Hint of Hope: Piece 2 of The Composer Challenge

Hint of Hope: Piece 2 of The Composer Challenge

I’ve written and rewritten this blogpost about five times this week, with varying degrees of criticism and indifference. There is no debating the fact that getting this piece out was hard. REALLY hard. But I keep teeter-tottering between if I like the final product or not; if it’s effective and successful. The truth is, I’m not sure if I can answer that question. But here are my reflections anyway.

The goal of this challenge is to complete a new piece each week, and in that sense, I was successful — kinda. Obviously, this piece sounds incomplete, but it’s what I was able to do in a week. Have you ever written a full orchestra piece in a week? I’m proud that I could put something together that wasn’t utterly terrible.

But….with that said, is this good? Is it quality work, something I’d be proud to show off? No ma’am, no sir, no WAY. It sounds simple and predictable. When I write, I intentionally steer away from these sounds; and especially with this challenge, the goal was to push myself even further outside my norms, to create something even more bizarre and stretchy. While I didn’t make any bombastic moves in this one, it was still a feat to write for so many parts.

Let it be known that I DESPISE the ending. There aren’t the words to express how terrible this is. It’s a cop out, it’s stupid, it isn’t at all what I was envisioning. I hate to use time as my excuse, but that’s literally all it was. I ran out of time and had to find a cadence quickly. I apologize to every listener out there.

I was going to end the post here, but I’ve decided to include some of my thoughts on this piece from throughout the week. Full disclosure, I write these posts throughout the WHOLE week, from the moment I write the first note of the song. It’s interesting to watch how things develop. So, as cringe as it is, here is my earlier reflections.

Written on Saturday

I urge you to listen to the piece and follow along in the score first before reading the post below. I’m interested to hear your honest opinion before reading my inner dialogue about it!

One last disclaimer before we get started: I know this post is all over the place (as is the song), but this challenge is about doing my best, so… here I am. 🙂

It’s time to be honest. This piece made me want to give up about a jillion times. It sounds like nothing to be proud of; simple, predictable, vanilla. Anyone could have written this, and it doesn’t sound like me. I hate this piece.

Whew. With that out of the way, let’s talk about the productive parts of this. As much as I wanted to jump ship and create something better, with less moving parts, I didn’t. I stuck with this and let it run its course. It baffles me when I try to take a step back from this and listen as an audience member and not the creator. It sounds low-effort and basic. But in reality, this piece just about did me in with how much I wrestled with it. I couldn’t get the supporting lines to create the right harmonic structure as the melodies soared. In the end I was able to come up with something acceptable, but it took so much effort to get there. I feel like that isn’t reflected in the final product.

I meant for this piece to be a complement to my last one, Dozen Doubts. Like opposite sides of the same coin. From my perspective, that’s almost laughable now; these two are not related, not even twice-removed-cousins. Dozen Doubts is orange, Hint of Hope is an airy lavender with zero depth. Though they are far apart, I’m still their mother. Mind blowing.

The opening horn motif came to me while I was in the shower. I began singing it out loud, full-on opera mode, and took it down many beautiful paths. I heard the strings underneath and was like “Oh, so this will be an orchestra piece! Cool, let’s go for it.” Silly me, going after it so quickly. Not even a hint of hesitation. Perhaps that should be the name of my next piece, because yikes, this one has changed the course for me.

I tried starting in Notability like I do with almost all my pieces, but got frustrated really quick. Have you ever tried to line up every single measure for over 16 different parts?? It’s HARD. I quickly decided to move my process into Finale.

Once I was in Finale, it didn’t make things easier. I didn’t have to think about physically lining everything up, but I was surprised at how hard it was to fill in each part. I wanted to use the full orchestra right from the get-go. But with a somewhat traditional harmonic structure, I wasn’t confident in what parts to double, which notes of the chord should be most prominent, and which direction in which each part should resolve. To be honest, I still don’t know these things. But again, my job this month is to put notes on the page, not make them perfect — so that’s what I did.

I kept writing, taking shots in the dark. I tried using what I learned in my theory classes but they didn’t satisfy the sound I was looking for. It was frustrating, and quite honestly, made me feel dumb. I felt like I lacked the intelligence to write what I hear in my mind. I wish I could tell you “Oh, I meant to do this! This is exactly what I wanted!” But honestly, that’s so far from the truth. This piece became something I didn’t intend.

But maybe that’s a beautiful part of this process. I let the melodies land where they did, and then fit the puzzle pieces around them, the supporting harmony. I was challenged by not being able to settle on a phrase grouping, where I wanted movement and where I wanted stillness, and trying to hold integrity while making the music work.

Truthfully? This piece feels forced. It is far from the direction I thought that this challenge as a whole would lead me. If my intention is to create more abstract works, that definitely wasn’t accomplished here. But I’m hoping this bump in the road will become valuable with the next project. I don’t have a clue what that is yet, but I guess we’ll find out soon.

If I had more time to finish this project, I would finish it with a small coda that referred to the beginning. The horn would come in, the harmonic structure would return, but it’d have a tinge more dissonance and questioning. Something to make it more unique. But alas, there is no time…so I will accept it for what it is, tuck it away (FAR away, if I’m being honest), and continue on this journey.