A New Piece

What am I listening to? Moondog

"I'd like to believe, that when he was 16, he closed his eyes, and fell in the most weird, bizarre and beautiful dream."

After deciding to write for band and the Ora Ensemble simultaneously, I know that the chamber group is definitely more in my comfort zone and will be the piece done first (and likely better.)

I brought the first 1'30" to class, and the reception was actually pretty good (which was nice!) I'm trying my darndest not to abandon ideas after introducing them so that the opening section and the second dance-like section are coherent. I think that is mostly effective. I got some very useful comments, including the unidiomatic repeated triplets in the piano. I've changed them to octaves and other intervals in a (mostly) unpredictable pattern. That was another comment - repetition can lull an audience, so I should let even repeated/accompaniment figures grow and develop. The first four measures of the new tempo were commented on as being unrelated to the rest of the material; I've incorporated a little later in the piece, as I kind of like how it sets the tone of the dance section by introducing our key-ish centre with intensity - before it, the piano is silent and it really has a "bang" to it (or so I think!)

Right now the piece is sitting at 2'50" and has a required time of 4'00. I think I can expand it to fill that requirement, and I'll definitely have a return-to-the-beginning type ending that is slow and atmospheric, so that should help with that too. Maybe it's just that my attention span is short, but I like shorter pieces and writing shorter pieces.