Sunday 9 December 2012

Final thoughts?

At what might be just in time for these to be done, I'd like to post my final blog entry for the semester.

Excellent recital everyone!

Everyone's pieces came through and there were some really amazing progress made from the first piece to the second. It felt like people got really serious this time around and produced a whole lot of great stuff.

What I especially appreciate from this course has been comfort in myself that I'm not the only one going through this process. I have no problems that are completely out of anyone else's perspective. Someone always has some insight for me. Everyone learns from everyone. And I managed to produce two pieces that I'm extremely happy with!

See you all next semester!

Tuesday 4 December 2012

Writing a piece... fast!

Today we had our first rehearsal for my piece, and I was happy to find that it was barely any effort to get it together. It was so easy that I was immediately able to talk about what articulations I wanted them to use. So my thoughts tonight are based mostly on how I managed to write a piece I'm happy with that could be put together quickly.

1. Know your instruments!

Going into this composition, we did not have very much time to waste, so I opted to pick instruments I was very familiar with (wind instruments - I've written for band before), and didn't wait until rehearsals to ask the players about things in the music that might be questionable. When I wrote for piano and cello, this was a concern, and we spent a good bit of time talking about things that I had written for either instrument that were awkward or sounded bad. Also, knowing your instruments means that you can can pick easier keys for more technical passages if you want them. For wind instruments, some keys fit better under the fingers than others.

2. Beat 1?

I know we were discouraged from this in the last composition, but there is barely any rehearsal time for players to be repeatedly missing entries, so I opted not to obscure the downbeat. In my current piece, if one person misses something or gets lost, the downbeat is very clear almost always. This sort of relates to the genre I intended to recontextualize, but I don't necessarily think this is a bad thing outside this context.

3. Know your players!

I also specifically chose people who I knew would work well together and be productive during rehearsals. Two of these people are graduates and one is a graduating performance major, so it is always great to go into the first rehearsal feeling confident about the musicians you asked. We could almost perform on one rehearsal, which is a great feeling, especially knowing that we will be having another rehearsal.

These are just some of the things I had in mind when I was writing this piece. It was a rush to write and even more of a rush to rehearse, for some of us. I don't intend to act as if I have some kind of superior knowledge, but this is a good way for me to get out my thoughts in case this situation every happens again, and I am sure it will, if my future is going to be how I wish.