Coming together

We meet again, Mr. Blog!

haha

ohhhh I crack myself up sometimes

So once again I am sitting at my computer desk working on my composition and it coming along quite smoothly now. I would just like to thank everyone in the class again for the great input yesterday and for clark for making me present. I was in quite a writer's rut and it really helped to get feedback and clear minds to help me out. t'awwww! How sweet!

I think I've incorporated every suggestion so far that was brought up yesterday into what I have now:

-Clark's approach on creating just a couple ideas and sticking with them is a great way to keep on course with writing a composition. From writing this piece from scratch over and over again I've accumulated quite a few ideas that I am just dying to dig into but, but it was overwhelming to say the least. Taking less ideas allows them to grow and develop through the piece and should me more than enough if done right. Right now I have four different ideas which is more than enough for an audience to digest during a roughly five minute piece. 

-Both Mike and Melissa suggested for me to get away from my piano! How rude, right? haha It was quite helpful though. I found it helped me map out the structure of piece without having to worry about minor detail, which I can fix once I had the structure set in stone. Once I had that out of the way, the writing process moved a lot faster.

- I've addressed this many times, but I just want to bring up how I'm writing everything for my compositions on piano. I have no idea how to play the violin and I think I might have touched Saird's cello with my elbow one time, but it was only for a second. The problem with this is that I'm writing entire piano pieces before I even think of adding another melody line to it. So to compose a composition for 3 instruments it usually ends up becoming a piano piece with violin and cello accompaniment. To fix this problem, it was suggested (I know that Dylan for one did) that I make the piano less greedy and either trade off or just straight up give sections to the other two instruments. That way, since I am more comfortable with writing on a piano, I can structure another piano part around a certain melody line as oppose to trying to think in the ways of a cellist or violinist. 

I know this approach seems quite simple, but I was completely ignorant to the idea at first. Since it was already written on piano, which I had played over and over again constantly, it just felt right to keep it on that instrument. But actually moving motifs to another instrument gave me a fresh approach on certain sections as if I was working with something new.

If I never said your name, I still thank you for helping me! I think everyone voiced an opinion when I was up to plate and it was much appreciated.

I hope that these suggestions help anyone out at least a bit who might be struggling with their composition now. Although I'm pretty sure everyone is doing quite fine by the sounds of it! Hopefully future composition 3100 bloggers can benefit from it somehow.

Dear composition 3100 class of the future,

Blog every day.

Present as much as you can even when you think you have nothing.

Don't overload your composition with too many ideas.

Time to get back to sebelius

Yours truly,

-Robbie b

ps: new drinking game - have a drink every time you see the world 'compose' or any form of it in my blog entries. Whoa baby.

Edit:

I'm having a problem with sebelius 5 that I was wondering if someone could help me with it.

There is a passage in my piece that plays 'g, a and b' in three octaves jumping from one octave to the next upwards. But I need to notate it showing that it is to be played 'right hand, left hand, right hand'. Does anyone know how I can change the direction of the stems to easily make this clear for the performer?

thanks!