Surprise -- It's March!

Back in 2009, when I was leading and participating in MIT's premier improv comedy troupe, Roadkill Buffet, we put on a show called "The 'Surprise, It's March!' Show."  (The show was actually on February 28, a minor technicality...)  In any case, while to the best of my knowledge that show title was nothing more than a goofy idea (though not nearly as goofy as the image we used for the show poster), I have always been reminded of the "Surprise It's March!" idea in subsequent years.

Sure enough, even with the extra day in February this year, March has arrived unexpectedly quickly.  Midterms and spring break are fast approaching, to say nothing about the end of the school year and my master's program.  As time goes by quickly, a few weeks have elapsed since I last wrote about the symphony I am working on, and having suggested in more recent posts that updates would be coming, now seems like an opportune time to share where I am at.

I have completed the first movement (aptly titled "I."), save for some small tweaks to be made like slightly modifying the orchestration in a couple specific places.  At ten minutes long, it is the longest single movement I have written to date, at least in terms of duration.  While the length of a piece not necessarily proportional to its quality (especially because the former is measured objectively and the latter subjectively), in my admittedly biased opinion, this movement represents a compositional milestone for me.

As I wrote a few weeks ago, each of the four movements of this symphony are meant to correspond to a different phase of my relationship with my fiancé, Kira.  I don't want the symphony to become too narrative in nature, to the point where the music is constantly representing specific events.  Rather, I am striving to give each movement a character that bears some semblance to the part of the relationship that it represents.  Instead of "this is where this happened, now this, and now this," think of it more as "these events inspired this part of the symphony."

The first movement is broad and grand, and it is not without its moments of genuine excitement.  Narratively speaking, this movement corresponds to our time in ninth grade, when both of us were too shy  The outbursts of energy are intended more as hopeful gestures than as happily recalled memories (which are being reserved for the fourth and final movement).  The movement concludes much like it begins, focused but subdued.

The second movement, a draft of which I hope to complete in the coming days, is more playful in character, and perhaps even a bit awkward near the beginning.  Analogous to our high school years (specifically tenth through twelfth grade), this section of the symphony is generally more upbeat and faster moving.  The challenge in writing this movement has been to create the right mood without going too far -- to make the music authentically lighthearted and humorous without becoming frivolous or satirical.

Meeting this challenge has involved avoiding predictability.  In some cases I know I've dodged expectations, but in other places I know I have to make some changes.  Predictability is not only following a particular convention; in fact doing just the opposite can be predictable, especially if done with a certain regularity.  Subsequently, the best way to keep things interesting is to ensure the music stays fresh.  As I was discussing with Dr. Carl in my lesson last week, when the decorative musical lines all follow the same pattern (consistently rising and then falling, for instance), they lose some of their flair.

While I do have plenty of other things to write about, both relating to the symphony and to my other classes and musical endeavors, I will save those for subsequent posts.  I'd like to have a draft of the whole symphony by the time I get back from spring break (the week of March 26), so I'm off to get some more work done.