Yup – I’ve got the very first notes of the quintet down on paper. Did have to get up right at the time Djelibeybi was leaving for work to do it though – with parents in the house I’m finding that once I show myself if everyone’s up, conversation starts and all compositional impulse wilts and dies in a matter a seconds. I suspect it’ll be easier once it’s underway and I don’t need to tinker about so much on the piano because I’ll just be able to keep the laptop in the bedroom and hide until the day’s quota of notes are safely tucked into their staves, but the very first step is always the hardest and most fragile, so yay!
I’ve been listening, finally, to some Morton Feldman today, thanks to @5357311. Conclusions:
- I like.
- It doesn’t work when people talk to you over it.
- Feeling a possible need to use a lot of white space in the opening of the quintet.
Will continue the exploration tomorrow.
Having finished off the triads and seventh chords chapter of the theory book yesterday, today I was back into the first counterpoint chapter. Had a bit of brain-strain over it until I realised that (I think) I’m trying to over-analyse it. I need to remember that first and second species counterpoint aren’t really about which chord goes where (apart from tonic/dominant in the opening and closing) but more about melodic motion and resultant intervals. Once I sorted that out, the whole thing seemed a bit less fraught. Think I’m going to need to spend some quality time with the rules though to really get to grips with them. I need to play through the examples at the piano too, then I think the answer is just to leap in and have a bash at the exercises.
And I finally remembered to remove the two packets of lamb mince from the freezer and to walk the mile to Waitrose (and the mile back again – whee!) to buy four eggplants and some ricotta in order to make the moussaka I’d been thinking of when I bought the lamb on special a couple of months back. So now there’s space in the freezer. And there’s leftovers. There was a moment of panic when I discovered a wasp in the meat sauce I’d been simmering for about 15 minutes, but he was whole (if dead) so I just removed his carcass and carried on, simmering for rather longer than I would normally to hopefully kill off any potential wasp-related threat. It tasted good, so hopefully no harm done. None of us seem to have curled up and bust at any rate.