Entry 2.

So I’ve begun the first part of a three-part epic clarinet and piano….Thing. It’s not exactly a sonata or concerto, so I’m not quite sure what to call it, though to me, it sounds more like a concerto than anything…And I think that’s what I’m going for, though I find it extremely hard to believe that I’ll be able to turn this into a concerto, unless concerti can be very short, roughly 2-3 minutes per movement. Who knows, though, I might ramble as much in my compositions as I do in my journal entries and if that’s the case, then I guess this’ll be my first concerto…Though I’m not sure still if I want it to be a concerto…Quite a dilemma. I’ll just call it a three part epic for now, while keeping my fingers crossed that it actually is epic…And that I can compose three parts before ripping my hair out.

The hardest part was definitely just beginning the darn thing, though that may have been the case simply because my first chord was technically an m9- a minor chord with a 9th on it? Well, it’s not anymore. I don’t know what it is, but it sounds (I had to delete the word ‘bad’ here because it endorsed the wrong type of connotation) tense enough to be atonal. As I wrote this, I glanced at my semi-edited composition and realize that I have forgotten to change another one of my chords which is actually a triad with a 6th before putting it into my new piece…It’s going to be a long night.

Don’t ask me why I’m writing for clarinet, because I haven’t got a good answer other than ‘I dunno’ or ‘It seemed like a good idea at the time.’ I’ve never played clarinet (the time I tried it for kicks at music camp when I was 15 doesn’t count.) and I hate transposition, so writing for this particular instrument is a total pain in the asymptote. But it sounds pretty neat, at least I think so, you may or may not agree, but I’m not composing for you. (No offense.) Don’t ask who it’s for either, because you’ll get an answer which is equally as vague as the last one.

Well I managed to ‘finish’ it, the quotation marks around finish being the operative punctuation. It’s done for now, I guess, would be the best thing to say. It’s three pages long (two and a half, but who’s counting?) and very strange. Every time I listen to it I’m left more or less clueless, thinking “Woah….Did I do that? Did that come out of my head? Oh dear…” I’m definitely not used to this type of music yet. Some parts of it sound as though they’re going to merge into tonality- but then something else comes along and blows that notion out of the water completely.

I have to say though, that it was nice to have so much freedom. I read Clark’s article titled ‘What Next?’ and was left wondering “Well, what can’t I do?” In general terms, this would definitely not be a good thing for me to be asking, because without the laws of physics and plain, common law, I’d be invincible. The only thing I felt was holding me back, if anything, was that it had to feel devoid of rhythm…This got to be a bit difficult, and I had to keep giving myself the musical equivalent of a slap on the wrist every time I made a rhythm that went along on its merry way without syncopation, odd entries or anything to really throw it off balance. This is definitely another thing to get used to.

One of the things I tried hard to obtain was a general character in the piece…Naturally, I don’t have a sweet clue what type of character it has, though it definitely has one. Or two. Or Pi, maybe, I’m, not sure, though I get the feeling when I look over it that the piano and clarinet definitely have some dialogue going on…And reading this, it makes it sound as though the piece wrote itself, without any of my help, and I’m just looking at these dots and lines and saying “Ouuu, nifty, what does I mean?”

I get the feeling that I’m being outsmarted by this music, that it kind of composes itself in a stream of something close to sub consciousness, and then when I play it back, I’m always surprised to hear what it sounds like when it’s altogether, though I hear it in my head before I type the notes in.

Whatever the case, the two voices, piano and clarinet, remind me a lot of an elderly couple. Specifically, an elderly, half-deaf couple, who sit on the porch…The woman (the clarinet?) busies herself talking away about something trivial while doing something menial like knitting mittens or something of the like while the husband (piano) sits, only half-listening while he sings a little tune to himself, maybe something he learned in childhood which has been partially forgotten over the years and warped by loss of hearing. Sometimes the man seems to have a coughing fit…That’d definitely be the tremolos. The woman starts talking again, patting his back heartily and telling him he should have gone to the doctor last week. After this, he continues to mumble to himself, a bit more pronounced this time, while she continues to berate him. A good example of this would be from measures 7-12, and again from 13-22. Eventually, both fall quiet. The wife says her final piece, kind of like an aside, after which the husband sings a little bit of the tune, and falls silent. The little song he’s been singing is most present from bar 3-5, and again in bar 21-22, and in the last three bars. Kind of an odd thing to write about….But the thing is- I didn’t write about that. That’s just the mental image I get when I hear the piece, and after reading this, you probably will too. Yay for programmatic music that wasn’t intentionally programmatic music which became programmatic music because I gave you a funny yet clear enough picture of a story which could be depicted by the piece.

This piece has been titled "Floss." The original chord progression I had written had been temporarily christened "Chrysallus," though I doubt it will ever make it to the world outside this composition class. "Floss," on the other hand, I'm growing fond of, the more I listen to it and assess it. It's not finished yet, but its rough draft is saved and shall stay as such unless my computer goes on another binge and eats it like it has done with a few other things I have written. No, this is not my lame excuse for a 'my dog ate my homework' excuse. (Though my dog did eat my notes once while I was studying for exams.) I named it "Floss" because I was told over the weekend that my great aunt Flossie had passed away. Normally I would have written a piece which was much more...Well, tonal, to dedicate to someone, but since this was the my project at hand, it now has a part of her name in the title.

The fact that the piece seems to have a notable elderly lady in it with a fairly spunky character makes it even more suitable. Due to the fact that she lived in New York, I only ever got to see Flossie when I was young, though I can't remember seeing her the last time we went to N.Y. We've written back and forth several times a year since then, and our letters are of a fairly amiable nature, though my mom assures me that one visit in which I, as an infant, had been terribly fussy at the dinner table had resulted in great aunty Flossie throwing a package of soda crackers at my mom so she'd have something to shut me up with. Needless to say, it worked, and to this day I still love soda crackers.

So the piece is ‘finished’ and has a character…I consider my work here to be finished...For now.

Jess.