okay okay I'm blogging
Submitted by cbilyk on April 8, 2009 - 10:07pm.
I have, like five minutes.
What can you do that's interesting in five minutes?
Well, listen to a few of my pieces. A lot of them are SHORT.
They are getting longer, though, as of late, which is good. I still like writing short pieces, but if I'm going to write an opera someday I need to be able to write individual movements that are at least 10 minutes long. I'm getting there. Several of my recent works are over 4 minutes. Wahoo!
How long is your attention span for a piece of music? Do you think short is better? Do you think long is better? What are the pros and cons of each?
Things at Bedlam went well tonight, people climbed all over the set, which is practically a jungle gym, and hung from the ceiling. It was AWESOME.
<3 Candy
Five Minutes
4 minutes is and has always been the typical maximum length of my pieces, as well as the extent of my listening attention span. I find that I need some sort of large section break or some other "mental reset" every 4 minutes or so. This is indicative of the type of music and other media we've consumed since birth, and I don't necessarily think it's a lamentable situation.
My attention span has been expanding in the past two years or so as I've done more listening, and now I can reach 5 or 6 minutes, but rarely more than that. The only exception to this is music/drama that is rhapsodic/episodic. I've written one Italian-language aria/song ("Tu Se' Morta") that's about 6 minutes, and a pair of recently-completed opera scenes that are each 7 minutes, but they each consist of a series of 1- or 2-minute sections strung together.
As far as absolute music, though?... Eh, I guess that's why they invented sonata-allegro form!
Glad to hear that the show is keeping you entertained and interested. Theater is funny like that - it drains you and drives you crazy, and two weeks after the project is done, you want another one.
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