A Dozen Doubts: Piece 1 of The Composer Challenge
By some miracle of God, I did it! In four days, I have written my first composition of the month. Whew, I deserve an award — oh wait, I got one. It’s this brand new piece that didn’t exist last week.
A Dozen Doubts was inspired by the existence of this challenge. I looked at the month ahead and all the plans I have for it, and I was like…what in the world have I gotten myself into? You know that meme of the lady just staring at the giant wave heading toward her? Yeah, that was me on October 31st. I should’ve been her for Halloween, because holy moly, it was scary.
After I established my title of A Dozen Doubts, I started digging deeper. Yes, I have a lot of doubts about what’s ahead. I’m uncertain if someone with as little experience as me can accomplish a piece a week. I felt insecure that whatever I did create would be scrutinized and laughed at if I shared it publicly like this. But above all, I really wondered if I’m a fraud and don’t actually have enough creativity to come up with new music every single day. I was afraid of sounding stale, or not having the motivation to push through the uninspired days. I could keep listing out more apprehensions about all this. There were a dozen doubts, after all. But I quickly changed my focus from the doubts to what I could do with them. Like….write a song about it!
I chose to write this for solo piano simply because I want to get better at writing for solo piano. I feel comfortable writing for strings, brass, and voices, but piano? Ha. Ha ha. No.
My gears started turning. I wanted to write this in 12/8 time (my favorite time signature), but even though it’s a compound meter, it still felt too symmetrical. I thought about all the possibilities in breaking up the larger beats. Usually 12/8 is felt in 4 big beats, but how could I challenge that? I brainstormed and broke it up in as many different ways as I could. Ultimately, I decided I liked 5 pulses, broken up in two different ways to keep things unstable: 12 345 67 8910 1112, and 123 45 67 8910 1112.
From there, the piece began to come out. I began with two tonal centers (F major and A major, with A being the prevailing one), but I didn’t think it was effective in this composition. Maybe I will try to use this technique in the future, but for now….I don’t know what I’m doing with it. Sure, anyone can write in two different keys at thee same time, but if I’m not clear on what I’m doing or how to use it, then the point is lost.
The first measure came and I clung to it to build the rest of the piece. I liked the climbing motion followed by the drop-off; kind of how talking myself out of doubts feels. I used the left hand to emphasize my unorthodox beat division.
The measures that followed felt fun. I liked the playfulness that I didn’t intentionally write, but that prevailed anyways. One thing I was intentional about was the end of the first phrase and the beginning of the second. I asked myself how I could make it more ambiguous, so if you weren’t reading the music, you might barely catch that a new idea was beginning. My key to accomplishing this was with the left hand; the back-and-forth octaves leaves a seamless transition, and the right hand just tags along as measure 5 begins.
My favorite part of this piece is the return of the A section in measure 11. When I wrote it, I was looking to capture the element of surprise. I wanted to catch the audience off guard and make them smile. Though unpredictability can be uncomfortable, I didn’t want this to evoke that negative feeling. When I had Finale play it back to me, I was satisfied with how it sounded.
The very end of this piece….I’m indifferent about. Obviously, I chose very intentionally to end on the major III for a jolting surprise this time, but as I listen to it I ask, what’s the point? How does this contribute to the message I’m trying to get across? I’m not sure if it does. I decided to leave it because ending on the pretty tonic felt less right than this. If I decide to revisit this piece in the future, perhaps this will be the start of a new section.
The purpose of this piece was to gain experience writing for piano, and to rhythmically challenge the norms that I’m used to. I think I definitely accomplished the second goal, and somewhat accomplished the first. I wrote for piano, but could a pianist actually play this? Would they enjoy playing it? I don’t think so. I’ll try to amend this in a future composition.
Not bad for less than a week’s work, if you ask me. I don’t yet have an idea for my next piece, and I find myself fighting the urge to just continue on this one. But that would be too easy. And I don’t want this challenge to be easy!
Leave me a comment and let me know what you think of this piece!
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