Well, although my trip to Labrador was one of the best experiences of life, it did not, for some strange reason, include any composing. Therefore, I have two days to revise my first composition (with which I was extremely dissatisfied) and get moving on my second. This afternoon I completely reworked/ rewrote my first piece, keeping only about 4 bars the same. I tried really hard to a) keep it simple (I was inspired by Saird's discipline and commitment to motif this afternoon) b) maintain charcter while also building meaningful tension and c) make sure it would be easier for the performers to play. At this point, I'm not really following my original chord progression at all. Rather I stuck to 3 or 4 of my favorite parts of the piece and developed those rather than try to reflect my original chord progression. I think I have a more coherent result, but one can never tell. I don't have the use of a computer program so many things I write are approximations that are only filtered by my poor mental ability to visualize the music in my head.
I just read the creative angst entry and I must say that the element of composing that causes me the most angst is most certainly coherency. I have lots of ideas all the time, but very little idea how to combine, develop or display them. Deadlines are always good for a little angstiness as well.

First Piece

I really agree with the observation that one's mood affects one's composing. I think my piece would have turned out completely different if I had done different sections on different days.

I am currently struggling with maintaining the overall character of my first piece and still build tension and interest. I fear my piece may be a little too developmental and dynamic and also, resultantly, that my pieces will all sound similar. I have sketched out the entire form, but still need to work out the logisitcs.

I am also incorporating minor improvisations from the performers since I find I can't really notate exactly what I would like to hear, especially for special effects. We'll see how it turns out.

and *neat* not "net" line 5 same paragraph. My typing and editing skills sorely miss wordcheck on these blogs.

That's *tone* not "one" in paragraph three, line two.

The chord progression I laid out was played in class yesterday. It was a weird experience and didn't sound as familiar as I had hoped. I didn't realize how different music can sound when I'm not in my own world, with my own hopeless keyboarding skills.

Some classmates seemed to approve of the increasing tension I tried to formulate, whereas others perceived a rather lengthy tension plateau in either chords 2-6 or 3-8. As well I have a much less gradual decrease, sort of a sudden drop. I'm finding it difficult to decide whether to pick it apart totally or keep it mostly the same. I'm finding revisions much more painstaking than initial creation.

In my progression I tried to plan ahead a little and used a common one in all the chords, however, I'm considering removing it from the most tense chord just to give that little extra something for all those perfect pitch people out there. I figured that would allow me something net to play with in the eventual resulting compositions. I also chose not to use register shifts so that I could clearly distinguish dissonance (recall class discussion regarding pitch, dissonance and what is tension?) and because I didn't want to limit my later compositions to certain register formulas. However, I am currently perplexed at how I'll be able to make three separate creations from a simple chord progression. I seem to either have not enough ideas or too many, depending on the moment.

Testing testing. 1-2-3. Check check.