sketch no. 2

The point of this assignment is the construction of three piece, each of which should be self-contained and of a single "character". They do not need to be thematically related. Keeping this in mind, I wanted to step out of my comfort zone, so to speak, and explore a language that I wouldn't experiment with otherwise. This is key, within the boundaries of a composition class, if we only write exactly as we have written in the past, using only a language that we are most familiar with, we aren't going to progress as much as we could. Our language may become a little more refined, but I think we would ultimately learn less.

That is how I approached this second sketch. It is not what I would choose to write on my own, and departs a great deal from the rest of my work. The focus is the melodic saturation of perfect 5ths. And unlike the first sketch, I want the rhythm to be more forward, more driving, and jagged. This is going to be the most challenging aspect for me. I rarely, if ever, write music with the kind of rhythms I am envisioning for this work. It was hard to really convey the harmonic outline in class without the context of rhythm, since that will ultimately be an integral element in this piece. Harmonic rhythm will not be as regular as it was in the presentation, which is something that was commented on. There are moments when a certain sonority should be held on to just a little longer than the others. And there are some moment that needs to pass by in a fleeting way in order to give the moments that last longer meaning.

Dr. Ross was able to put something into words that I have felt, but couldn't really put my finger on specifically. When writing, one should hear the music, not the process behind it. That is something that needs careful consideration in this project. When I present a work in class, my aim is not to present a finished product that will eventually become a part of the finished product later, but to explain and justify the decisions that I have made, and to show the process behind them. I just need to exercise extreme caution to make sure that the process does not overshadow the music itself.

sketch no. 1

This will the the first piece in a set of three, the design of the set is based around certain limitations unique to each piece, and the exploration of the musical and expressive (I do not necessarily mean emotion expressiveness, Boulez once said that music doesn't need to express emotion, it's enough that it expresses music) potential that can be found within these limitations. This piece uses only 4 pitch classes: c#, d, d#, and e. The "music" is less a result of the notes themselves, but more the space between the notes. Both in terms of register, and in duration. Duration in particular is fascinating to me. Not rhythm, but duration. I am aiming for a feeling of stasis, rather than meter.

Dr. Ross mentioned something in class that made me see something that I otherwise may not have seen within this piece. He mentioned how a repetition of a certain chord (it sounds twice in succession) seems out of place. Aside from this moment, none of the chords in their unique voicing ever appear after they are heard once. There are allusions to certain sonorities, but they are never heard twice in the same voicing or register. This makes that particular moment really stand out. And whether or not this is a device I choose to imply (I think it is an interesting concept) the way that I wrote it is certainly not interesting in the least. That concept could be applied to an important focal point in the piece, it needs a great deal of care, something that was very lacking in my initial sketch. It could be something important, something meaningful, but I basically wasted what could have been one of the key moments of the piece.