Composing Session: March 12, 2011

Yesterday was the first productive day for composing I have had in over a month.  I started by expending the orchestration of the section between measures 88 and 106 of Time in Memoriam.  I also had to double check the consistency of the brass orchestration between measures 80-83 and 88-91.  The intent is for these phrases to be repeats of each other.  However in the process of orchestrating measures 88-91 I tweaked the brass orchestration to make the voice leading better, so I needed to be sure the two sections were the same.

I then took a look at the section between measures 135 and 151.  This is a similar section to the one I was working on.  I spent time expanding the orchestration and developing this section.  Most of the orchestration and parts were similar to those at measure 88 so this was a fairly easy section to work on.

Later on Saturday night I was thinking about the section from measure 96 to 106.  In this section I developed the brass theme by fragmenting it and putting extra space in the phrase.  I started to think that it was a little too disjunct.  I thought that I should tighten it up a little and make it more of a secondary phrase to the melody rather than a development.

So I did just that.  I tightened up the phrase and it worked.  I placed it as the second iteration of the brass theme.  In the section starting at measure 135 there were, initially, two iterations of the brass theme, one a repeat of the other.  To create a better continuity between these two sections I added the secondary phrase at measure 143.

Most of what remains is to orchestrate the sections starting at measures 107 and 159.  These two sections have similar themes so the orchestrations will be similar, though not a direct repeat.  After these two sections are completed I will need to go through to tighten up a couple of other sections that may not be as strong and then add the rest of the expressions and dynamics.  There is a bit of work left, but at least now I can see the end.