Chronicling My Creative Process – Entry #3

So I find that I’m still struggling with the opening phase.  To me it sounds like a jumble of notes falling on the ground and bouncing around.  But, because I keep coming back to it, it makes me think that I should keep it.  This is the back and forth that I have sometimes; not trusting that something is right (and yes, sometimes it isn’t).  But usually it won’t get this far along in the process.  I’ll move on and the piece will come out completely different.  With “Tight Rope” for instance, I started out with a devise where I kept adding a note onto the initial phrase; playing the first four notes four times then the phrase becomes five notes played four times, then six notes played four times – and so on.  At some point in practicing the piece, I made a mistake and heard this kind of descending note theme within the first four notes.  I got the idea that I could layer an additional part of the original idea on top of that.  So instead of having a continually lengthening phrase, I had a more compact phrase with three distinct voices.

With this clip, you can hear how I’m trying to find any alternative to the opening phrase and add in some of the other elements I came up with to complement:

With this clip, I really like how the second phrase moves solidly back into the opening phrase – to me another indicator that the opening phrase stays in.

What I finally came up with to “justify” the opening phrase was to alter the pattern on the second repeat; which makes it a longer phrase that is repeated twice rather than a shorter phrase repeated four times.  I really don’t think anyone is going to hear the difference except me.  But if it stops we whining about it, then it works.  Sometimes it is just time to keep moving and let it be what it is.  This clip is the opening phrase with just the right hand:

So with that, and combining all the other bits that seem to be working, it sounds like it is starting to take some shape.  I now have four sequential phrases that seem to go together – at least to me – that are repeated twice and then move into a development section that is still totally TBD.  But it sounds like it is part of the same piece.

Now I just have to figure out where that is going and what it is trying to say.

Cheers, Timothy