The C theme

Following the rhythmic scheme that I've already decided, I then wrote a "C" theme. Since I knew that it would first appear following the rhythmically and melodically diverse "A" section, I wanted the C theme to be a little more focused. I chose a short melody, almost like a riff, that would repeat for every bar (with a little variation at the end). The pitches implied an Eb diminished chord, followed by a Bbm7(b5).

To get a more steady rhythmic feel for this part, I let the bass play eighth notes throughout - starting on the roots, then eventually moving around a little more in a quasi-walking style.



After six bars, the melody would then lead back into (a shortened version of) the A theme, with a little bit of the C theme thrown in.

New material

Here is the new accompaniment figure for the "A" section. Rhythmically, it's just about the same as before, but instead of working with a specific group of pitches, I've just picked notes and chords that I thought would sound good. The less time I have, the more intuitive I have to be...nothing wrong with that, I guess?

It's a two-bar cycle that repeats as many times as necessary:



On top of that I then added a melody, just like I had done before. Again, I let myself use any available pitches. However, I knew I wanted something with a little bebop feel. Rhythmically, I wanted the melody to complement what the accompaniment was already doing.



For the moment, my idea is to save all of this for the second "A" section, since I don't want to give away too much at the beginning. Instead the first "A" section, which starts the whole piece, will be some kind of reduced version of this material. Perhaps only some of the parts, or something.

Sorry Mr Sandke

One of the changes I made was to drop Randy Sandke's "metatonality" concept (see January posts). Not that it was anything wrong with it, I still think it could be interesting - but it didn't really give me the sound I wanted, and I felt that I'm in too much of a hurry to get to know the concept well enough. So I guess that's something I'll be saving for later works.

But I'm still keeping the form, as well as the rhythmic layer. I've just worked out some new melodic and harmonic material, which I think is more in the style I was looking for.

More coming soon!

Back on track

Basically, I spent all of February teaching, gigging, writing commissioned arrangements... In other words: making a living, which is something you simply have to do every once in a while.

So for about a month or so, I didn't work on my big-band piece AT ALL... Which of course means that I'm now WAY behind schedule. It's actually kind of funny, that no matter what the circumstances are, it always seems to end up that way! I think all of you who write music know what I'm talking about...

The good thing about it, however, is that I've now had some time to evaluate and reflect upon what I've done so far. So in the last few days, I have made a lot of changes - and hopefully some progress... More updates will follow soon!