Welcome to my blog

I have created this site in order to provide performers, listeners and composers with a description of a composer's experiences with the creative process. The posts will provide discussions of the inspirations, challenges, and successes of a composer from the inception of the piece to the culmination in performance. I will provide a link to where you can see and hear the works in progress. Comments and questions are always welcomed. They will not posted unless you grant me permission.

Tuesday, November 27, 2007

Movement 2 finished

Yesterday I completed the 2nd movement. The biggest challenge I had was trying to create the indefinite pitch quality of drums on the marimba. I was able to approximate the highness and lowness of the various drums by using a single pitch on the marimba, but this sounded more melodic rather than percussive. So I added some notes to create irregular interval content which gave the marimba a more drum-like quality (measures 37-40). The low drum was used as an ostinato in in measures 41-60. The example on youtube had the rhythm as 6/8 but I changed it to 5/8 to add an intensity that the counterpoint on the youtube example created. The ending is a repeat of the first part of the movement. I lengthened the ending notes of the first bird call in order to make the transition smoother. The movement fades away with a repeated figure.

The youtube url is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mX2lsG1Lw_8. I suggest that you copy and paste this into a separate browser window so you can compare it to what I wrote.

To see and hear what is discussed, go to http://www.cooppress.net/guatemayablog.html

Dr. B

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