Thirty-two. (Day 11.)

A week later ... I needed to take a break. Bernstein may have said that composers should write two minutes of music each day, but Bernstein apparently didn't have a full time job at the same time.

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Here it is, in its entirety. I think it's finished. I had some issues transitioning from the exposition into the recapitulation, but I think it should work okay. In the recap of the second theme at the end, I dropped it down to match the "key" of the first theme (although it's more of a "tonal center" than a key) and, in doing so, needed to make some orchestration adjustments.

Tomorrow I'll do some final clean up and call it quits on this piece.

Thirty-two. (Day 10.)

Not much done today. Changed a bit of the transition from the section ending at measure 138. Still needs some work, but at least it's something!

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Thirty-two. (Day 9.)

Ok, if I haven't felt productive in the past week I most likely made up for it today after a four hour stretch of composing.

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I think that would make the entire development. I hate to say it, but the stuff I wrote for Eleven just really seems tacked on at the end, even though I sort of set up just about everything you hear through out the entire piece and made sure the transition into it was fairly smooth. (That long pause is supposed to be a brief pause. And the oboe sounds like a cat being strangled in the last part, though I have no idea why.) I'll have to mess around with it some more and see if I can get it to fit.

PDF and mp3 are the complete thing, because I figured it would be best for you all to hear it in its entirety at this point. I feel like I just ran a marathon. Done for the day.

Thirty-two. (Day 6 through Day 8.)

Ok, a little behind on posting, but not on writing.

Day 6:

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This here is a means of getting into the development from the end of the exposition. Slow notes, very much like the beginning. I felt, however, it was too much like the beginning. The PDF show from measure 57 to the end. The audio clip is from measure 63 to the end.

Day 7:

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I decided that jumping into a slow section following the exposition would be a terrible idea, almost setting the ear up to hear slow-fast-slow-fast which can get tedious after awhile. Instead, I chose to play more on a fragment from the second theme. Audio clip is just the new bit after the exposition.

Day 8:

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Ok, I passed the 7 day mark but I'm determined to finish this, as long as it takes. This is the daily composer, and I'm composing daily, so that still counts in my book.

Expanding more on the newer section, working in the minor 3rd sequencing. Obviously harmony needs to be added to the last bits, but I wanted to get them down. I went through and cleaned as much as possible, fixing any doubling, unintentional octaves, etc.

The recording for Day 8 is just the new bit. PDF is the entire thing, even the slow bit at the very end (that I'm hanging on to in case I decide to use it ...)

It's coming along, more or less. Don't mind the messy scores -- I'll be going through at the end to do a major cleaning. I might spend a couple days on two measures, but once I figure out what I'm doing I can move along pretty quick. Some of it sounds/looks ugly, but once I get it cleaned up I promise it won't be so bad. You have to put the wall up before you can paint it, you know.

Thirty-two. (Day 5.)

I'm a little disappointed in myself for not having made much progress since the last post, but I needed to spend a day listening and considering, and tonight I'm just too exhausted.

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The development is a very important part, in my opinion. It's also one of the most terrifying, where anything can go horribly wrong. I feel I have two very strong themes and I'm afraid of using them poorly, so I'm approaching this with caution. I was ready to charge through this like a bull, but I think it best to tread carefully. My challenges are that one is a melodic theme and the other is a rhythmic theme: blending the two, or swapping their melodic/rhythmic content are two very possible means of developing, or perhaps even goals of the development, but it needs to be done right to be done well.

I made some minor changes to the transition between the first and second theme, and started a few measures on the development at the end. In short, not much changed, although I feel very comfortable with what I'm hearing and think I could make some real progress tomorrow. We'll see!

Thirty-two. (Day 4.)

I was a bit concerned about what to use as the second theme for the piece, and found that I had already written and posted something that I really dug: Three. I think it fits well -- the two themes are supposed to be of contrasting key and style. Well, nothing is more contrasting than these two themes. Also, the quick, percussive feel of Three will set up the development to eventually present Eleven. I love it when things work out well.

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So here is Day 4 with a slight change in measure 18 from yesterday in the oboe to help push the line a little bit. I think I incorporated the new material well, as the added voices around the theme seem to help it along.

I didn't make it into the development like I was planning. However, reaching the development makes me happy enough. This might need to carry on a little past seven days, though I'm not concerned. I'll be happy to complete a piece!

Thirty-two. (Day 3.)

At this rate I might never finish in 7 days. Regardless, here is today's work. It's 3 pages, so I'm moving it to PDF format. Ignore some obvious layout issues -- I didn't feel like spending too much time fussing around with it. Let me know if there are problems with the PDF -- I'm using CutePDF, since it's free, so there might be some conversion issues.

Click here to view the PDF.

This is, essentially, half of the exposition, ending at just about where the introduction of the second theme will be. I changed around some of the instrumentation, as I felt that the French horn's entrance in measure 9 of yesterday's post was extremely high for the dynamic marked (mp -- mezzo piano, or sort of soft). (Also, in that range the bassoon and French horn have comparable timbres, as the horn gets a tighter, more nasal sound the higher it gets. In that regard, swapping instruments was not an issue.)

The introduction ends on measure 20, and 21 starts "theme A," which you might recognize from Eleven, although slower and in a different key. The theme is passed around a bit: first on bassoon, then flute (measure 26), then French horn (measure 33). This part of the exposition ends on an A minor chord (minus the third) and an accelerando to a quicker tempo -- I'll probably change this to accommodate the introduction of "theme B," which will be new material from Eleven.

I'll hopefully finish up the exposition, transition, and begin work on the development tomorrow. This is going to be a fun piece -- I think its best in this form to use simple themes, as complex themes do not allow for a lot of variety when developing. Or at least that's my opinion.

Thirty-two. (Day 2.)

The intro.

click the image for a clearer view

This is an easy way to introduce all of the instruments and establish timbral guidelines for the exposition. Looking back at Eleven, that exact material will probably appear at the end of the development, so there is a bit of ways to go and a lot of time to develop all the ideas that it presented.

I hope to spend a little more time on this and try and knock out the exposition in its entirety tomorrow, but we'll see.

Thirty-two. (Day 1.)

I think I'll keep these all listed as "Thirty-two," while just keeping track of the days spent on it. After 7 days (or, I suppose, as long as it takes?) I'll start on Thirty-three.

I spent the time for this day mapping out the form for the piece. I'm going to go with a fairly straightforward sonata form (a scan of my "road map," as I like to do, will be attached on Monday, as I have no scanner at home). Obviously, as Eleven was for woodwind quintet, this will

Sonata form (sometimes referred to as sonata allegro) is an expanded A-B-A form. That looks sort of like this:

Exposition - Development - Recapitulation

Usually there is a type of introduction, and typically two themes are presented in the exposition, one in the tonic, then a transition to the second theme being presented in a key similar to the first (for example, if theme A is in D major, theme B might be in A major; likewise, B minor might transition to D major). The development allows some creative explorations of the two themes, and the recapitulation is usually both themes presented in the original tonic. A coda (think "outro") usually ends the piece. I used a modification of this form in my thesis, Mobius a couple years back.

I'll be sticking fairly closely to this.

Eleven.

Woodwind quintet.

This feels like it would belong as a part of something much bigger, like somewhere in the middle. I like ostinato (repeated) passages, especially when they set up what seems to be a theme, that drift off into the background behind a new theme. I also love the color possibilities with this type of ensemble, though the digital rendering loses a lot of that feeling.

This one's a bit long, so hopefully it'll post okay. I couldn't think of any other way than three separate files for the score.



I'll be away this weekend, but the laptop is coming with me so I'll post what I have on Sunday night, hopefully.