After about a year and a half of on-again-off-again composing, I finally put a double bar on Only Air yesterday afternoon!
As with most of my works, the ending was informally finalized ages ago (that is, definitely decided upon but not written down), so it’s been a labor of filling in the blanks. While I’m very much a start-to-finish type of composer, I frequently skip over a transition or bit of text that’s giving me some sort of problem in favor of making progress, because I find that a) banging my head against the wall over a few seconds of music just isn’t healthy, and b) the solution usually presents itself down the road, when I can take a later bit of music and “introduce” the material in that skipped transition. Très élégant !
I’m definitely feeling the crunch now. The premiere is in April, and I’m finally ready to orchestrate and make the piano/vocal score.
I’m not terribly worried about the orchestration because I decided long ago that my goal is to orchestrate it in such a way that a mediocre orchestra will sound great – i.e., standard, come-to-Jesus style orchestration. Interlocking winds. Lots of strings. Standard doublings. I’d like the piece to have a long shelf life, and that becomes less and less possible as the orchestration becomes showier and more complicated. Plus, I like to think that I don’t have the Young Composer Chip on the Shoulder when it comes to trying to show off with Orchestral Color. I’m still pretty darned new to writing for orchestra, but I’ve had some solid praise in my orchestration of Growl, and for once in my life I want to walk before I attempt running.
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