Sunday, March 29, 2009

Round ten. Fight!

So this week I presented a little more of my work.
I like what I had written this week a lot more than what I wrote first.

I got some really positive feedback from a lot of people and that was greatly appreciated.

Some things I need to work on are:
Varying the passages a little bit. I need to keep things a bit more interesting.
Changing pitch centers/modulating

I had intentions of modulating so I guess I will start putting that in now!

Have a good night!
:)

Thursday, March 19, 2009

Round nine. Fight!

...
so this journal should bring me up to date!

I presented what I had written on Sibelius this past Monday.
I am a little unsure of what I have but I got some feedback that made me feel a bit better about it.
I feel like I really need reassurance to keep going.

Simon said he definitely got a darkness and a lightness from my piece and that was really nice to hear. Others seemed to enjoy it as well.

Some things I could add are little melody lines that connect the chords and having different ranges and broken chords as well.

I was told to keep going and I think that's because there is not a lot of time left!

I'm sure I'll write something that I'm content with. (hopefully)

:)

Round eight. Fight!

Alright.
I'm a little behind with my journal making but that's just because I've been busy with other stuff.

So this post is for March 9th!

I presented what I had on the piano and it seemed to go over well.
I got a lot of feedback that day.

We took a sort of tally of what I had and went from there.
What I wanted to create was something that was based on clusters and that sounded spacey.

I was told that I should widen the space between the notes because that'll create a very "space-like" effect. I'm definitely going to try that.

I was also told that I could have a cluster in the piano and have the strings create another chord that crescendos out of that chord. That's definitely a neat idea and I plan on using that as well.

I was really appreciative of the feedback and although I haven't used it all yet I definitely plan on incorporating it at some point!

:)

Wednesday, March 4, 2009

Round seven. Fight!

Hello all.
Just doing a quick little update here.
So composition number one is complete and has been preformed. 
Overall I think it went well. A lot of people seemed to enjoy it. (and the tree... I mean and I was happy.)   

...yeah that was lame.

Anyways. On to composition number two!

I was going to write for string quartet and piano or as Dylan pointed out a Piano quintet.
My main idea for this is to use cluster chords and suspensions.
I might play a little somethin' somethin' on Friday to get some feedback on the idea.
I might even change the instrumentation because what I want is more piano based I think.

Oh well, I'm sure the class can help me out with that.

That's all for now!

Friday, February 20, 2009

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!

Thursday, February 12, 2009

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.

:)

Thursday, February 5, 2009

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.

:)