The Nearly Completed First Piece

This week (though more so a few weeks ago), I had the first piece of this three piece set nearly completed. Only the last little bit of the cello was left to be fit in. The general ideas and motives of the piece were present though. Even though the piece wasn't completely finished, having the main motives displayed and the structure finished allowed for further comments on how to develop the motives I had already written. The fact there was some cello missing also allowed everybody to make suggestions on how to fill out what was left.

Most of the suggestions I received this week were all really great and were used afterwards. Some of the suggestions included changing up the main motive in the left hand of the piano and adding octave doublings or changing the register. So, at some points of higher tension I included an octave doubling in the left hand, and during some softer or lighter moments I moved the bass motive up an octave. These little changes actually added so much to the piece in terms of variation and adding interest, but also they were completely appropriate musically. The suggestion was also made to change up some of the roles of the instruments. For example, have the cello play sustaining notes while the vibraphone has short and accented attacks during. This technique however, will be more appropriate for the next movement and will be used there.

Behind on posts already!

It seems I've fallen behind on posting weekly blogs already! Unfortunately, I don't find this completely surprising as I do often forget to do quicker and smaller tasks compared to bigger ones. I did however, have some thoughts jotted down from that week's class that I planned on writing about. 

First of all, I'm sure this is something everyone has discussed, but everybody's pieces really are completely different. Despite the project having a sort of layout and a direction or frame the pieces will follow, each piece has a distinctly different voice. I think this not only shows that each composer in the class has a different style or tastes but also that each person interpreted this project differently in which direction it would take their composing. Upon initially reading the guidelines these pieces would follow, each composer had a different idea of what they would do. Strangely though, almost everybody has included a cello part in their pieces!

For this first presentation of my piece so far, I had finished the entire piano part, but was only just beginning to fill in the cello and vibraphone parts. The general consensus was that no one else composed in this fashion, instead writing everything together as they went along. I decided to compose this way because I had the entire piece planned out, and wanted to almost have the whole thing mapped out before adding the other instruments in.With this piece, it proved to be beneficial because I received some suggestions when presenting the work in progress that gave me further ideas on how to build to certain parts in the piece using other instruments. I do see though, how composing this way could cause a problem. This could especially apply to writing a piece where you would like each instrument to be completely equal in the music that's been written for them. This style I will be pursuing more so with the second and third pieces of this set!

Andrew  

Beginning Chords

This first composition project began with creating a series of atonal chords, or chords that did not have any obvious tonal sonority. These chords would in turn be used as the progression for 3 short character pieces. Though this exercise was not extremely difficult, there was a few interesting things about attempting to write chords this way.

The first was that many times I found myself coming across common sonorities that were just in different inversions whenever I tried to have some sort of structure to my chords. For example when trying to stack notes in certain intervals (a 4th apart possibly), I would eventually come across a note that was in fact the 3rd of my first note. Other times when trying to do an odd stretch between notes I would come across a minor or major 7th and lead the chord to being a common sonority. These were especially obvious in the middle register of the piano.

Another interesting observation came when I played the chords in class. When I was writing them, it was on an electric piano. I actually remember while writing, thinking to myself and finding that the chords were not tense at all. On an acoustic piano in class however, almost every one of my chords sounded extremely tense. The acoustic piano allowed the chords resonated more openly, and the dissonances were displayed more fully. This is something I'll definitely keep in mind while writing these pieces.