Composing today

25 January 2007
My intention today was to compose out the second section with the piano solo, but instead I ended up spending a good deal of time decorating out the opening horn section which now is actually quite wild. The static harmonies allowed me to add in a number of melodic lines and articulations of the harmony without disrupting the overall claustrophobic flow of the section. In face it gives it a lot more momentum. I’ve eliminated a number of the percussion “breaks” – there were a few measures of solo percussion in favor of keeping the energy full throughout. In a sense the end result now is something like the end of Ameriques by Varese. It also, I think, makes a better transition to the next section in which everyone is trying to fight for their space. There is now one measure of percussion and piano solo instead of the one measure of silence that was there before. In this way the second section seems to flow from the initial “horns” rather than being something separate. It also makes it quite powerful when it cleans out at the end of the first section. There is something ecstatic about the opening section that I am rather pleased with – an ecstatic-ness borne of chaos and noise, which I think is much in keeping with the metaphor of traffic that is guiding the composition. I remember on those crazy streets of Varanasi just at a certain point taking an almost perverse delight in the cacophony of the streets, it is that moment when one gives in to the craziness and at the same time could care less about the craziness that things start to click. I feel a certain sense of this as well in this piece. The opening forces the listener to “give in” to the sound. I had for a moment thought of having some sort of striving type opening to the piece in the manner of Suntreader of Ruggles, but while certain melodic lines have that sort of feel – in the piano as mentioned in yesterday’s entry, I opted against opening the piece as such. We can work toward the unity rather than have it given to us at the beginning.