Robbie vs Suggestions

Last thursday I finally got my first reading on my string quartet, which was also the first time I head the piece myself. Although being a bit tricky to recreate, it was great to hear it being played by real musicians for the first time. No foolish midi instruments to discourage anything.

So far this piece is definitely a whole lot different than anything I've written in the past. So far it is broken up in to two main sections. The first section being very sparse using a lot of space and only revealing fragments of a line. The second section is based entirely on atmosphere and the instruments are mainly used more percussively than melodically. The next step is to figure out where I want to go with the piece. Steve suggested that I develop the first section further, hinting at the second section slightly at the beginning and then really open up with that second around the golden mean, which is more or less what I had in mind. Kim, however, suggested that I write a piece entirely on the second idea of muting all the instruments except for one and throwing around a melody to that one instrument.

Currently I have decided to keep writing the piece the way that steve suggested while still keeping kim's idea in mind when I'm focusing on the second section. That way if I feel as if that section could be strong enough to stand alone as an entire piece then I can just go for it and make the other section in to something else.

I've also spent more time this week playing around with the violin that I have at my house. I didn't want to resort back to the piano and I wasn't too fond of the idea of listening to the midi either, so I figured that this would be a good way to hear some of the ideas without falling in to the same traps. It also helps when figuring out how to write the lines for each instrument as well.

Robbie vs String Quartet

After many attempts at many different combinations of instruments I decided to go with the string quartet for the final assignment. The closest thing that I've come to writing for something like this was last year when I wrote my cliche piece for violin, cello and piano, so it should definitely be a learning experience.

Since I haven't studied, or have ever been a part of, a string quartet before I tried to get myself more familiar with the concept by listening to Beethoven's string quartets op. 131 and 135, six of Bartok's, and Webern's for inspiration. I particularly liked Bartok's no. 4 mvt. IV Allegretto, which was entirely pizzicato, and this sparked my main inspiration for my next piece.

At first I tried to dive right in and write the piece using mainly pizzicato however my sense of melodic direction was lacking. I didn't want to write a purely tonal piece but I had no idea how to approach it otherwise. I could grab a chord and rhythmically manipulate it but other than that I was stuck. Dr. Staniland suggested that I completely forget about every other method of writing melody, harmony and rhythm and focus one specific interval to write my piece. If I were to become stuck in any situation, just pick use the interval to help me out. Go up by an interval, down by an interval, have a chord repeat by that interval, have the passage start on the interval in that bar, etc.

So for this assignment I went with the interval of a 6th. I've also taken the approach of not listening to the playback on the computer. The recreation that sibelius makes in nowhere near the actual sound of what the instruments make (especially when you're using extended techniques) and this becomes very discouraging. It is very beneficial to have musicians play through your pieces as much as possible. "mom, I want a string quartet for christmas to put in my closet!"

Robbie vs Tonality

Well, time to catch up on some of this blog writing

The last one I attempted ended up getting erased because I kept it open too long and when I went to finally send it it came up for me to sign in again and I couldn't retrieve the majority of it. So I got discouraged! But here I go again..

Upon completing my three pieces for solo piano I realized how dependent I am on tonality. I was somewhat pleased with my compositions, but at the same time I found them to be relatively predictable melodically as well as lacking a sense of direction. I also find it, ironically, to be a lot more difficult to write for solo piano than other compositions I've written for. Possibly to do with the fact that I'm writing in my comfort zone and a lot of the time only writing things that I can play myself.

For the next assignment I tend on stepping completely away from the piano to try and break some bad habits. It's too much of a safety crutch for my writing and it tends to lead me to the same sort of ideas. I'd like to try and be more free with the use of tonality by stepping away from cliche melodies and harmonies and not be afraid to get a bit ugly instead of writing things that seem more naturally pleasing to the ears. My pieces usually contain a lot of passages that can be repeated consecutively over and over (like a chord pattern or 'riff' in popular music) but I would like to focus more on creating transitional sections.