Thanksgiving Composing

Written by Joshua Iyer
Published: November 28, 2014 at 6:20 PM [UTC]

Yesterday morning, I completed my latest composition. It's a six-minute trio for violin, viola, and cello, that I called "Sea-Pictures at a Gallery". Each of the four "movements" is a different picture at the gallery, and they're all related around the ocean. The first one has the viola part playing the colorful waves with the melody passed in the violin and cello. The second is a sort of playful pirate's song in A Dorian. The third is a beautiful love song of the sea, with the viola part being the glue that runs throughout in an ostinato, with the cello mostly with the melody. Finally, the fourth is an Irish jig of sorts that is a fast five-beat meter with some chord pizzicatos in the violin. Overall, I think it'll be a fun piece to play and possibly show off on YouTube, so after the New Year keep your eyes open for a post on that. It's so cool how I can write a piece of music in a couple days, and then we spend weeks and months practicing. :)

Also, it WAS Thanksgiving yesterday. I had a nice time playing games with the family (such as charades - it was fun when my sister got music-related words and mimed playing on the piano and composing for Mozart. I've been sick, though, so it has actually been about a week now since I've held my violin. I'm very excited to get to play it again, as I'm finally feeling better - I think I'll practice later this afternoon or evening after we put up the Christmas tree! It's that time of year, as well as Prism next week - my last time playing Anderson's "A Christmas Festival", although I am playing the first violin part for the first time. It'll be a busy few weeks leading up to Christmas Eve (and the final Hobbit film with Howard Shore's final Middle-Earth score, played by the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra!), but I'll just have to push through and keep being musical.

And after the New Year is my senior concerto audition. Yikes!

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