After a lovely day in Bath, this evening kind of fell apart and everything just became horrible again. However, I did have a couple of breakthroughs nevertheless:

1. Dodged a too-much-work bullet by managing to send off a substitute piece which actually doesn’t need any work done to it for it to be performer-ready, so hopefully that will be appropriate for the concert for which Shimmer (9 mins) was too long

2. Wrote a few more notes

3. In listening through to the piece again, I’m really starting to understand what my tutor’s been saying about adding in harmony. I do want it to be texturally light, but there’s just too many bare octaves. The doublings are good, it’s just that there needs to be a little body in there too. Not entirely sure how I’ll tackle this as harmony is SO not my strong suit. It’s good to have taken a step back from the piece though and to hear it with fresh ears so that I understand – I’m listening to it and hearing what’s really there, rather than my idea of what’s really there.

Tomorrow is my last day before I go to Spain for a brief holiday, so I’m hoping I can get some real work done on it. I also need to think about what I’ll be able to do while in Spain. I think taking the laptop is overkill, so I might review the apps I have and check out the App Store for new alternatives and just see how I can approach what’s there. The latest part of the piece is increasingly melodic/contrapuntal (as opposed to using brief fragments in various permutations, which is what the opening is) so maybe I can do something with that.