paoscomi

Hello! I've just realised I've been very absent from here for a few months, so here's a setting of the Kyrie I've done today in a couple of hours. It's very rough at the moment, so please excuse some score presentation issues! I'm regretting writing it as a reduction, and I think I will eventually present it as an open score, given all the different melismata in different voices.

I always get writers block if I sit at a keyboard and try to mash something out; sometimes something might come, but it’s never my best work. If i’m trying to think of a structural, harmonic, melodic, etc. solution to something I’m writing, I have to take some time staring at the ceiling or out the window, and ‘write’ the music in my head. Ideas away from a keyboard or notation software are always my best! However, I find manuscript paper very helpful in forcing you to plan and think about every note; this always helps my attention to detail, which suffers if I write straight into notation software.

A little slightly more contemporary piece for solo flute that I have been working on for a while. In the first movement, I make use of a ‘filtering’ technique to develop the material; I began the piece by writing out a progression of modes, a few notes altered by a few semitones each time, which I work through to gradually modulate (with some exceptions!). I went for senza misura for this movement as I was looking for a more contemplative and tranquil tone, hence the title 'Penseroso', and to give performers as much space and creative opportunity as possible, which I something I always strive for. I contrast this with the virtuosic and frantic nature of the second movement ‘Scherzando’. I began by planning a sequence time signatures to be repeated, in such a pattern that an audience would be oblivious, to convey this freneticism. I develop this sequence; I designed an exchange in length within the piece of the high, loud, staccato sections and low, softer legato sections, in which the staccato sections gradually grow shorter as the legato sections grow longer, until roughly halfway, when the staccato sections lengthen again, and the legato sections shorten (I hope I worded that clearly enough!). I am particularly pleased with the sudden shock ending of this movement, designed in contrast to the soft a niente’ of the first movement. I managed to persuade a flautist friend to record this for me, and they have done an excellent job. I hope you enjoy the sounds of a real instrument, unlike last time! Any feedback and suggestions much appreciated.

Hello! I'm very new to this platform, but I am a young composer who thought I might find some good feedback and interactions here. Here is my first submission; a short little 'aria' for organ that I have been working on for the last couple of days. It is perhaps more conventional, harmonically and otherwise, than some of my other works. I took direct inspiration from Noel Rawsthorne's 'Aria' (which I am currently learning myself) in many features of the piece, particularly the form and structure. A computer playback version will have to do for now, I'm afraid, but I will try and record this myself when I go in to my local church for some organ practice this week. I hope my registration instructions and our imaginations will be able to overcome the registration of this synthesized version, particularly in the computer's conservative interpretation of ritardandos. Any feedback or suggestions are very welcome!