Mid-term

The mid-term break provided some additional time for me to work on my compositional projects, of which only a couple are for this course. I spent a lot of the break working on the string quartet part for my piece for string quartet and electronics that I am writing as a final project for Mus 4104. I have been playing in string quartets for a long time, but writing for one is a very different experience, especially when the final product will ideally be seamlessly integrated with samples and signal processing. Most of my work so far has been on developing the harmonic tools that will be the basis of the work. I found it easier to work backwards for this piece, first composing the end (for which  I had a clear programmatic concept), and then using those sonorities to aid in my development of the preceding material.

I also took some time to clean up and submit "Brutus" for grading. Having left the score for a couple of weeks after a month or so of working on it, I found it much easier to make some definitive adjustments that brought it to a more polished and presentable state. For instance, the length of silences in the opening of the piece had been the topic of much discussion and questioning in class and I wasn't fully satisfied with any of the directions I had given, but when I approached it again after a break, I knew exactly how long I wanted them and how to best notate it.

As for my concert band piece, I continued to work away at developing the middle section of the work, as well as making some mild orchestrational adjustments to what I had written already. I am looking forward to receiving more comments in the coming week, as the response I received when I last presented was very encouraging! Hopefully within the next couple of weeks I will have the piece written from start to finish and I can begin to work out the finer details.