proud parent looking to father more children
i was sleeping and kept hearing parts of my symphony in my head. that's always a good sign. for me, it means i truly love my piece and that i did a good job on it.
so, it's not going to be assigned to the "do not perform again" pile. in fact, i'm going to do some revisions/expansions and make it even better. i've decided to flesh out some spots by allowing things to unfold slower and creating a bit more development. i'm also adding a fourth percussionist, a harp and a second oboe. the composer glutton in me wants to add saxophones, but that ensures it'll never get played, since saxes are a real luxury in american orchestras (and i'm not big in france, where they love them). normally, i want to have a flugelhorn in my pieces, but this one isn't right for it.
what's even more cool to me, is that i'm already working out the second symphony in my head. one of the big models i used for this first one was walter piston's second symphony, which is in three movements and they balance each other out so well--not in time lengths so much as in impact. piston's third symphony has always been a strange piece to me. and because of its strangeness, it's really stuck in my head. i'm thinking about following his example (form only) in my next one. what he did was write a piece in the old style sonata da chiesa (church piece--slow, fast, slow, fast) form. his piece has a long slow movement, short fast movement, long slow movement and short fast movent. i've wondered for years if i could do that. it's sort of so foreign to me, but i know it works.
the piston form is one model i'm considering. another one is the harris third, which is in a single movement, with five major sections that evolve from each other. in truth, it truly is the greatest symphony written by an american composer and it's so amazingly powerful as a piece of music. i've used it as a formal model in other pieces (well, as an idea...my work never ends up really being like the model i use, or at least most people would never figure it out) and i've stolen direct bits from it many times (not as quotes, but in the more general sense of how a bit works).
the most successful piece i've written based on harris' form is my english horn and piano piece. i kind of think of it as a one hit wonder, as i've never been able to duplicate what i did in it since. i sort of combined harris' formal idea with my memory of pbs nature documentaries from when i was a kid that seemed to always feature a fluid and formless soundtrack of flute jazz that seemingly never stopped. those things drove me crazy, but like piston's piece, never left my head. so to be clear, what i did was have the idea of a single movement with some recognizable sections that evolve out of each other--the harris model--and combined it with a sort of constant modulation/variation principal from the flute jazz soundtracks.
now, to be a bit more technical, i basically write music that is purely diatonic (which means using only the 7 notes of the major scale, regardless of key) and that makes modulation as we know it from common practice harmony a bit hard, because i can't do things based around chromatic alterations (using the other 5 notes of the tempered scale to change mode and key). so my piece has a sort of prokofiev-like direct modulation feel to it (prokofiev was king of just changing key whenever he felt like it, which is why his music is so distinctive). for me though these sort of direct modulations actually come more from virgil thomson, whose music is basically made of long chains of little bits of old hymns, marches, dances, folk songs, etc. (or synthetic versions of them) and jumps from idea to idea in such a seamless fashion that you don't question it on a harmonic/formal level. i've thought a lot about doing a full orchestra piece that worked that way as well.
writing all this out makes me think maybe i combine the two ideas and have a slow, fast, slow, fast overall form with the harris/flute/prokofiev idea in at least one or two of the movements.
i usually don't think about form so much, as i've been sort of addicted to the "debussy rondo" for many years (intead of A-B-A-C-A-D-etc... rondo form it's more like A-B-C-A-D-A-B1-E-A-etc..., sort of the musical version of the flanneur idea the impressionist painters were so obsessed by) and only alternating that with my variation/passacaglia form where i use a repeating chord progression that expands with each iteration, forcing the melody and counterpoint above it to expand in breadth, scope and impact as well. i'm kind of tired of those forms in the sense of they aren't so challenging any more.
going back to the fact of my music being primarily diatonic (virtually everything i've written since 1993, in fact), not having all those altered chords makes building big structures harder, as there's sort of less options to errect a structure from. i know it's my choice to do so, and it's one of the real reasons why my music sounds the way it does, but it makes building long pieces harder. it often makes it harder to find ways of making internal contrast in a piece. sometimes i get so frustrated because i tend to lean on specific notes and motives because of the limited harmonic pallette. but when i go wider, it usually doesn't sound like me, unless it's for a very special effect. so, i just sort of sweat it out, and rip the music out of me note by note. in the end, it's served me really well, and i've written music that sounds the way i know it should inside.
i haven't had these kinds of thoughts in any big dose in ages. i'm so thankful to have them again.
so, it's not going to be assigned to the "do not perform again" pile. in fact, i'm going to do some revisions/expansions and make it even better. i've decided to flesh out some spots by allowing things to unfold slower and creating a bit more development. i'm also adding a fourth percussionist, a harp and a second oboe. the composer glutton in me wants to add saxophones, but that ensures it'll never get played, since saxes are a real luxury in american orchestras (and i'm not big in france, where they love them). normally, i want to have a flugelhorn in my pieces, but this one isn't right for it.
what's even more cool to me, is that i'm already working out the second symphony in my head. one of the big models i used for this first one was walter piston's second symphony, which is in three movements and they balance each other out so well--not in time lengths so much as in impact. piston's third symphony has always been a strange piece to me. and because of its strangeness, it's really stuck in my head. i'm thinking about following his example (form only) in my next one. what he did was write a piece in the old style sonata da chiesa (church piece--slow, fast, slow, fast) form. his piece has a long slow movement, short fast movement, long slow movement and short fast movent. i've wondered for years if i could do that. it's sort of so foreign to me, but i know it works.
the piston form is one model i'm considering. another one is the harris third, which is in a single movement, with five major sections that evolve from each other. in truth, it truly is the greatest symphony written by an american composer and it's so amazingly powerful as a piece of music. i've used it as a formal model in other pieces (well, as an idea...my work never ends up really being like the model i use, or at least most people would never figure it out) and i've stolen direct bits from it many times (not as quotes, but in the more general sense of how a bit works).
the most successful piece i've written based on harris' form is my english horn and piano piece. i kind of think of it as a one hit wonder, as i've never been able to duplicate what i did in it since. i sort of combined harris' formal idea with my memory of pbs nature documentaries from when i was a kid that seemed to always feature a fluid and formless soundtrack of flute jazz that seemingly never stopped. those things drove me crazy, but like piston's piece, never left my head. so to be clear, what i did was have the idea of a single movement with some recognizable sections that evolve out of each other--the harris model--and combined it with a sort of constant modulation/variation principal from the flute jazz soundtracks.
now, to be a bit more technical, i basically write music that is purely diatonic (which means using only the 7 notes of the major scale, regardless of key) and that makes modulation as we know it from common practice harmony a bit hard, because i can't do things based around chromatic alterations (using the other 5 notes of the tempered scale to change mode and key). so my piece has a sort of prokofiev-like direct modulation feel to it (prokofiev was king of just changing key whenever he felt like it, which is why his music is so distinctive). for me though these sort of direct modulations actually come more from virgil thomson, whose music is basically made of long chains of little bits of old hymns, marches, dances, folk songs, etc. (or synthetic versions of them) and jumps from idea to idea in such a seamless fashion that you don't question it on a harmonic/formal level. i've thought a lot about doing a full orchestra piece that worked that way as well.
writing all this out makes me think maybe i combine the two ideas and have a slow, fast, slow, fast overall form with the harris/flute/prokofiev idea in at least one or two of the movements.
i usually don't think about form so much, as i've been sort of addicted to the "debussy rondo" for many years (intead of A-B-A-C-A-D-etc... rondo form it's more like A-B-C-A-D-A-B1-E-A-etc..., sort of the musical version of the flanneur idea the impressionist painters were so obsessed by) and only alternating that with my variation/passacaglia form where i use a repeating chord progression that expands with each iteration, forcing the melody and counterpoint above it to expand in breadth, scope and impact as well. i'm kind of tired of those forms in the sense of they aren't so challenging any more.
going back to the fact of my music being primarily diatonic (virtually everything i've written since 1993, in fact), not having all those altered chords makes building big structures harder, as there's sort of less options to errect a structure from. i know it's my choice to do so, and it's one of the real reasons why my music sounds the way it does, but it makes building long pieces harder. it often makes it harder to find ways of making internal contrast in a piece. sometimes i get so frustrated because i tend to lean on specific notes and motives because of the limited harmonic pallette. but when i go wider, it usually doesn't sound like me, unless it's for a very special effect. so, i just sort of sweat it out, and rip the music out of me note by note. in the end, it's served me really well, and i've written music that sounds the way i know it should inside.
i haven't had these kinds of thoughts in any big dose in ages. i'm so thankful to have them again.