Rehearsal

The only time we ever really got a chance to rehearse was about an hour before the concert. I was feeling pretty good about it though, because I was working with really good musicians. I knew it would be alright! haha
We began the dress rehearsal at around 5:40 or so. I was a little disappointed at first because I dnd't ahve all o the equipment I needed with my drums. The hi-hat and floor-tom were missing, but luckily I was able to get mine for the rehearsal. The first two times we ran through the piece were a little stressful. Because the violinist and I only have parts we couldn't see where we were if we got lost. However, after a few more run-throughs everything was fine. The last run-through was great, we never had to stop and go over anything. I was a little nervous for the concert, but excited too.

So I finally found a way to finish my piece. People in the class (and Dr. Ross) suggested that I end with something really climactic, a "big bang". This is pretty easy to do on drums and even on piano, but I needed to find a way to bring this to the violin. What I ended up doing was bringing back the tritone idea heard earlier in the violin part. I started it off in the piano and then the violin came in with it. To really build up to the last little bit I had the piano and violin rise chromatically, fisrt in eighth notes and then in sixteenth notes. I really think this brought the tension up to the climax well. Finally, the violin part sustains a b (the key which most of the piece is in) and the drums and piano cue each other into the last two beats.

Keep Warkin'...

I'm almost finished Disco Infernote now...I think anyway. I put a few hours of work into it on Tuesday night and I added in some parts to make the transition between the sections a little smoother. Also I wanted to get the music to the instrumentalists a little earlier so that they had more time to look at the piece before playing it. (It can be difficult to get accurate feedback in class when we start and stop so much...) The piece begins with a pretty typical disco-type passage, with just chords in the piano and a simple violin part. This first section sets up the cliche, and then there are some atonal chords in the violin and the piano that create a transition from this section to the second section. This section focuses on the piano as it slowly moves into the walking octave bassline. After this section theres a brief section (section section section) that puts the melody in the violin and veers "off the rails" in terms of tonality. After another section with atonal-ish chords in the piano, a bass-riff comes back into the piano and the solid chords in the right hand also come back. The violin is given a solo that resembles an electric guitar solo, and there are hints of the walking octave bassline coming back into the piano. This is probably where I'll end the piece, but I'd like to get some feedback.

So it turns out that I decided against the idea of bluegrass after...and went with the cliche of disco, which turned out to be a great choice (I think anyway!) I'm really really enjoying this project. I'm much more comfortable with the idea of experimenting with tonality. In the piece, called "Disco Infernote", I begin with a very clear example of disco music, and then it slowly starts to fall "off the rails". I'm having so much fun with this piece...it doesn't feel like work. Lovely!

ps. here's a link to a hilarious take on a surprising cliche...
http://www.collegehumor.com/video:1889851

Cliche

This week I began working on the new project, a musical cliche. I was deciding between bluegrass and disco and I chose bluegrass. I have a lot of different ideas for this cliche, and bluegrass has so many particular characteristics/instruments that can serve as a starting point for cliches. For example, much of the music is dominated by a 1-4 bassline and chords on the second and fourth beat. The instruments are usually banjo, guitar, bass, fiddle, and mandoline. Hopefully these things are enough to give me a bit of a starting point.

Last composition

I finished the last of my three pieces this week. The final piece, called "The Old Hag", was very difficult me at first. I found that I had a lot of ideas that I couldn't connect in a fluid way. I kept running into mental blocks, so I decided to go see Dr. Ross. He gave me lots of ideas, including how to physically write out all of the things that I wanted to do with the piano but didn't know how to notate correctly. When I played the piece in class, I received a lot of helpful feedback. The class really liked the part where I plucked the strings of the piano with my right hand. The most popular comment seemed to be that the ideas in my piece were interesting, they were just very short. The section with the strings being plucked on the piano is only six measures long. I was told that "The Old Hag" needed more fluidity in terms of ideas. It seems as though there are several different, contrasting ideas over a short period of time. This week, in refining my last three pieces, I'm going to work on connecting the different ideas in my piece.

Week #3

This week I wrote my second character piece. I was really frustrated with the first, and didn't really know where to start work on it, so I'm going to leave that until last and then go back to it for revisions. This week I feel like I had a lot more success with my composition. While once again it took a while to get the creative process started, once it did, things fell fairly easily into place. While I didn't discuss it in class, I created this piece based on falling asleep while listening to the rain. I used a repeated F note to represent the sleep, and this was represented through both the piano and violin part. The F note is constantly heard through the piece with one two-measure exception (which reflected stirring from the noise of the rain). I felt like this piece was recieved a lot more positively than the last one. I recieved a lot of helpful comments, like the fact that I could have used more of the piano/violin alternating in the staccato and pizzicato. I only had this for one measure, but I was told maybe that it could be more. I was also made aware of more violin tones and techniques. I don't know much about violin (or strings in general really) so I found this very helpful and I'll definintely experiment more with these ideas in the next piece.

Week 2

Last week was week 2 of the composition character piece cycle, and I debuted my first piece. I found this piece really hard to create. I had a lot of thoughts and ideas but none of them seemed to materialized as I wanted them to on paper (or computer screen). I figured that at this stage, the best thing for me to do was to play what I have, and then get some feedback. I decided to pick the character "fear". I tried to display this through the repeated use of semitones and the unpredictable cluster chords in the piano leading up to the end. When I presented this piece in class I got some very helpful feedback. It was suggested that I use the more of the piano itself, and take advantage of the fact that it is a piano and not a single-tone instrument. Also, I was told it was a little short, but a lot of my ideas in the piece could be expanded on. For example, the semitones in measure 7 could be extended into a more complex echo, using different chords and notes than just the C# and D I have now.

First Composition

This week I began work on my first atonal composition. One of the biggest challenges in writing this piece was to create a clear and consistant "arch" in terms of the dissonant climax. I tried to approach this by slowly going down the keyboard with each of my 12 chords. I got a lot of helpful feedback when I played this piece in class, and one of the most popular opinions was that the piece did not have much of a resolution. The closing chords were just as full and "crunchy" as the climactic chords. In order to create more of a seamless arch (of dissonance) I need to try and make the last three chords (as chord 8 was the most dissonant) slightly less intense. I'm going to try moving them back up the keyboard into a higher register and experiment with them there this week. Also, I was told that the first three chords were also more intense than many of the other pieces we had heard in class. It might help to make an even clearer rise and fall in dissonance if I start off with less "crunchy" chords.

First blog

This is a test for my first blog entry!!!!