Week of February 27 - March 2

This week I presented my first ideas for my piece for the Ora Ensemble. Overall I'm pretty disappointed/uninspired by what I put together. I was not in a good mindset when I  was trying to write, I think, so I've decided to start again with something totally different, as my first ideas weren't met with a lot of enthusiasm (which didn't surprise me). Maybe it's helpful to get started with a total failure, because then you know exactly which direction not to go in.

The comments were:
-The overall tempo could be faster
-Having such a long solo (on flute, or really on any one instrument) isn't such a great idea, and it's usually best to present the ensemble as an ensemble pretty close to the beginning. All of the ensemble should be included within the first few bars in some way. A way to do this, while maintaining the flute solo idea, would be to have the other instruments hold pedal tones. Even just having the strings play very tiny parts (ie. pizzicato, which is about as sparse and  minimal as it gets for a string instrument) would be another way to do this.
-The piano part should be written as if it's meant for piano (ie. pianistically). I'm not very good at doing this, even  though I play piano, and it's definitely something I need to work on. Even just doubling the existing piano line in octaves is one way to add more depth and 'piano-ness' to a piano part.
-Flute parts should include breath marks.
-Extended techniques in the flute would be a good way to make this more interesting. Flutter tonguing, breathy tones and breath attacks (all demonstrated by Bekah) all sounded really interesting.
-Glissandi should be notated more specifically in terms of their rhythm.