Saturday 1 December 2012

reflections

The end is in sight! This semester's been a little insane. But that's how things go, I suppose.


My piece is going quite well. I've sent parts out to my performers. All the notes are there, I just have some detail work and editing left to do. And by "some", I probably mean "a lot"...

This whole composition process reminds me somewhat of boat building. Both of my brothers have build cedar-strip canoes, and my Dad and I built a small sailboat together when I was in high school. There are interesting similarities in the process:

  • You start with an idea: "Let's build a sailboat!" or "Let's write a piece!" You narrow down your idea to a specific boat, or a specific type of piece for specific instrumentation. 
  • You think. A lot! You come up with (or buy, in the case of boat building) some sort of plan. 
  • You start working at it. 
  • Your project starts to take shape. It starts looking more and more like a boat, sounding more and more like music. But it's still an outline. Lots of gaps to fill. 
  • You keep working at it. 
  • You encounter problems, unforeseen challenges. 
  • You think. A lot! You research, see what others have done. 
  • You find solutions to problems.
  • You show people your work in progress, get feedback, ideas, encouragement. 
  • You make mistakes. You fix mistakes. 
  • You learn. A lot!
  • You make progress. It really looks like a boat now. It really sounds like a piece. It seems so close to being finished. But there is more to be done: your boat needs fibreglass, paint/varnish - and then rigging, oh yes, rigging. And your piece needs dynamics/expression, articulation, finer details. And all this WILL take much longer than you expect. 
  • You think, you research, see what others have done. You borrow ideas. You figure it out. 
  • You finish! Or so you think!
  • You take the boat to the lake and go for a sail. It feels amazing! But you're still learning the ins and outs of your boat. And you find things to adjust, things to rig a little differently, to set shorter or longer. You take your piece to the practice room and test it out. It's fun - but you see things you want to adjust - notes to change, dynamics to add...
  • You make adjustments. 
  • You try it out again. You make more adjustments. This can go on for a while!
  • You decide enough is enough, and declare the project finished! And you are (hopefully) proud of your work. 
Yes. So right now, I'm in the trying-it-out-and-making-adjustments stage. So close to being done! (I think!) Just need some rehearsal time to put it together! 


I also want to reflect on the "showing people your work in progress" stage. Coming into this course, I was nervous about sharing my work in class - "What will they think?? What will they say??" - especially in a class where most people have much more compositional experience than me. Still now, I feel pretty self-conscious... but it always ends up well. Everyone is so positive and encouraging, but also free to give constructive criticism - even when I go into class feeling uncertain about my work, I come out of it with a better idea of what to do next, confirmation of the good aspects of my work, and suggestions on how to improve the not-so-good aspects. You guys are awesome - thank you!!
And I also really enjoy hearing everyone else's work each week. It's really interesting to hear the pieces progress and to get a little bit of an inside view of the work that went into them. 


Classes are done now for the semester - that's still hitting me! It's December!
And our composition recital is set for this coming Wednesday! Yes, really!
The end is in sight!

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