Last Friday I presented the second character piece, and in some ways I was disappointed and other ways I was pleased. It's funny the difference hearing a piece performed acoustically can make form hearing it on Sibelius.
Hearing this second piece on Sibelius was far from satisfying. For the main reason that there's no option to hear the piano sustained or anything like that. For this piece, the entire piano line was based on the sustain of two undulating chords. also the dynamics performed live change that dramatically.
Hearing my piece performed however, made me realize how hard it is to write for the glock. it seemed like everything just melted together and all you could hear after a while were the accumulating overtones. It was much too loud compared to the piano and overwhelming at points.
However myself and Andrew took the time to experiment with different mallets to see which would work the best. And I even think for some of the passages in this piece (where it is just the glock, I will get him to use the stick ends of the mallets, just to convey even a more serene atmosphere.
Other than that, I love this piece. although it is too marginalized, so I'm going to need to take the time to overlap certain sections where the piano and glock can play together.
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This is a great blog entry — very thoughtful — but be cautious of drawing conclusions about balance and tone from a read-through. The glock being "much too loud compared to the piano" is largely a performance issue, something performers can work out once they become more familiar with the work and are past the point of just hoping they are playing the right notes. Dynamic indications in the score can help this, as well as other indications for the performers, such as, "glock and piano should be evenly balanced," or something like that.
ReplyDeleteYou are right that different glock beaters affect the timbre significantly, so it is good that Andrew and you are going to try out some different options there.
What do you mean, "although it is too marginalized?"
October 4, 2009 9:32 AM