Round six. Fight!

So I finally complete my piece. It felt like it took FOREVER to do.

It's 16 pages and 6 minutes long! To be honest it felt like this one piece took as much time as everything I did last year combined! 

Putting the X's in the narrator part took forever, as did lining up the text in the actual parts.

... but it's over now.

I'm kind of excited to see how it turns out. I am not sure if I'm going to narrate it or not yet.

I would kind of like a male voice, but we'll see what happens. 

I think I might do it myself because I know exactly what I want.

As for the next project I'm thinking about a string quartet or a string quartet with piano (if allowed.)

NO TEXT. :)

I'm really glad some people are thinking about writing for concert band because I would love to hear/see the process. I just don't think I am ready for such a project myself in such a short amount of time!

Good luck for everyone next week!

Round five. Fight!

I'm really starting to get stressed about finishing my piece.

I know what I want to do but I don't know if I'll have enough time!

I'm going to try to get a copy of the score to the performers tomorrow. 

This week I got some feedback from Dr. Staniland  

He seemed to really enjoy my piece. He encouraged me to change my narration to Sprechstimme.

I'm going to use that as my alleatoric element as well.

:)

Round four. Fight!

Last class I got a lot of feedback on my piece.

-I had thought of creating better transitions between the sections and it was said that I should.

I am not sure how I'm going to go about doing that but I'm sure something will come.

-I think I'm going to add a narration to the piece. It will tie everything together and I think it will be new and interesting. I might add pictures as a background thing to view as the piece is played.

-Writing more traditional parts for the cello and violin and adding some cello notes in the marimba passage and vice versa.

I spose I should get on all of that.

I am going to try to finish it as soon as possible so my players can get the parts.

:)

Round three. Fight!

So I edited the first part of my piece. 

It took me a very long time to do.

My had showed my piece to my friend to get some criticism and he had said that it lacked direction.

I feel like it's way more clearer than it was at first.

I did like what I had written but I understand that realistically I needed to be clearer.

The comments I received reaffirmed that it was indeed a lot clearer than it was the first time.

I was also told to watch the register of the flute and to make sure the marimba part doesn't get too complex. (It needs to be playable! Unlike everything I write.) :)

Also, it was suggested that I should flutter tongue the second line in the flute part. I really liked that idea.

Anyways, I feel like I'm off to a decent start now.

I am not sure what aleatoric elements I'll be using but I definitely want something in there.

I'm hoping to finish this piece fairly quickly so that I can started on the next one. Writing for concert band/orchestra scares the crap out of me.

Anyways,

good work by all so far!

'night! :)

Round two. Fight!

So I presented what I had written today.

Overall I like what I'm writing. I knew I wanted to base my composition on "The Giving Tree" but I didn't know how.

I just started writing and it seemed to fit perfectly.

I was really unsure of the instrumentation I wanted but I think what I have now is absolutely perfect.

Some comments from today were:

- My piece sounds breezy and like it is set in a forest or a garden. [Goal achieved. :)]

- The instrumentation is perfect for what I'm trying to achieve.

- The break between the two sections was good.

-Using different mallets to get different sounds (I think this would be a cool idea although I'm not familiar with mallets and percussion at all.

-Getting my score to a percussionist ASAP because it seems like it might be tricky.

I am really excited about writing this piece.

Hopefully it'll work out alright. :)

-

Round one. Fight!

I'm not totally sure if this is going to work or not. (Meaning - if it will show up in the 3100 section)

Oh well.

I presented in class yesterday. 

I liked the chords that I had written, but my scale ended up being two pentatonic or something.

Ugh.

I'm going to try again until I come up with something a little more original that will work.

Hopefully we'll find out what instruments we'll be using because I think that's very important to know before actually sitting down and writing anything.

I am incredibly nervous about the concert band composition.

Just thought I'd throw that out there.

:)

One more thing!

I was asked today if I would play in one of the Newfound Music concerts and I accepted.

I will be playing Metamorphosis 3 if anyone wants to come hear a beautiful piece by one of my favorite composers (if not my favorite).

The end!

It has come to an end.

It was actually a good experience. 

If I could tell anyone anything about this course it would be:

- stay on top of everything.

- make sure you have performers for the instruments you write

- be open to criticism!

- write what you want to write, even if it's really hard to play! (someone out there will be able to play it!)

I'm nervous for the advanced composition class but I feel more prepared than I did for this course.

Thanks for listening to my sweet tunes! :)

Have a great Christmas everyone!