Atonal #1

Well, my first song based on my atonal chord progression is somewhat complete and has been performed. Well, actually this happened a few days ago, but I hadn't gotten around to writing anything about it until now.

It's too bad that the sound system in the room didn't seem to be working, and still isn't as of today. I hope that it can be made functional before I'm slated to present my second piece (or at least that I can line up two people to play it live in advance of that date)

On the whole I'm relatively pleased with the piece, although there are certainly bits that I don't like so much. The ending, in particular, feels a bit sudden or arbitrary, and to be honest that's kind of what it was. I feel like the piece could have been longer, but I was running out of time for Monday, and I also felt saturated from working on it and wanted to put it aside. Actually, I generally prefer the section before 0:35, and had much less trouble writing it than the later sections (a not uncommon co-occurrence)

In general, I've been finding this assignment quite taxing. I keep instinctively moving towards tonality, and have to keep pulling myself back, or even intentionally putting notes in places where they don't feel 'right' to me. Moreover, although I liked my chord progression in isolation, when I'm trying to work the song around it, there are many times where I want to go places that have nothing to do with the chords as they are. I've tried to be a little creative with my interpretation of the chords, though. At several points, half of a chord is played on the piano, and the other notes in the chord become part of the overlying melody played by the violin. Several times, though, I would find after writing a section that I'd basically ended up turning an atonal chord into a melody with a tonal harmony. Quite a number of phrases have ended up in the proverbial wastebasket.

My second piece is in-progress, although experiencing similar difficulties. I'm going to try not to labor it as much as the last one, although it seems to be a bad habit of mine. I think I may have found a thread today that I can work from, although bits of it already sound suspiciously tonal. I'll see what I can do with it