As I work on my newest piano piece I am constantly discovering how much more less can be. Now that may sound confusing at first, but I can do so much more with a small, two note motive than I can with a rhythmically complex 10 notes within a beat.
The main melodic motive I'm using is simply a dotted half note on tonic and a half note a fourth up in a 5/4 measure. This leaves so much space for whichever hand is carrying the melody to "embellish" or just do extra things to add color to the piece.
Had I used a denser series of notes there would not be time or space for the hand to jump around the keyboard playing little fillers.
One of my old teachers would always try to challenge us by driving us to make each composition more organic. Meaning, (all of)the development material was somehow derived from the original motives, or from basic building blocks of the piece. (Of course, sometimes composer intuition speaks otherwise, but you get the idea.)
ReplyDeleteShe made her point by showing her symphony, which was based solely on 3 notes.
So, sometimes by being simple to begin with, you can get even more creative with it, since its simplicity allows your greater variance.