I was expecting to learn how to write fugues and sonatas in my composition class, which is not at all what we're doing. Instead we're learning about the more abstract processes that make up a composition. Also, I don't think I mentioned this last time, but our professor is Steven Stucky, who won the 2005 Pulitzer Prize in Music.
My last project, Oscilloscopes, was a foray into algorithmic composition. Essentially, the repeating statement is made of scale degrees taken from the Fibonacci sequence.
For the second part of class, we focused on the juxtposition between tonality and atonality. We looked at a lot of composers, specifically a lot of Stravinski, and found that they often employ bitonality. The second assignment follows suit (I apologize in advance for the poor recording quality of the tracks below):
I also ended up playing a piece by my friend Vivian Li, who scored her piece for tuba and piano. My performance is less than stellar, but the piece itself is pretty cool:
We also had a quick in class discussion about tubas that I thought was cute, if you're interested:
