Well I’ve got a sore hand (and brain) from spending much of the afternoon working on string quartet arrangements for a piece of mine that we are performing in Project X Presents this weekend.
Its based on a piano piece of mine called the Cello Song and features a string quartet and, as you may expect, a solo cello.
We performed this piece in our previous event in 2006 which was my first attempt at composing and performing with strings. On that occasion we had a little more rehearsal time and the parts were more of a collaboration. This time I’ve still left a few bits open to change at our rehearsal tomorrow as Im still learning how best to write for strings and will value the input of the players, in particular Louis Robinson of The Destroyers.
I’ve scored a little more of it myself this time, building on the what I did before and also my experience of writing for the traditional four choral parts (soprano (or treble), alto, tenor, bass) – which actually is not dissimilar in terms of range to the string quartet (two violins, viola and cello).
Its taken months to play Project X’s event, bringing all the people together, scheduling the music, our ultimately unsuccessful attempts at raising funding and recently there have been weeks focussed mainly around promotion. Its only in these last few days where trusting the talents of my amazing fellow participants, and the work I’ve done so far, where Ive taken a couple of days to work on some actual music.
Now just a few days to go til we perform this music and lots more amidst a great stage set, amazing visuals and accompanied by performers, acrobats and all sorts. Now that sounds like an experience worth waiting for.
Rich
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