: New Material
I’ve been on a creative tear for over a year now and have a number of new pieces to show for it. It’s been exhilarating & exhausting.
I’m pleased that I’m composing music that pleases me. And there are those rare moments during the composing process when I finally solve some particular problem and get a very brief “Aha Moment”.
But it requires a whole lot of intricate detail work (sometimes tedious) combined with a lot of emotional exertion to finish a piece.
I agonize over how long a section should go on. “Should I repeat this 4 bar phrase one more time, or have I gotten the point across?”
Do all the different musical themes work in the context of the full piece? “Is this particular 8 bar section really necessary for the piece to work – or should I take out and save it for another piece?”
Rinse and repeat many times. . . .
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Anyway, the odds on any of these pieces getting a performance and/or recording in the future are slim to none. When live concerts open up I anticipate that a few of the works for piano (with or without violin) may get performed, but that does not hold true for this piece that I’m making available for listening this month:
Suite for Strings & Bass Guitar
The Back Story
This 35 minute piece for a large string orchestra supplemented with electric bass guitar is the “largest” piece I’ve composed to date. The music was developed and composed over a 5 year period, but it was not until 2020 that the pieces pulled together.
The initial inspiration came out of a piece I had written for a New York Composer’s Collective concert. The piece – Elegy in Rhythm for Strings – was performed by the 18 piece string orchestra The Shattered Glass at the New York Composers Collective’s The Rite of String!concert in March 2019.
After this first performance I was not happy with what I heard – if felt like there was just too much crammed into one piece. I started re-writing it late 2019 and by January 2020 I had chucked maybe 2/3 of the piece and re-written much of the rest. The only part that was preserved relatively intact was the opening 2 minutes or so. In the process of doing this I re-named the piece Celebration for Strings.
But as I was finishing up this re-write I recalled some pieces that I had written years earlier as assignments for my composition classes at the Juilliard Evening Division. These pieces were written for the standard string quintet instruments of 2 violins and one each viola, cello, and double bass. Not coincidentally this is the same instruments in a string orchestra – only in a string orchestra there are a lot more people playing those instruments. With this in mind, I resurrected these pieces and played them on my computer – only this time using my string orchestra software. They needed a lot of work (sigh) but the overall effect was great.
Now I had the makings of a 3 episode piece. But as a started the re-write of the 2 Julliard pieces I felt that this new Suite 4 Strings needed at least one episode that was much slower than the others. A so yet another episode was born.
Sp where did things finally end up? Celebration for Strings became Episode 3, the two Juilliard pieces became Episodes 1 & 4, and the latest arrival is now Episode 2.
And – of course – I am still tinkering with this. There are still some scattered chunks of music in here that could be better.
A couple of trivia items of interest.
Bass Guitar??
As I was re-working the material (and listening to the recording of the concert) it felt to me that the double basses just did not have enough “punch” to them (for want of a better word). Perhaps a more technically proficient composer might have found a solution using the standard string instruments, but after trying more than a few different approaches my solution was to add an electric base.
Now some of my fellow composers in the New York Composer’s Circle have tried to convince me that I could get plenty of “punch” from the standard orchestral double bass – and – that what I was hearing was an artifact of the computer software – and – that this would not be a problem using real instruments. However the computer simulations (while they do not capture many nuances) are adequate enough to satisfy me that I’m making the right decision.
But I’m nothing if not flexible on this. The odds on this ever getting a public performance are roughly the same odds on my winning the millionaire lottery. But If I should ever be so fortunate as to have that opportunity I would keep an open mind on this deep topic (sorry for the bass pun).
LIttle “Intermezzos”
You’ll notice a little wandering melody played by a solo instrument in between each episode. This could be a false memory, but it feels like this melody has been echoing in the back of my mind since my childhood. It sort of loops around since each iteration starts in a different key. Anyway, I just felt like I had to get this thing out of my system.
I think it has worked.
I no longer hear it.
Chopin Quote
Near the end of Episode 2 I have incorporated the opening of Chopin Mazurka Opus 17, No. 4.
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And finally – stay tuned. In the months to come I will be delivering more new material.