These are the five tentative comment that describe the development of the selected root snippet “the beginning”. Review them carefully and assign them preference points by filling the form. Leave your own comment the grade 0.

comment: I tried, as much as I could to embrace the pluralism of our different voices. The piece starts with a modification of my first proposal (according to some overall noise based patterns that I notices in sketches of other composers). This noisy ‘leitmotiv’ is juxtaposed with unrelated material by other composers, but it keeps reoccuring. The anamorphosis/departing from a common point is present in both the twisted proportions of subsections, as well es in gradual modifications of the initial ‘leitmotivish’ sound. My goal was (but really in this short time we had impossible) to start with presenting at least one material from each composer, then shortening these bits up and slowly starting to fuse elements together. I am sorry to say that I have only managed to finish the ‘exposition’ part of my idea. What I have noticed in our sketches is the overall tendency of either writing very dark or very light sonorities, so I profited from that fact in constructing the overall dramaturgy of this excerpt.

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reflection 1 (selected)

I believe that the selected snippet, “the beginning”, encapsulates concretely some very idiomatic ideas presented during the incubation phase. It is very clear that the structure of the introduction is summing up those generalized phrasal ideas and juxtaposes them in a linear and transparent manner. However though, in order to produce dramaturgy, flow, and organic evolution it is essential to deconstruct the snippet and focus on its internal and structural characteristics. This gives us ideas for development of the sonic and structural domains for the composition. Considering the structure of the snippet as A(1-4), B(5-6), C(7-9), D(10-13) & A’ (14-19) we get 4 distinct and idiomatic phrasal blocks that we can deconstruct and elaborate. I believe that by doing so we can all contribute to the dramaturgical flow rather than the juxtaposition of heterogeneous material. I believe that this can be artistically more engaging and will challenge all of us in a more organic and thoughtful approach to the concept and the sonic ideas that have been proposed. Either A, B, C, D or A’ can equally serve as a valuable source for COMPOSING.

reflection 2

I think the best way to consistently develop the initial fragment is to follow the “description of intents” provided by the composer her/himself in the presentation text of the selected fragment. As it stands, it seems to me the fragment is mainly parataxic, i.e., opposes material abruptly — which in my view is not consistent with the deviations/morphing concept we had selected. However, if the process described in the paragraph is consistently followed, a deviation/morphing can emerge — not a morphing of material, but from the parataxic nature itself into an integrated, merged flow. This complete process would certainly take at least 2 min.

reflection 3

The selected snippet presents very different and independent materials in a collage structure. It is a good starting point. However, a structure after this presentation should avoid showing the materials again, but rather display them in different transformations, deformations, mixtures, and hybrids. A collage could have the risk of reflecting too much the fact that there are different composers involved in the project, something that we may try to avoid. However, a structure that shows different transformations of the materials of the beginning, will reflect a common voice instead of a juxtaposition of voices. Therefore the structure that I propose here is a macrostructure composed of different transformations from one to another material and hybrid mixes from two or several materials. Each transformation and/or mix is a mesostructure. Each mesostructure could be from 30 seconds to 2 minutes long. The form of the piece then would be a continuous surprise with the different appearances and transformations of the different materials.

reflection 4

The one comment that I have on this, is I think each material should be just way longer, the duration of them before going to the next one. I feel at this moment is a beautiful collage of what we all have posted. But if they enlarged and vary them a bit, they can be developed and the transitions would be smoother. What happens in bar 14.15 and 16 and after that? Maybe a super sharp fast, secco part can come.

reflection 5

The beginning’ seems for the moment to be structurally overly blocky and sectional – each material/idea stays very much in its own realm. It could work well as an opening just because the contrast are strikingly stark and surprising, but there has to be a stronger fusion between materials, otherwise the piece will become predictably ‘surprising’. On a mezo level, there needs to happen some grinding that chops the musical ideas such that they are more malleable for mutual fusion than they are at this stage. That means that each subsection of the selected snippet reappears in slightly variated micro/timbral structure (thus remaining recognisable) at least 2 or 3 times. Each time it repeats it should be shorter, always with slightly disproportional durations as to emphasise ‘anamorphosis’ as our guideline. On a macro level, following this initial presentation followed by grinding, there should be two more larger blocks that form the first part. The second one will be focused on constant interplay between all musical elements – either horizontally as in consensus in varietate & deforming verticalities – or horizontally as in anamorphic unison – or somewhere in between as in granular morphing. In any case it should sound more amorphous than the beginning. The third block should present the fusion that mentioned in my first paragraph. Here a few possible options:

1. since violin in the first few bars, despite its noisy character, has much higher pitch than the rest, one could easily start replacing its starting phrase with any of the subsequent musical elements (high pizz, airy sounds, …).
2. One could easily fuse the material from bar 11 by adding sfz pizzicati from bar 4, thus overlapping a rather fluid flutter with rhythmicized accents in the same register.
3. the strong downbeat from the first bar could have bar 17 as its echo.
4. many more fusion recombinations possible

After all of that a completely novel material should come into play. We would also need to decide if we are going for a bi- or tri-sectional piece. If we only have 2 parts, then some logical bridge should bind the two, having the second large part being the complete departure from the common point (the first part itself). If there are 3 sections, then the 2nd has more a function of a contrast, while the 3rd section can either provide a return to the first section, or morphing of the first two into its final anamorphic state. I prefer not to go beyond this for the moment.