Updated Score 2:2
Woohoo!
I got an envelope from Peabody today. The fact that it was an envelope and not a letter just made my day. YAY! So the week after Hartt, I have Peabody.
So just ASU and Rice left.
In other news, I started writing a piece for band. I sketched some stuff out a couple of weeks ago, let it stew over in my head (code for too lazy/busy to do anything with it) and started writing it out over the weekend. I'm about 30 measures in, and it's really rough. It just seems much less stupid in my head than it does on paper, but, I'm going with it for now, because if I don't, I'll never get anywhere.
My goals in writing a piece for band is to not write a band piece. Sounds kinda dumb, but there is a distinction in my own understanding. When I was at the Midwest Clinic, I had the opportunity to hear all sorts of ensembles from around the country and even overseas. One that stuck in my head was an orchestra who played a piece by David Hollsinger. He's predominately a band composer, and the piece was blantently a band piece. Even though it was being played by an orchestra, it reeked of bandness, of all the cliche band things, and it freaking pissed me off. And I think this is where the whole "band is a four letter word" mentatlity in the music world stems from (And seriously, what the hell? Why shoot down the one avenue where composers seem to make some kind of money? From what I've seen and heard, being a band composer is one way to compose and eat and pay the rent. But anyhow). I don't like those band pieces, they're stupid and cliche and overdone. And it just seems so sad because band has all these colors to work with, and all that ends up coming out half the time is poo brown. I could name a zillion band composers I think are crap, who write music for money but have little educational or artistic value, but there are few I could name that I like. And of those, they aren't really "band composers" but composers who wrote some music for band (and, strangely enough, all the ones I like that I can think of are British. hmm). I just don't think band is all that terrible. It's accesible, certainly in the US, and it's the primary music education medium. So why not strive to write some music that doesn't suck and has educational value?
However, all those ideals, as great as they are, don't seem to stop me from writing poo brown band music cliches. But I've got to start somewhere, right?
I got an envelope from Peabody today. The fact that it was an envelope and not a letter just made my day. YAY! So the week after Hartt, I have Peabody.
So just ASU and Rice left.
In other news, I started writing a piece for band. I sketched some stuff out a couple of weeks ago, let it stew over in my head (code for too lazy/busy to do anything with it) and started writing it out over the weekend. I'm about 30 measures in, and it's really rough. It just seems much less stupid in my head than it does on paper, but, I'm going with it for now, because if I don't, I'll never get anywhere.
My goals in writing a piece for band is to not write a band piece. Sounds kinda dumb, but there is a distinction in my own understanding. When I was at the Midwest Clinic, I had the opportunity to hear all sorts of ensembles from around the country and even overseas. One that stuck in my head was an orchestra who played a piece by David Hollsinger. He's predominately a band composer, and the piece was blantently a band piece. Even though it was being played by an orchestra, it reeked of bandness, of all the cliche band things, and it freaking pissed me off. And I think this is where the whole "band is a four letter word" mentatlity in the music world stems from (And seriously, what the hell? Why shoot down the one avenue where composers seem to make some kind of money? From what I've seen and heard, being a band composer is one way to compose and eat and pay the rent. But anyhow). I don't like those band pieces, they're stupid and cliche and overdone. And it just seems so sad because band has all these colors to work with, and all that ends up coming out half the time is poo brown. I could name a zillion band composers I think are crap, who write music for money but have little educational or artistic value, but there are few I could name that I like. And of those, they aren't really "band composers" but composers who wrote some music for band (and, strangely enough, all the ones I like that I can think of are British. hmm). I just don't think band is all that terrible. It's accesible, certainly in the US, and it's the primary music education medium. So why not strive to write some music that doesn't suck and has educational value?
However, all those ideals, as great as they are, don't seem to stop me from writing poo brown band music cliches. But I've got to start somewhere, right?
posted by Jessica at
5:18 PM
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