Friday 6 April 2012

My First Experience Writing for Band

As the title of this entry suggests, I have never before written a piece for a concert band (or larger ensemble, for that matter). Why then, one might ask, am I attempting this for my project as opposed to the smaller chamber ensemble? To put it simply, I want to force myself to write for band. On my own this would be an extremely daunting task (and as such, I would probably just never have bothered with it), but as intimidating as these large ensembles can be, I know that I need to get experience with them and familiarize myself with techniques involved.

I decided to approach this piece freely and with no previously conceived notions as to what I wanted to do with it. So, what I wrote is literally just what I felt at the time! Hopefully in the weeks to come the focus of the piece will emerge.


Because the piece is in such an early stage, there were many good suggestions to help me along the right path:
  • Try extending the opening.
  • Think about some more varied progressions to keep the harmonic language fresh.
  • Create a map of my ideas for the piece.
  • Build up a thinker texture over time.
  • Similarly, gradually work towards are more consistent texture, instead of jumping around in texture.
  • Split percussion into the 4 parts (as opposed to the 2 staves I have now).
  • Perhaps ease into the percussion parts as opposed to a sudden interjection.
  • Create a Heirachy of Dissonance within the golden mean to create dissonance over time. This also relates to the use of more varied progressions.


So far my experience with this has been great, and I'm eager to see what else I can write.

No comments:

Post a Comment