Entry 15. DONE.

Well, it certainly took me long enough to get this bugger finished. I think all it took was getting my mind off other negative things- like what else I have due, the conducting exam tomorrow, my recital on friday, etc. etc. etc. Not that these things are negative- I'm just stressed and worried, and I think that took away from my ability to concentrate on composing this piece.

It's more or less exactly what I wrote in my last blog entry- klezmer mixed with indie folk/pop. Two strange genres for concert band...I think it would have been interesting to hear it played live, but I missed that opportunity and had I pushed myself to finish it in time for the MUN Wind Ensemble reading, I wouldn't have what I have now. It's actually a big surprise, seeing where it went- I had originally planned on having a klezmer dance suite which turned into klezmer music mixed with jazz, which turned into klezmer music mixed with indie pop/folk. And to think I'd been writing a symphony first. Ouf. Craziness.

But it's done. All the markings, dynamics and whatnot too. I'll probably go over it a few times tonight just to make sure I haven't left anything out, but does it ever feel good to be able to say that it's done!

Entry 14. Try- just a little bit harder

I'm giving the band piece another shot, seeing as I think it deserves another one. I've done a lot of redirecting in it, guess, moving stuff around so that it flows better. I've moved it back into its original form, with the rubato opening followed by the quick, dance-like section with the percussion, and I've done my best to develop that into something fairly big before bringing it down for a kind of B section (if you don't count the introductory rubato section). Here's the form, more or less.

RUBATO OPENING

A: Main theme, in Klezmer music-style, using the tonalities and rhythms which are idiomatic of this genre with the exception that it switches to 4/4 time every three bars. It's in a harmonic minorish/gypsey mode type...Thing...Yeah, I was never good at theory.

B: The texture comes waaaay down to pretty much just clarinets and flute, then it expands to involve french horn kind of doubling what the clarinets have goin' on, and then the sax section comes in with long notes to make more harmonic back up and help to build it. Meanwhile, the melody goes from flute to oboe to trumpet and back again, and then the trumpets double the clarinets and the brass comes in on uhm...Well t's in 6/8 time, so the brass comes in on beat 4 and holds until beat 6. There's a bit of timpani and the glock mirrors the melody later on. It sounds kind of like an indie pop/folk song, which I like- I was advised that it's cool to write a piece in a certain style, but take it where we don't expect. I think going from Klezmer to Indie pop/folk is a pretty big- but really likeable- jump.

A: back to the main Klezmer style, but maybe with a bit of the B section poking through if I can fit the two together.

I really like the B section. It has some of the flippy rhythm things that klezmer music has, so I'm trying to tie it to the first section a bit so t's not too surprising, but I would really like for people to REALLY notice the change in style- I think A flows into B well, despite the fact that they're such different styles of music and it goes from that harmonic monir/gypsey thing to go to a major mode. Yep, I'm going with tonal music on this one, as much as I love atonal music writing, but I think it'd be a good idea to revisit tonality and explore it while keeping in mind the freedom I can have with it. You can make some pretty neat tonal stuff if you step outside of I IV V I.

Entry 13. I am terrible.

Yay for commitment issues. That's right, with a week left in this class I've taken a spur-of-the-moment turn and have begun writing for string quartet. Why? Because I'm too stressed right now and don't have any real goal in mind for the band piece, and it's just become really tangly and ugly so said screw it, I'll finish it when I have time but right now I need something I can write and finish in a week and not hate. I'm abandoning this half-formed composition-child and am forsaking it for a string quartet- a Scherzo Tarantella.

I like tarantellas, or is the plural form tarantelli? It's lots of notes, and over that I can stretch a nice though feverish melody maybe. I'm, not really sure- I've just got an idea and I'm going with it.

Entry 12. Klazz music.

So I didn't get to present my composition in class day seeing as my dinosaur computer is on the verge of dying for good (Oh yes, it's been resurrected a number of times) but I've done some playing around with it since I presented it last, which was two weeks ago.

I'll explain my absence first, since it's kind of an interesting story. See, my roommate's little sister was in for about a week and a couple of days, and she thought my fish were pretty cute- I have two goldfish named Stop and Roll (Drop died last year) and two platys named Ghetto and Zombie. Of course, Zombie died, may she rest in peace. Since platys are generally best kept with a few of their own kind, I took my roommate's little sister with me to pick out two more fish. I picked out one and she picked out the other and they were named Light Saber and Satine respectively. (In case you were wondering about the strange names, I'm not completely at fault- Yes, I names Stop, Roll and Ghetto, but Aiden told me to name Zombie and Light Sabre accordingly, so I did.)

On the way home from the Village pet center, we stopped in the music building for a minute. I decided to check on the fish and SURPRISE- Satine had a baby. Platys are livebearers so the babies are born live, as opposed to being born in an egg. Unfortunately, mom-fish usually eat their young unless they're seperated from them so by the time we got home, she'd eaten that baby and whatever other ones she'd had along the way. We put Sabre in the community tank and Satine in her own tank in a floating plastic hatchery, where she could have the babies which would fall down through a kind of grate into a safety area below where she can't eat them. Overnight, she escaped- how she did so I'll never understand because it had a lid on it- and ate whichever babies she had while outside of the hatchery. Luckily, three babies survived the night in the hatchery and once Satine was moved into the community tank, they had free reign of their own tank.

So I had three unexpected newborn fish fry (funny name for baby fish, eh?) and no baby food for them. Since it was more or less a life and death situation, I rushed out the next morning- thursday morning- to go back to the pet store, get baby food and some fish medicine and tap water conditioner just in case it was needed and brought it home so that they didn't starve. I'd already had one fish die and I wasn't going to let these three little guys die, not after they'd survived the HUNGRYMOMRAMPAGE.

So that's why I wasn't in class last Thursday- I'm sorry, and I know I was supposed to present my piece and didn't give any warning that I wouldn't be there (I had no idea any babies were even going to live through the night) but I couldn't let the babies die. If you're curious, they're about twice as big now, as they're a full week old, and they just had their first tank cleaning and handled it well. Sam named them Hidey, Heaty and Howdy. Hidey hides in the plants, Heaty likes the heater and Howdy's pretty curious and friendly. They all look the same right now but once their colours start to show we'll actually be able to assign names.

Enough about fish, though.

I've prolonged the introduction and it was while doing that where I made a mistake but listened to it, and thought "Hmm, that chord sounds jazzy...WAIT A MINUTE!!" I'd been having trouble making my piece Klezmer-ish, but not completely Klezmer-ish...So I figured that it'd be neat if it was Klazz. Klezmer and Jazz. So I'm putting some jazz chords and rhythms in, while keeping a klezmer melody- sometimes switching the two. It's fun, and I feel like I've got good direction with this now.

Entry 11

Ouf, the end of the year is creeping up on us like...Well, I'd quote the Beatles and say it's creeping like a nun, but I've never seen a nun creep (maybe they're all closet-Facebook-creepers) so I don't think I'll go with 'creeping like a nun.'

The band piece is coming along alright. For some reason, it seems like such a bigger task this year as opposed to last year, though I'm writing a lot less music this year...It's probably just because I've got more on the go this year, and a lot of it is creative stuff so my creative juices are constantly being asked for more. It'd be nice to just have a day or two where I wouldn't have to do anything creative or analytical. I think this is why I work in a bakery in the summer.

But enough of the rambling- I've decided pretty much for sure that it's not going to be a suite- I think I'd need more time to write a suite, and I don't mean that in the sense that from now until April I won't have the time- I mean, we're given 3-5 minutes to work with, and a suite is generally longer than that so that the pieces in the suite aren't only like a minute long each. There's still the rubato intro, followed by the very slow oom-pah section which speeds up to the main theme which used to come right after the rubato section. It just seems to flow more this way and it'll hopefully make it not quite so...Disjunct, and I won't leave unfinished sections everywhere.

Entry 10.

All cower in fear- the compositional ADD (or is it ADHD?) monster has struck again. Either that or my fear of commitment. Probably both. Yeah, probably both. But whatever the cause, I've decided to put the symphony on hold, because I do not have time for all of these projects, seeing as I was currently working on two big ones, and formulating plans for a thid which would be my end-of-the-year orchestration and arranging class assignment- take a piano piece and orchesrate it.

What were my two big projects? One was the symphony and the other was yet another piece for band. I'm interested in submitting another composition this year, having learnt so much from writing one last year. Both of these are very big and both would have a deadline so rather than putting myself into complete overdrive I've decided to kill two birds with one stone and just do the band piece.

I realize that there are others in the class writing a band piece who want to hear theirs played by the wind ensemble and that there is only enough room for 5 or 6 people to have theirs played. This being said, I don't want mine to be one of them, seeing as I've made the decision to write this piece fairly late in the game and I had the chance to hear one of my pieces last year too. MIDI playback will do just fine for me, and it's fairest this way.

So what am I writing now? I'm letting my compositional ADD have a fairly loose rein and writing a suite- either two or three different little pieces but they're all connected by segue. I had initially planned to do a suite of dances from various countries/cultures, but decided that I might do best just sticking with one style and have chosen Klezmer, so it'll be a suite of Klezmer dances. I don't want them to be too cliche or too abstract- hopefully I'll be able to get in a good blend, y'know, the best of both worlds.

Entry 9. Tips about the Gower composition

Hey,

Having had the experience of writing for the Gower Community Band last year I figured it'd be helpful for all those writing this year to give a bit of insight into techniques which might make it easier for the composer, conductor and the musicians.

1. EDIT EDIT EDIT. Then edit again. Sometimes you'll swear you've put an accidental in and when your program plays it back it sounds right but there's no accidental marked in. Mine did this oodles- there were wrong notes all over the place. Of course I'm working with Finale 2005. Even pro-Finale people, I imagine, would recoil at the mention of using a program which dates back five years.
2. Amount of instruments: I'm not exaggerating when I say that there was a really strange though not surprisingly out-of-balance instrumentation found in the Gower band- for popular instruments like flute and clarinet especially, there were 8-10 people where we'd usually expect 2-3. There was a fair amount of trumpet players, I think 3 trombones maybe 4, Several sax players, but very few bass clarinets (Katie Noseworthy played it) I don't think any bassoons, one maybe two oboes, a few horns, one maybe two tuba players, and I think three or four percussionists. This being said, here are some tips:
- if you want a solo flute line, definitely write it in. Otherwise you'll have 10 flautists playing it and making 10 people play the same thing at the same time isn't very wise when it's an exposed part.
- exposed parts- definitely solo.
- Don't go crazy with percussion- I almost had to step in and play with the band but due to time constriction, I couldn't. So I'd say three to four percussion parts would be enough unless you've got one person playing two parts which needs to be indicated on the score in order for it to be seen easily.
3. Range- keep in mind that the age range goes from I think 11-70 and not all of these people are professional or able to play big ranges. Here's a basic outline that I was told to stick to for instruments where range is often a problem:
-trumpet: Don't go too high above the clef, or stay there for prolonged periods of time.
-french horn: I wouldn't write anything above written G5 (sounds C5) and nothing too noodley.
-trombone/tuba: noodley writing is discouraged- these guys really a simple but groovy bassline, same as the tuba. Nothing too high above the bass clef, and tricky slurs were a bit of a no-no too.
4. Dynamics: Generally, the sound is loud- I was warned by Jill Abbot about this, but didn't find it was a huge problem. However, with a big group like this, a certain range of dynamics is expected, and some dynamics- aka pppp- are out of the question due to the sheer number of people playing. If you want something to be soft but with a full concert band range of sounds, try using 'soli,' where one person from that section plays by themself, though it's not necessarily a solo seeing as in each other section someone else is playing by themself. So cut back on numbers and indicate a dynamic, and when you want a big sound, have a tutti but definitely make sure that you write dynamics appropriate o balance out the sound- a trombone playing FF could quite possibly cover up the sound of a clarinet playing FF unless you've taken register into consideration and put the trombone in a lower register and the clarinet in a higher one.
5. Rehearsal numbers- make sure they're very clear and put them in places which make sense- in other words, at the beginnings of phrases so if the conductor decides to start at H, the poor clarinetist isn't in the middle of a wicked run.
6. Idiomatic stuff is best. Leave runs and whatnot to instruments where dexterity is more expected and long notes to insturments which would normally be given such things.
7. Consider the level of your piece- high schoolish. In other words, certainly don't write stuff you'd be intimidated to play. Something that looks nice on the page can sound absolutely wonderful and intricate without being lip-busting. It looks great when you glance at a score which is black with notes but you have to be realistic and merciful! Some of the people in the band are very capable of playing tricky stuff while others are still on their way to getting there.
8. Appeal. I don't kno how many people in the Gower band came up to me and said that at first they really disliked the piece- which is my fault, seeing as I wrote something with a great amount of dissonance which isn't what they were used to playing. I'm not saying screw dissonance and atonality and write something tonal and predictable, but people will enjoy playing something they like much more than playing something which looks good on the page, and the audience will also like the piece more if it has appeal. The Gower people were very stuck on finding the melody- so make it findable. I didn't- my melodies were hidden and that was something I wish I'd changed before I submitted it. If you want your piece to stick with them, I'd say give them something that attracts people- but with your own personal seal on it. Not the animal, though. Seals bite. What I mean is make the work yours, but when you're writing for an ensemble it is wise to take into consideration what they habitually play, what they're capable of playing, and what they'd probably like to play/hear.

Hope this helps! If you're writing for the band and have any other questions please feel free to ask!

Entry 8. To band, or not to band?

So I seem to like to pile as much work on myself as I can, apparently. As enthralled as I am with the idea of writing a symphony, I really want to write another band piece for the Gower Community Band Terra Nova thing again. It would have been easier if I'd said so in class and killed two birds with one stone by writing something for band for both this next composition project AND the Terra Nova competition, but two big compositions are better than one...Right?

I'm going to keep writing the symphony movement for class- it'll do me good to begin a symphony, I think. I've been working at it steadily in what little time I have outside of orchestra now that we're in full swing for the Magic Flute (which y'all should definitely go see!) and its making slow but steady progress.

But this band thing- I kind of spaced out at one point during class on Tuesday (sorry Clark!) and came up with the idea of writing a set of dances for band. Not that the band members would dance while they played, though that'd be pretty nifty. I really like dance music- I actually have 'Dance Mix '93' in my CD player right now. But I thought that for this I might borrow various dance styles...I got a few CD's from the MRC which have Klezmer, Hungarian, Ugandan and Brazilian dances on them, and am planning on using those styles- and maybe a few others- in my pieces. They'd probably all be pretty short so I'd do maybe three dances in order to make up the full five minute minimum.

Just an idea.

Entry 7. This is NOT an entry.

This is not a blog entry.
It's not even a figment of your imagination.
It doesn't exist at all. Neither do any other 'blogs' which I may or may not have written.
Because I haven't written any- if you think so, you're delusional.
This is not a blog entry.
If, and this is a far stretch of the imagination, it does become a blog entry- which it definitely will not- it won't be funny. It won't be witty, sarcastic, or tickle your funny bone in any way- it'll probably break it, actually: snap that funny bone clear in two. Or sixty. Or eighty two point five. You've probably hit your funny bone on something and discovered 'hey, that ain't funny!' but this will not tickle, hit or even fracture your funny bone. It will break your funny bone. And believe me, when it happens, it'll be hilarious. Just think of what you'd have to tell the people in the hospital.
Juries and recitals are in two months. You really don't need to break your funny bone. And don't think that just because you're a voice major that your musical skillz are untouchable- studies have shown that broken funny bones have a severely negative effect on vibrato and air support.
You do not have to read this.
Hell, I probably won't even read it.
Heh, I'll stop being such an arse now. Go ahead and read if you want...But I will not be held responsible for any broken funny bones.

Anywho, on with the show.

Comments on Egoism:

-'Egoism' or 'Egotism-' solved by a quick search on Google. They're the same. :)
- Bar 7-8, the triplet vs eight note thing was nifty, but doesn't come back again. I have a habit of doing this- making neat ideas and then abandoning them. Yet another reason I should not procreate.
- The use of triplets over dotted-eighth-then-sixteenth-notes. Makes for an agogic accent which I kind of like. Someone said- and I think it was Clark- that when you put them together, where they don't match up rhythmically between the last triplet and the sixteenth note, it sounds like the person playing the piano is an inexperienced person, fumbling as they try to play the notes correct. I like this, probably because it's a familiar concept. This is how I play piano.
- Breaking up the motion was neat- maye do this more in the first half, seeing as I do it a fair amount in the last part. I like this idea...Kind of foreshadowing the start-stoppiness (yes it's a word) which comes later.
- Very organic (I don't believe in pesticides/herbicides, and I've heard that they gum up your keyboard anyway.)
- Try to play it. CRINGE. I have. I think in order for this to be helpful, you'd have to be better versed n the instrument. I can't really tell whether it'd be possible to do, to a certain extent, because:
A. I have muppet hands, aka short fingers and almost no space between them.
B. I have to say "ALL COWS EAT GRASS" still when trying to identify notes in the bass clef
C. On long notes on the piano, I try to do vibrato and I look ridiculous.
But I'll giver a try nonetheless. Or bribe a piano major with cookies. Yeah, probably that.
- It's unusual to have root position chords in the piano's lower register- space notes out more, which makes sense, given that it's lower and harder to hear pitches.


This definitely gives me lots of stuff to tweak with this piece. The other two seem to be alright and have been played in the concert and are thus deemed physically possible.

Are you reading this? How's your funny bone? I can hear it beginning to splinter...You might want to stop now.

Project two...See, if I didn't have compostional ADD- possibly even ADHD, its hyperactive cousin- I might be able to make up my mind as to what I'm going to do. Right now I've got my sights set on two different things and seeing as both are fairly big and ambitious, it'd make a lot of sense to go to Hollywood, grab the shrinker machine from "Honey I Shrunk the Kids" and shrink them to pocket-sized ideas. And while I'm at it, I'll shrink some hippos. Man, I can't believe I was fooled by those house hippo commercials as a kid. Well, we'll see who's laughing after I shrink some hippos and set them loose. Maybe BBC will do a documentary on them and add it to the Planet Earth collection. I'll be famous: Jess the hippo-shrinker. Definitely has a ring to it. I might just get a shirt embroidered with that on the sleeve now.

See what I mean about the AD(H)D?

And if you're reading this, you should stop.

Idea 1: Symphony No. 1. LAME name, I know, but I know some people who have lamer names than that...Like seriously, what were their parents thinking? But yes, I'd like to write a symphony. For this assignment I'd probably only be able to do one movement, and I think writing more than one movement would not only exceed the time limit of 5-6 minutes, but it'd bust my liver. I only have two livers to spare now and I'm rather fond of them. I've named them Heckle and Stewart. This is a lie. Though I do actually name physical anomalies- I have a tumour in my left eye called Earl. I think it would be a four movement symphony- how's that for an appropriate shift back onto the topic? And it would probably be tonal/atonalish. I don't know, I like playing around with sonoroties which sound tonal, but they might not follow a proper harmonic progression and there'd be random chords up the wazoo too. What's the symphony based on? Haven't decided yet. I have to find something...

Idea 2: Band piece. This time I'd make something which is only one movement. I've already got some music spinning around in my head and it sounds kind of nifty. I don't know how to describe it but it's a musical idea I'm fairly sure I could make grow and develop, like one of those dinosaurs you had when you were a kid, and when you put it in a bowl of water it'd grow to be ten times the original size. Except the piece wouldn't get all slimy and gross, like the dinosaurs do when thy've been left in water for however long it takes for them to grow, and they always got really wrinkly when they shrunk back down. It might be neat to write a piece based on this...I like dinosaurs. The part in "Fantasia" with the dinosaurs was always one of my favourite parts. Or the part with the Crocodile and the Hippo. And I now have to go find the latter and shrink it. To the size of a house cat. And feed it crumbs and chips and peanut butter from toast, and give it a mitten to make a nest out of.

Told you that you shouldn't have read this. Y'regret it now?

Entry 6. Trip to South America

First of all, I think the composition prelude concert went really well! It was really great to hear how the pieces we've written have grown and matured even over just a few weeks. I think the entire program, all put together, sounded really nice. And ending it off with a snappy ragtime was definitely the way to go.

I adored every piece on the Saturday night program. I really like that style of music, and hearing an entire program of it was really gratifying.

The first three pieces were really nifty, and set a great theme for the rest of the evening. I've never really listened to any great amount of this music, but we all know vaguely what it sound like, and it's the type of music you can listen to both intuitively and mindlessly- putting it on a completely elevated level of listening. The percussion pieces were remarkable simply because they looked as though they were difficult (heck, it's like playing a huge piano with sticks- and with two sticks in one hand!!) they sounded completely relaxed and groovy. The changing rhythms were great fun too, and every time one happened I found myself enjoyinh it all the more.

Carousel was really nifty- at times I could see where it got its name as it seemed to kind of wind down, but then it would go forward again and continue on. There is a great amount of flow in all of these pieces, I find- not like most music which has a beginning, a middle section and an end seperated by definite sections. It almost seems more organic to play music in this South American style, more fluid. I did like the return to this kind of style with the Ortega piece, which began with the chant, moved on to a somewhat improvisatory section before it returned to the chant. That was pretty darn nifty and toe-tappin'.

I think my favourite part of the entire evening was when Dawn Avery played -and sang!- her pieces from the North American Indian Cello Project. The last thing I had expected was for her to sing whil she played cello and her voice was so captivating and the words very profound. I wish I had a copy of the poem she based the second movement- about the medicine man- on, and, of course, a recording of it as well. Involving the audience was pretty nifty too!

The Kalimba and Brazilian set were enjoyable as well, especially when Jeff Dyer and Paul Bendza played/sang together. That was a really neat effect, to sing along with the clarinet, which made me realize just how much like a human voice the clarinet can sound. OH- and I decided that I really like the soprano saxomophone. Such a pretty tone!

Anyway, it was yet another night of great music, and another great Newfound Music Festival.

Entry 5. Newfound Music I

I really enjoyed the Newfound Music Festival this year, though I didn't get to attend nearly as much as I wanted to. I had planned on attending more of the sessions, but between being sick, working for one of the student recitals, going to the 1:00 one and having chamber music rehearsal, I did not get to see a lot. You can only hear so much from backstage, so I did not get to hear some of the really groovin' music played in the 11:00 concert, and immediately after my piece was played in the 1:00 concert I had to leave the auditorium to say goodbye to my friend who moved to BC on Friday, who had stopped in at the last minute to hear my piece.

I did get to two of the concerts, and I'm really glad that I did. I did not get to the one on Thursday night because the weather was really bad and I was sick (the combination of the two would've been REALLY pretty...Not.) but I got to go to the one on Friday and Saturday night.

So this blog will be about the one on Friday night!

I was very impressed with the variety of different pieces which were played. Of course, it was really great to hear music by two of our own- Clark Ross and Andrew Staniland- and by the guest composer, Derek Charke. There were a lot of surprising things in this concert, and my ear felt very satisfied with what it had heard. You know that feeling? It's marvellous when your ear has that nice sigh, as though it's just had a full, three-course meal and has unlatched its belt a notch. Now it's time for some hardcore napping and digestion!

Well, save the nap for later, maybe.

I really think "Shooting the Moon" is a good title for Clark's piece. There were several ponts during the piece when I heard a rhythm which caught my attention, and the octave-notes in the left hand really reminded me of the disco piece that Megan Warren had composed last year. I could easily hear both the disco and the jazz influence, and it's very satisfying even when all you get is a tiny snippet of music from a style you're listening for.

This was the first time I'd heard something by Andrew Staniland all the way through (we listened to the first movement of one of his pieces in orchestration and arranging) and want to hear more, so I can see where this fits into context and know what his style is like. That's how I like listening to music- I like to listen to several pieces by the same composer and get a better feel for not only the individual pieces as I listen to them in context, but by the overall style with which they've been written. There was a moment in the beginning of the second movement which was absolutely beautiful, and I found the majority of his music to be intelligent, edgy and captivating. I also think he represented the text really well with the music.

I also found the title of Derek Charke's pice very fitting. I've always liked the sound of hearing a performer play something with music playing in the background, and the melee of sounds and textures in his piece were both very mesmerizing. I kind of found myself wondering how one would notate that- do you write in the score what to listen for in the recording? Of course, as the composer, he would obviously know what to listen for, but all the same, for someone reading through the part the first time, how would they know when to play? One more note- he is a great flautist! Kudos for being able to both write and play beautiful music!

The piece by Onishi was really a treat to listen to, though as a string player who values both their bow and violin strings, by the end my mind was screaming "Oh noo!! Please don't break your strings!" and "You're definitely going to need your bow rehaired!" Bartok pizzicato always makes me cringe. I don't think I could do it if someone paid me to, not even if I borrowed a cheap violin. And I take great pride when I break one bow hair, and find it absolutely amazing- enviable, even- when people break four or five, but as a student who is clutching every penny dearly, I still kind of shudder when I think about getting a bow rehaired after playing just one piece.

All that rubbish aside, it was a lot of fun to listen to! I found there was always something going on, and I didn't know where to look or listen next- especially since they were seated so far apart, but that was what I liked about it. I liked hearing the music coming from remote parts of the auditorium. I'm an easy giggler, though, and had to really try not to giggle when either Aaron or Michelle made funny noises into their instruments. I loved the advanced techniques very much!

The Wuorinin piece is one I think I'd have to warm up to. I love the sound of classical guitar (any type of guitar, really) and was setting myself up to hear something tonal and classically pretty. I have to admit, whenever someone is introducing their piece and says '12 tone' my ear kind of pouts. I would love to see the music, go through it and analyze it, but that's because 12 tone music is beautiful on the page and somewhat...Strange to the ear. Like what Milton Babbit said in "Who cares if you listen." This isn't music to listen to, though that's what we do with it.

Good concert, though! Great variety of styles and instrumentations. :)

Entry 4. Last movement

Comments on the piece I presented last week:

- Very pretty notes, lots of serenity, the lack of pulse was nice
- unified, one idea
- good amount of silence/space
- the expectation of regularity was not met but that worked for this piece
- put in more space or more of the sixteenth-note motif, try both
- count the length of time not by bars but by notes
- chords from m. 25 on somewhat boring, check out earlier chords, see what they're made up of and maybe use permutations of those

I think these are all really good comments and will help me tweak this piece.

Annnnd now onto the next one. Given that we have less than a week until these pieces are performed, I'm going to keep this next one simple, like the last one, so that it can be lerned in time. The first piece I wrote is pretty tricky and it'll take a lot longer to edit. SO I'm going to go with the one I presented last week and the one that I'm working on right now, supposing I like it when it's finished and it gets finished in time!

I'm thinking about water as I write it. I'd like it to be kind of minimalist in a sense that it's very simple and flowing, and the harmonic rhythm will be slower and not very drastic...My only worry is can this be done without making it uninteresting. I guess I'll just have to keep toiling away and if I start to fall asleep then I'll take that as a pretty solid indication that I'm not really making it niftasticular.

Entry. 3, On to the next movement

As for last week:
- yep, I've got compositional ADHD. It jumps around a lot, and touches on parts which are cool-sounding, but then goes on to something else.
- Have to check to make sure it's physically possible- the triplet notes turn around sometimes and that'd be just awkward. I tried to play it but failed. Then again, I tried to play O Canada for keyboard harmony and...Canada is ashamed of me.
- the triplets were cool, especially against the eighth notes...Except I only did that once. Heh.
- it takes a bit too long to get to the 'groove' whic I totally agree with. See, I was aiming for a piece which was roughly 2 minutes long...Not 2 pages long. Because it's quicker, I figure it's alright to go beyond 2 pages, and there're a lot f notes in each bar, filling up more space and Finale makes bars bigger to support all those notes. Lon story short, make the long story short-er. :)

Now onto the next thinger.

I'm going to write something pretty. I'm going to write something pretty. I'm going to write something pretty. I'm going to write something pretty. I'm going to write something pretty. I'm going to write something pretty. I'm going to write something pretty. I'm going to write something pretty.

See, if I tell myself that, maybe it'll happen.

By nature, I don't write 'pretty' music. Funky, dissonant, angry, unhappy, but not pretty. Well, except for 'Subconscious,' but I don't count that because I wrote it in my sleep. I've written very simple stuff before which has turned out to be pretty, but that's just because I wrote it back when I thought the chord progression I IV V I was pretty darn fantastic. If I could I'd totally go back and give my adolescent self a good smack and say STOPPIT. I probably would've cried. Then grown-up me would have laughed. Yeah, I don't think we'd get along too well, myself and I.

But I'm trying. A slower tempo, more upper register, and it's going to be simple..Simple-er, at least. I actually wrote some of it while sitting at the piano. It took about 83.5 times longer than it would if I'd been sitting at the computer, but that's usually how I come up with my themes to begin with. I just start playing stuff...Which is why my music does not usually sound pretty. Glad to have finally figured that one out! See, I wrote a piece for violin (with piano accompaniment- I was so proud ofmyself!) over the Christmas break and it's decently pretty because I play it. And I eft out everything hard because I have to play this piece in the music festival and possibly in my recital if Nancy likes it.

OFF TOPIC. Anywho, I've written something I'm pretty sure I like. Yet again, it kind of goes from an introduction with its own themes and motif-things, then moves into a slightly different part which has the same little nuances here and there. I've kept the piece fairly short so it's kind of a...Thought, I guess. A wee musical thought. And it's kind of pretty! So I think, anyway. My perception could be compleeeetely off. But it's as much as I'd like to do for now, and think that this music thought is just about long enough.

Entry 2. Roll them chords!

See, when violinists need to play more than one note at once, they play block chords. Or rolled chords- I bet you every violinist who writes for piano puts in lots of rolled chords. Why? 'Cause it's what we're used to. Sure, we can play doublestops where one note is moving and the other one's staying still- or, if we're forced to do so, make both notes move at once- but do we want to? Pfft, nah. "All that chord-y, counterpoint-y stuff?...Make the piano accompanist do it."

And that, my friends, is the general violinist's state of mind as far as chords are concerned.

I've antagonized before about writing for an instrument with multiple voices, aka TWO HANDS before, and I'd love to continue doing so for abother thirty minutes. But I'm not going to, instead I'm going to ramble-on about the piece I'm working on right now.

I started one piece. Then left it, (I saved it so it's there for later use if I'm desperate) and started another one. Twice. Then that beginning became the middle section aaand inspiration for the third movement of my piece.

What? Compositional ADD? Me? Nah.

The first movement...I wanted it to sound somewhat like a fanfare in the beginning, and I've decided to use some polytonality. I wasn't sure if it was doable on the piano, but the pianist's got two hands so why not? But then the polytonality became atonality so I'm saving the actual polytonality- one key in one hand, one key in the other- for later on in the piece. The beginning'll lead up to that. I think. Not too sure yet- I'm only on bar 12, and yes, I write my blog while I write my piece, taking a break from one to work on the other and so on and so forth. That's why my blog entries are so long and ramble so much...

I've remembered how influential varying dynamics, using the full range of the piano, and the use of rests can be. I tend to compose without paying much detail to any of those things, but when I actually do use them I find I like the piece even more. I need to make little sticky notes with hints like this and stick them just above my screen so I can't write without taking into account how important this stuff is...And accents, too. I'm making sure that I do accents and dynamic markings as I go, rather than writing stuff and going back to fix that later because editing is a pain. I think in one of my blog entries from a year ago I described composition editing to be like a funeral. The piece is done, but you have to go back and do all the nit-picky stuff no one likes. Just like preparing your dearly beloved to be buried in the ground. They get dressed up, you put on their favourite hat, that ridiculous tie, spray them with a hint of that god-aweful musk they called perfume and then place them in a nicely cushioned box before you say your goodbyes and bury them six feet under. Yes, this is me, griping about funeral preparations. But I can't very well compare composition editing to cremation, now, can I? If I did, I'd never pass this course. No one wants to be handed a pile of ashes and told "Here, it's my final project."

Well, so far it's turning out aiight. Hopefully I'll have enough done that I'm OK presenting...Whatever it is I DO have done tomorrow. I'm aiming for at least one minute of music, though I'm not sure if I'll get that. Time to put the coffee back on! Or get some more peppermints. For some reason, peppermints have become my composing energy...source...Thing. Fuel. There we go.

On with the block rolled chords!

Entry 1: Once more onto the battlefield!

It is really great to be back at this again.

I've just finished writing a piece for piano and violin which I wrote in a whirlwind bout of composition...Wake up, sit down, write....an impossible amount of time passes...And the composition's done! That's what happened when I wrote my fugue for 18th century counterpoint. I had lots of time to get it done, but instead I wrote it in kind of a blur, then went back afterwards and tweaked it until I had it up to my satisfaction. Of course I dented the tree population slightly because my printer is a dinosaur- a vegitarian (maybe even vegan!) dinosaur, since it eats paper covered with ink and perhaps the occasional fly. In the winter, printers have to be opportunists and eat whatever they can while their owner is gone over the holidays. Anyway, I had printed off the first version when I went back and edited it, and then had to print it off again but the ink turned red part of the way through printing it off soooo I had to change the ink and try again...In short, it took a lot more conscious effort to make my dinoprinter work than it did to write the fugue, and that was a task in and of itself.

But anyway, back to composition.

PIANO?!? AHHHHH!

See, it was a blessing when I finished keyboard harmony. I enjoyed the class thoroughly but unfortunately was not very gifted at playing anything beyond good old block chords...And they were played crudely and with no finesse. BAHM BAHM BAHM, BAHM BAHM BAHM, BAMMA BAMMA BAMMA BAMMA, BAHM BAHM BAHM. That's me playing "Hot Cross Buns." Heck, put that on vinyl and it'll sell for a mint. NOT.

So playing piano, for me, is pretty darn tricky. Writing for piano isn't too hard. Writing GOOD music for piano is incredibly difficult because it involves writing music which isn't necessarily block chords in the left hand and a single line of melody in the right hand. So when I'm trying to write good music, I usually err on the side of caution until I get swept up in what I'm writing and create something which is impossible to play. Not just impossible, but incredibly impossible. Pianists just haven't evolved enough to be able to play my pieces, the lazy bums. C'mon! Let's see you pianists start sprouting three additional fingers on each hand!!

So it'll be interesting, trying to write something which is physically possible, and not too simple. Because if I let myself do something simple, like what we discussed in class, it would be because I'm not challenging myself enough. I need to learn how to write for piano and since we've got an assignment instructing us to do this, now's gotta be the time. So I won't allow myself to slip through any possible loopholes and I'm just going to have to try and try again, ask some poor bugger to play my piece just to see if it's even playable and hope that in the end I can find the meaning of life.

Wait...What?

Piece ideas!!

After consulting a close friend who has wanted me to write something not exactly for him but on an idea he's come up with, I've decided to do three different works based on an epic battle we had one summer. When I was in high school I attended the UNB Music camp over the summer which is where I met Dan, the friend I just mentioned. Because about 50% of the camp is actually making music and the other half is making mischeif, a pop bottle war happened. There were two teams and after everyone had pop bottles, pizza box shields or rolled up cardboard to make swords, they basically went nuts attacking one another.

I didn't take part- I was videotaping.

But the next year I went back Dan and I decided to spearhead another battle and spent our spare time convincing the younger kids (since we were two of only a few 'seniors' there who'd witnessed the first battle) to sneak out at night with us, armed with pop bottles, and stage another battle. We collected as many bottles as we could and late one night (after curfew because we were totally rebels) we snuck out the kids and pop bottles and staged another battle.

Dan was the leader of his team: Russia. Of course, he was renamed Czar Dan Dmitry Shostakovich of Russia.

I was the leader of my team: the Vatican, and I was renamed Pope Jess II of the Vatican.

It was a fun time, though in my opinion, I was outmatched. See, I had two of the little 500ml bottles. Dan, who was my main opponent, had two of those hefty Mott's Clamato bottles. Not only are they harder, but that plastic is thicker and those bottles have corners. CORNERS. And where I had taken the lids off my bottles to allow the bottle to give and not actually handicap whoever I was bludgeoning, he had the caps screwed on so the air pressure inside the bottle made them even harder.

In the end, we decided on a truce after it was pointed out how much of an advantage he had. Well, not really, he completely schooled me, and I'll make the piece accurate to that. BUT we decided for an end story that the Pope was shot and Russia disbanded. Kind of a truce. We all abandoned our weapons in a recycling bin and snuck back into the residence.

Oddly enough, just a minute after I got back in my room I heard a knock at the door. I looked through the peephole and felt my guts turn to rubber. Low and behold, one of the camp counsellors, the people in charge of keeping us in line while we're in the residence during the night, isat the door- she was doing one of her rounds to make sure no one was being loud or out in the halls and she saw my light on so she decided to come see me...I open the door and she took about two or three minutes to thank me for being a friend to the younger kids who were a bit nervous about being at the week-and-a-half long camp, and for helping out the counsellors by keeping track of said kids, making sure none of them were out of line and etc. Heh. Not only were we not caught, one of the two ringleaders was congratulated for their efforts to keep the kids from breaking the rules. Bingo.

So the piece will be in three movements, as it's supposed to be. The name of the piece comes from this music camp as well- we were divided into groups and had to meet every morning to get a schedule of the day's events. It was encouraged that our groups have names so we went all out and every person in the group gave one syllable to add to this monster word which would be our group name:

Phtha-he-kwa-gnu-phblorph-i-bob-flug-schnit.

Phthahekwagnuphblorpvibobflugschnit. I think 'kwa' was my addition, and 'gnu' was Dan's. Here's a pronunciation guide:

FTHAY-hee-kwaa-gnoo-fblorpv-AYE-bob-FLU(yodle the 'u')G-shnit. You accent 'Phtha,' 'i' and 'flug,' and you kind of yodle the 'oo' sound of 'flug.' There's also an umlaut over the 'u' in 'flug' and a ~ over the 'i' for no real reason. Perhaps to show emphasis, we never decided why.

Three movements?

Phthahekwagnu: the gathering. Gathering children en masse to take part in this epic battle, and, of course, our weapons- pop bottles. Prepared piano, anyone? Oh yes, I'm thinking pop bottles inside the piano, at least just for this movement. It'll start out probably fairly tame, and then become more involved and heavy as it goes on. The 'gnu' and 'kwa' themes will be introduced, to represent the Czar and the Pope.

Phblorpvibob: The battle- Kwa versus Gnu, Pope versus Czar. Polytonality? I think so. It'll be wreckless (a word which has often baffled me, seeing as doing something wreckless usually ends in some type of wreck) and brash. Hopefully!

Flugschnit: The aftermath and, to quote Dan, with "lingering social repercussions." In other words, he hasn't let me forget that I lost. So the Gnu theme will be triumphant and a bit Kwa a bit wistful- injured and at a loss. Maybe I'll make it a bit aleatoric by using a lot of octave displacement in the Kwa theme, which will be in the lower register of the piano. The Gnu theme'll sound somewhat distant though celebratory, in the upper register, as though they're partying it up in the distance.

Knowing myself, I'll probably change my mind umpteen times before the project's due, and write something I really like the day before it's due, which has happened many times in the past. I'll be plugging away at something then BAM, -the- idea hits so I take that and run as fast as I can with it. Actually, I think that's how I've written some of my favourite compositions. Bah. If something better comes up, it'll have to be pretty darn fantastic because I really like this idea.

Now to stop writing and start writing.