Smorgasbord

Today I finished a new work for solo flute/piccolo. The piece is made up of 4 short movements:

I. Crunchy - Aggressive and punchy attacks on the extreme registers of the flute give this movement the characteristics of the title.

II. Gelatinous - Jazz influenced, like a lot of my music I suppose, but with a bit of humor. The thick and slow moving quality is credited to the use of quarter-sometimes half tone slides.

III. Carbonated - I use the pizzacato technique quite a bit in my writing for flute. I love exploring the different techniques at the flute's disposal. Unlike other instruments, we don't get to use mutes or other devices to change our sound. Its all in the face :) This movement exercises the flexibility of a player to not only play straight up pizzacato, but to use other syllables to produces different types of sounds. End is result is a poppy, fun, and incredibly humorous piece. Sometimes, music is taken to seriously. It can be fun without being ridiculous.

IV. Fluffy - I took a chance and gave this movement to the piccolo. I don't play the piccolo enough and it has a certain tone quality that a flute just can't produced. My gripe with most composers is that they tend to think of the piccolo as an extension of the flute's register. But there's so much more to this tiny wooded beast. It has its only personality, and in this movement I explore it's toy march persona.

I am looking forward to performing this piece in November. I rather have someone else play my music, so I can relax and hear what I've written with some distance. But I feel I actually wrote within my capabilities with a little bit of challenge. It should go pretty well, its short and sweet and to the point. Hopefully it will add some contrast to the program in November.