u/HaifaJenner123

So primarily there were two rounds of edits, the first one after I posted the movement the other day in which I focused only on:

• Reducing reliance of tempo alterations (replacing with metric modulation), this was decided after I tried to conduct along and found it impossible to keep up with my own alterations lol. So like 80% of those were cut in favor of the conservative option
• Making sure runs are melodic and functional (achieves the texture but also has a logical sequence that isn't just broken triads)

After that I received the most common feedback that it wandered too much with too little payoff, so this one was where I think is applicable across anything:

• Make a copy of the file, and double every phrase by 2 by inserting measures and focusing on using variance in the doublings. (yes it will get repetitive but dont worry that is addressed)
• After doubling, increase the density of any layer (rhythmic, orchestration, etc) by 50%
• Now take away 51%, at this point it should become apparent what needs to go and what needs to stay. One of the most memorable quotes I ever came across while studying is "The best possible studies in rhythm are the songs of Schubert [..] But let it be remembered that they are all the outcomes of spontaneous invention; if they had been hunted for or manufactured, sincerity would not be so patent upon every page. Genuine rhythmical invention, like melodic, comes to the composer because it must, not because he makes it." (pg27 of C.V.Stanford's Musical Composition, 1911). I think one of my biggest "lessons" as of late has been reinterpreting this passage as a valid commentary on the editing process instead of solely the discovery. Idk why I felt the need to elaborate there but it's been on my mind lately

Probably my next step will be to reduce to piano accomp. after the whole thing is finished and let that also play a factor in what stays and what goes in the original. I have a soft spot for the viola so this project is one I am planning to spend a long time polishing, hope you like it so far!

(That's totally fine with me btw I just am joking lol i am not conventionally very tonal anyways). Recently I've begun framing long-form works such as the concerto, symphony, sonata, etc as a sort of collection of essays in which I "prove" my "thesis" in a variety of ways - so that's a basic summary of where I'm thinking now in terms of musical organization

Hope you enjoy!

Following up on my Symphony that I posted the first movement for a month ago (btw thank you again everyone for your support!!) After about 4 redos of the finale i am finally pleased with how it turned out lol. Hope you enjoy!

Recently, I took a walk during the middle of the night through the old market district and just recorded the sounds that I heard. Wasn’t sure what I was going to do with that so I decided this was a good opportunity to use the inspiration. It’s meant to be somewhat of a living experience that expands and contracts together. Hope you enjoy!

one of my favorite things about alexandrian regional music is its propensity for being tongue-in-cheek. it’s very playful and lighthearted, and tends to feature vamps where rhythm is altered in simplistic ways that still command the attention. so that’s what i did here, the first mvmt melody is reassembled in a vague waltz before an attaca into the final dance. hope you enjoy!

so we didn’t get 100% of the notes on the page but there is in fact an ending so i would consider this a successful round.. what i mean by workflow is i want to eliminate redundant steps that i have out of laziness (brass glissandi i have a habit of not checking what’s actually possible - i didn’t allow myself to check here i had to think of if i was actually playing it as my only option…hopefully they’re wrong because that is something i do need to commit to memory but stuff like that is what im looking for in this case). also, by percussive i mean im trying to translate every aspect of traditional egyptian (well, modern egyptian rly but folk) music to western classical in the same way that hindemith, khachaturian (armenian but same foundation), etc did. literally the recurring theme with all examples in existing repertory is that the percussion either sounds nothing like it’s supposed to mimic or it’s too literal and ends up being a cheap gimmick - so, this is hopefully going to reveal some ideas under pressure as the only “unconventional” aspect i will allow myself is an altered snare, no darabukeh/tablas/etc

btw if anyone wants to try this method out too, i do it basically every year.. the first half this year was freestyle kinda but this second half i am creating prompts for each day so i dont mind sharing them (also maybe some collaboration in the brainstorm dept cos i only have 2 months worth right now haha)

a little abt this piece, it’s mostly original but the opening few bars and all others in 6/8 are an adaptation of a song we had to sing every day during military service - the rest of the piece is a march that emulates the sound of our military band (which, im not gonna insult my country but if you haven’t heard them, search “egyptian military band performs xyz anthem….”, its a rather mid-20th century soviet sound but uhh in our case its not due to the fault of the instruments lol)

so, the circled one took me like 10 mins to figure out a way to make the cross-stave include the stem as well in both directions (ended up just making a duplicate voice of the first three notes in RH, making them all invisible except for that A flat -> beaming across to the bass stave -> switching the stem direction). (i also tried just duplicating that one note in isolation but it doesnt connect to both if i do that, the problem specifically is the stem..which isnt common in cross-beaming but in this piece it is needed a few more times).

after the whole thing is finished, i want to send it to a few composers who are ideally wind players so i can pay for detailed critiques. if anyone is interested send me a dm with your hourly rates, and i’ll attach the full score in a comment here so you can see roughly what we’re working with. i plan on the editing stage lasting a few months so that side is not a rush. anyways, hope you enjoy! i decided to lean more into the arabic side of things for this mvmt.

i follow a somewhat formulaic approach when it comes to first movements of symphonies in particular - i like to deconstruct the main rhythmic motifs in a manner similar to how respighi/prokofiev/hindemith tend to frame their opening movements. for me rhythm is my primary consideration so i like to end in sort of “cliffhangers” that get resolved by the pickup to the following movement.. thus, since i pretty much exhausted every option/variation of the opening 3 notes, the pickup to 2nd is the last time it occurs until the final reprise … hope you enjoy!