More Quarteting?

My sax quartet isn't coming along quite as well as I had hoped. I had it played in class Monday and due to a lack of time prior to the class I didn't get a chance to do much with it except for throwing in section in 12 bar blues. This didn't exactly work, it wasn't interesting enough for the music and Dr. Ross said it lacked the 'integrity' that was in the rest of my piece. I never had much invested in the blues section and I'm going to take it out completely, so much for that.

The interesting thing was how much conversation came from the part of my piece that people had already heard. There seems to be a genera consensus that the first two bars of my 9/8 section seem a little redundant and the piece could work well without them. Dylan made the comment on how my writing is almost always fast and fun and to try expanding on the slow section in the intro to the piece. This was followed by some more recommendations to try using isorhythms to bring some of the 9/8 stuff into the intro, this would create a longer slow section and set up the 9/8 so that I could take the previously mentioned two measures out.

I got pretty excited after all the good ideas that came out of the discussion from class and already have made significant changes to my work. The blues section is gone, it may come back later but it will be a much more thought out and integrated way and won't be obvious. I've also done a lot of work on the slow section in the beginning and it's way better now (I hope) and the two measures of the 9/8 are gone and the piece seems to flow a lot better.

Good things to come!
NB

Sax Quartet Week 2

My sax quartet is coming along nicely, I've got about 1 minute of music written so far and up to now I've stuck with the Blue Rondo idea. The piece is currently building towards a larger climatic section that will have to occur before I move on from this theme. I had the piece played today in class and the feedback, like always, was centered around the high level of Fun in my piece, a compliment I appreciate. I stand by the ideal of only composing what I like and adapting guidelines to fit that feeling and it really seems to work well for me. Dr. Ross also commented on the fact that I need to keep going towards a climax in the first theme before moving on. He also suggested taking my constant moving figure and develop it into a melody. He also enjoyed the fact that a bar after I modulate the original key comes back and then alternates with the new one until they play simultainiously in poly tonality.

So much to do, so little time.

NB

Final Project

For my final project for this compostion course I've decided to write a piece for sax quartet. I've got a few ideas for it so far: I want to give more focus to the bari, letting it be one of the primary interests in the piece. Also, the style for my piece is jazz, I'm going to include references to Dave Brubecks 'Blue Rondo A la Turk', Charlie Parkers 'Moose the Mouche' & "Yardbird Suite". I'm also thinking of experimenting with Poly-tonality and parallel organum, and also 3,6, and 7 bar phrases to help give my piece a more original sound.

-NB-