This could be fun. Or completely and utterly frustrating but I’m thinking positive…I’m thankful now that I wrote down a lot of the things I should work on with each of the three pieces, because that way I have a goal to go for, and notes on things which need to be tweaked in each piece.
What I find really interesting is that upon listening to the pieces all in a row, it’s amazing to see the difference in them, and the maturity, even though they’ve been written within a few days, maybe a week of each other. Maybe I’m just being subjective, but I really do find that the later two compositions have a lot more in them than the first one, and the last one definitely has a lot more in it than the second and first both. I’m not sure if this was just a fluke or if I was actually beginning to find my niche in the world of atonal music. If I continue to ‘think positive,’ I’d say yes, I have become a great deal more comfortable writing atonal music after all the time I’ve spent composing these three pieces and writing about them along the way. Or I could be pessimistic as per usual and say that it’s simply by chance that my pieces ended up progressing in this way.
Anywho, back to more productivity and less pessimism. Looking at ‘Floss,’ my first piece I really feel very little identification with what I have down on the page. Reading my blog entry again and listening to the piece over again clears some things up, though I really find it hard to identify with this piece, as though I didn’t write it at all. It simply lacks the ambition and feeling I wanted it to have…In short, it’s very dry and thin, though when I say ‘thin’ I don’t necessarily mean texture wise. It feels rather flat and bland, which isn’t what I want in any of my pieces unless I’m actually trying to write a doormat type of piece. I’m going through it now and fixing a few things, making the articulations clearer and adding rhythms into the beginning and end where the clarinetist blows air through the clarinet without actually making a pitch…And I’m rather proud of myself for figuring out how to do that on Finale. You have to understand that I’m the type of person who does not get technology whatsoever. I moved some notes around too, mostly in the clarinet in the beginning and in the piano and clarinet both in the middle section.
‘Frost’ was a lot easier to fix. I listened to it several times and decided that only a few places needed some note adjustment, though mostly I had to focus on dynamics and articulations, using more descriptive words throughout the piece to make it clearer exactly what type of sound I want. This piece is a great deal different than the first and in many ways, so I’m trying to make it seem even more separate, not out of my dislike for ‘Floss’ but simply because I’d like each of the three movements to have their own character, each differing vastly from the last.
And then ‘Inebriation.’ Because I like it so much, I’ve decided to add more to the development section so that it goes on a bit longer than it had before. As a result, it is 16 bars longer, which satisfies me, at least for now. This one is the easiest to work with, as the melodic materiel is a bit less complex and easier to write. I think it is this change in complexity which makes this piece stand out from the others, which are rhythmically more intricate and melodically more dynamic.
OH- something I forgot to mention earlier, and just remembered now. I borrowed the ‘dies irae’ theme in this piece for the very ending…If you look at the first beat in the left hand of the piano for the last seven bars, you’ll see the ‘dies irae dies illa.’ This I kept in the piece, simply because I think it’s neat, and I added it in when I first wrote the piece because it was after 4:00 in the morning, and it felt like the right thing to do.
Well, that’s it for now. I’ll go through the pieces again, taking note of what I think I’ve missed in this round of editing and tweaking things yet again.
This job just never ends.
Jess
Thursday, October 9, 2008
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment