Tone Poem continues

The more time goes by, the more remarkable I find it that there is so much more work to do on this composition.  Even some of the sections I considered relatively "completed," as I give it time and listen to it later on I get to approach it with a more critical ear (instead of, as Stephen King comments in his memoirs "On Writing,") as my baby.
The beginning section to me still seems pretty complete, although the fanfare's return I am hoping to alter in such a way to give it familiarity and yet variety at the same time, so that the listener (if they are as musically nerdy as I can be at times) will think:  "Oh, this is that fanfare motive from before, only it has been altered so the rhythm is doubled but with diminution!" If they are not as nerdy as me, they might just think:  "Oh, that's a cool new way to do that thing I heard before!"
The "Come Follow Me" section seems to need a few things to give it a more rich and a full sound at places, though I would say that this section is so far the most complete.
The "Sunset" section needs some considerable work to make it feel like its own section.  Namely, the material at the beginning could be extended to include some introductions of themes for later on in the piece with more stillness punctuated by small moments of beautiful melody.  I was thinking of this or perhaps introducing some new melodies or some of the later melodies but with an almost static feel to it to give the introduction of this section a more erie feel.
I also felt that this section went a bit too abruptly into the "Anger/Anxiety" section.

The "Anger/Anxiety" section is thus far still only partially written.  I do feel that some of the rhythmic devices I used at the beginning could be changed, and in general things here lengthened out.  This is kind of the highlight for this piece, to me, as it is what I feel can be a metaphor for life:  waiting upon the Lord for quite a while in difficult times before we are given great blessings:  "For after much tribulation come the blessings." (D&C 58:4).

The final section of release is something I'd like to start fleshing and sketching out it my mind, but might be in the more distant future.

Ooh! Ooh!  I just realized I could probably put some pictures of a little of what I've got so far on the Tone Poem!! Tee hee hee!



All of the page didn't quite get captured in the image, but nevertheless, I just think it's so cool looking at sheet music.  Especially when it's something that you've created yourself.  :)

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Harmony Postlude: Mary Had a Little Lamb in Minor

Image
As a precursor to an upcoming discussion on harmonies (or a "postlude," if you will pardon the musical pun), I wanted to rewrite "Mary Had a Little Lamb" again with the same melody but different harmonies, placed in such a way to put it in a minor instead of a major key.  This wasn't too hard, as there are only three notes (4 notes in some versions) in the whole song.  Here's the minor version of "Mary Had a Little Lamb:" While this is the same exact melody, a change in the harmonies can give the song a different feel, in this case quite sinister and very dark.  Since the melody used only DO, RE, and MI in the original key, I turned these into ME, FA, and SOL for the minor version. I've utilized a similar technique for my Piano Sonata to help change the feel of different movements but to connect them together.  The first movement is in A minor and starts out in the melody with a B-flat grace note going to the tonic, A.  The second move...
Read more

First Composition: Concerto No. 1

Image
Here's the first thing that I ever wrote:  Concerto No. 1.  This was a class project for my 7th grade orchestra class.  My teacher asked us to write an 8 bar melody on your instrument to be played in front of the class.  I had recently seen the movie Amadeus, and it fascinated me that someone could do what they were doing in that movie:  writing music.  I decided instead of 8 bars, I would write a full length piece for the class.  What it ended up becoming is this work: Concerto No. 1 1st Movement 2nd Movement 3rd Movement In seventh grade, we had played an arrangement of Bach's Brandenburg Concerto No. 5.  The influence from this piece can be very clearly seen in the 1st movement, as well as somewhat in the the third.  I wasn't sure what a concerto was at this time, and so it ended up being more like the original Baroque concertos.  In fact, the original meaning of concerto comes from the latin conserere , meaning to join ...
Read more

Playing with Legos: My approach to teaching the major scale pattern

Image
I've recently been using a technique for teaching whole steps and half-steps with my students that I feel has been pretty effective, and I wanted to share what I do.  I mention this to my violin students after they have been playing for a little while.  I have students start with a simple tetrachord pattern (what I call the mini scale) on just one string, and from there we progress to a D major scale on the D and A strings.  When they are starting to play on more than their D and A string, I introduce them to the fact that they can do a bigger scale on their whole instrument.  At this point, I mention half steps and whole steps. I start by having students listen to the difference between half-steps and whole steps.  I currently have a piano in my teaching studio, and so I'll play them the a half-step lower down on the piano, and tell them how it is like the "Jaws" theme. I then show them the contrasting sound of a whole step and mention how in music we ha...
Read more