gradual process

Finished the Canons piece last week. Decided to omit the titles as they didn't contribute anything, and just designate the piece 3.2008.

I'm not sure how I feel about writing it out by hand rather than using the computer. It did save time, but it's somehow less satisfying. It doesn't feel finished that way. Maybe next time I'll compromise by using the computer but relaxing my formatting standards.

Sorting through my files (both electric and physical), I found a lot of stuff I had forgotten about, or that I like better than I remember. BUT, none of it demands my attention. If anything's unfinished, it's something that I don't feel strongly enough about to finish. Everything is done! Now I can start writing new music, and that's pretty sweet. I'm starting with a piano piece that's been an idea waiting patiently in my head for a year or two, based on Gertrude Stein's Tender Buttons. More on that later.

One thing I came across in my sorting is a clarinet solo I wrote for a music theory seminar in college, and I particularly like it. Another piece with no cause for a title, so I'll be consistent and label it 2.2005. The project it was written for was to present a "theory" to the class, along with an original piece of music using that theory. I picked Steve Reich's "Music as a Gradual Process." Go read the article. It's short and clear and important (to me personally for a number of reasons, but also to the development of music for several decades following its writing), and explains 2.2005 better than I could. Except I will say that one challenge I put to myself writing it was to make the piece sound like "me," not like Reich.

Here it is: Page 1, page 2