CREATIVE CONSTRAINTS

A lot of the challenge of writing my desires became a light which lifted me to the clouds was the very basic obstacle of having a sense of harmony and melody at the same time. This was extra challenging because most of the time each instrument is playing solo (only at the end of the piece do they both play) (typically a harmony is three notes plus a melody note (which makes four) which is not very practical for the string instruments). Whats super interesting to me, is figuring out solution to that problem, essentially became the piece it self, and dictated so many of the decisions that I made.

Here are some ways I over came that challenge

-just have harmonic movement with out the melody. Like Bachs prelude in C and a lot of Philip Glasses music. This is how the piece opens.

-Have melody with no harmony. I thought I would use this more than I did. It feels like an opportunity for the melody to be free with out the constraints of harmony, but often a melody can feel aimless with out that foundation. I used this approach for the beginning of the viola's section.

-Have a melody with super strong harmonic implications. This is what Bach does on a lot of his solo violin work and I used this approach through out the whole work. Its like being able to feel the harmony with out it actually being there.

-Harmony melody taking turns. When I used this I normally did some type of rolling chord at the begging of the measure and then moved on to melody material after that.