OK! Since my last post I've completed my composition and presented it in class. For some reason I didn't really get very much feed back on the last two times I presented in class, which sucks, cause I would have liked to have heard more constructive comments and suggestions. Maybe it was because I was usually always the last one to present, and people were just antsy to get out of class. Maybe not. But whatever comments I did get were helpful, so thanks for that!

Tonight was the concert and I think it went over very very well. I feel very happy and complete with the composition. I put in a lot.....A LOT of work to get this done in time. There were many all nighters at the music building until almost dawn and very little hours of sleep some nights, but it seems to have been worth it.
I went with the "circus" theme, with a lot of unequal and unexpected time changes. I put in a few different characters, each portraying a slightly different type of circus music, and most times different instruments presenting them. My vocal line for the most part followed no pattern whatsoever to give it a more absurd and risky feel.

I want to thank my performers for an amazing job, and I really couldn't have done it without them! All of them are just as, and probably more, busy as I am at this time of the semester, but they really pulled through for me, and I'm really appreciative of that.
The concert itself went over very well too! It was no where near as long as the last concert. I believe that it was only an hour and a half tonight, which is just right and pretty amazing for a concert with as much music and stage changes as we had. We also had a fantastic audience show up, and that really adds to the excitement and showmanship of a performance.

All in all, I'm very happy with the way my piece turned out. I now look forward to all of the editing and final copy work I have to do now...yay...
Great job everyone! I could really hear a big step forward in everyone's writing!

Last friday I presented some ideas I had thought of for my vocal piece. It involves the use of a couple atonal chords with a tonal one in the middle and the rhythm is a confused waltz like feel. It seemed to go over fairly well with everyone, so that's good to hear! So far this week I've set some of the lyrics to it, and it seems to be going along nicely, but not quick enough! Concert is soooooo soon! I plan on completing it this weekend so that I can give it to my performers to practice and schedule some rehearsals. I'm trying to think of a new section but right now I'm drawing a blank, hopefully tomorrow the class will give me some good ideas.
Back to composing!

So I've recently presented most of the rhythms for my poem that I'm going to set to music. I'm setting "Constantly Risking Absurdity" and I think that my rhythms for the most part are going good. As for my instrumentation, I'm between piano, cello, and violin or tuba trombone and trumpet. Since the poem compares the risks of being a poet to a tightrope walker I want to give a "circus-ie" feel, with unstable rhythms and motion to portray an unbalanced feeling of walking on a wire.
Those are my ideas so far, I present some music on friday and we'll see how that goes!