byrd

Today I made a start on the full score for southwest.

I still have to work on the form of the piece – which section follows what, and what proportional lengths are they in relation to one another.

Any sound that I like and that I feel is very much of this piece doesn't exist on it's own. You come to it somehow, and then you leave it.

How you do this is equally important to the identity of the sound or the section. This game of proportions and relationships is a lot of fun, but it's also very elusive to me at the moment.

Starting on the full score even though I don't fully know where I'm heading with the piece, I push myself to decide on crucial aspects of the piece.

A piece can start in any number of ways, and they way I chose today eliminates a lot of potential starts. Moving forward or imagining later sections became a lot easier once I have a feeling of how I arrive towards them.

What's also fun is to then either delete the start of the piece if at some point it feels like the form isn't working, or moving it to another point in the piece. The original teleological ratinale of what follows what is then broken, but if you see the piece as being in bubble-form (the past, present and future of the piece is present at any given moment simultaneously) the order becomes less defining. All sections are affected by each other within the frame (the start and the finish) of the piece.

I'm listening to Byrd today. I love the album featuring Fretwork, Magdalena Consorts and His Majestys Sagbutts & Cornetts, especially Christ Rising Again has a fabulously beautiful and engaging polyphonic grid, and a balanced dual form with a slow and fast passage. Almost naive, humble. It communicates a similar sense of humility and contemplation, yet chromaticism and illuminating use of colour and dramaturgy as Beato Angelico's murals at the San Marco monastery in Florence.

What is enough is enough, and for today, having made a start on the piece is enough of a days work. I will have very little time this week to continue on this, so I put all my hopes and dreams on next week. Coming back to this will be easier now I'm able to ruminate on what follows, since I know where I'm coming from.