The Nightfly

I decided to alter the course a little bit. We are now going to start to write a small composition. After that we will get back to where we left off. I would like you to compose a piece for a solo instrument. The instrument must be a monophonic instrument. I suggest flute or clarinet but it could be something else if you have an idea.

You already have a nice collection of themes you composed for the previous exercise. Now I want you to get back to them and listen again. Find and chose the ones you like the best. I remember liking the octatonic one. I think that might work well. But again it is up to you, it's your composition after all. With the themes we choose, I want you to write a few variations or alternations of these themes. Such alternations might include octave change. Pick a few notes and change their octaves, see if you can come up with something different with those themes. Another alternation can be inversions, retrogrades and retrograde inversions. Or, you can simply re-write the theme maintaining the same character. These are just a few ideas you can do with these themes. Think of it as a game, play around with your themes and come up with a number of variations. We need to build up a vocabulary of which our piece will be built up on.

After you complete this we will have a lot of material to start working on the piece.

[EDIT] and keep in mind the register of the instrument that you will be writing for.