No piece has ever given me as much writer's block than the one I am presently working on. It should be a simple matter, a sonata for guitar and piano, but I can never keep anything simple. Involved in the composition is the use of electronics and an alternative tonal scheme.
The electronics is a patch I am writing in
Pd, a real-time programing environment used in the creation of audio and visual art. It is my first time to do anything substantial with the program, it is a little foreboding as far as the complexity goes, but I am very excited about the options it opens up for live audio processing.
The other variable is the harmonic idea. The entire piece is built upon quartal harmony, that is chord structures built on fourths instead of the traditional thirds. While I know I am by no means the first composer to use quartal chords, I feel as though I am going about it in a unique way. I am treating them as a separate system based on the
undertones.
This was just a quick update, because I haven't written anything here in a while. More later as things progress.
