mixes much better with the piano now.

Down the hatch!