Diabelli Project 193 - Piece for Solo Violin Part 2

The Diabelli Project is about offering my weekly flash-composition sketches freely to all. Like Antonio Diabelli's theme, these sketches aren't great music. But perhaps (as in Diabelli's case) there's a Beethoven out there who can do great things with them.

This week I continued last week's sketch with my 10-minute flash composition session. Notice that the opening motif gets flipped around on the second page. Instead of moving up a half-step and repeating the note, the motif repeats the note then steps down a half-step.

I didn't notice that had happened until I put the music into fair copy. But that's what these flash compositions are all about -- giving the subconscious free reign. I'll probably develop this sketch further, either making it a stand-alone piece or perhaps part of a suite. Either way, I know now what to build the rest of the music around.

As always, you can use any or all of the posted Diabelli Project sketches as you wish for free. Just be sure to share the results. I'm always curious to see what direction someone else can take this material.

Diabelli Project 192 - Piece for Solo Violin, Part 1

The Diabelli Project is about offering my weekly flash-composition sketches freely to all. Like Antonio Diabelli's theme, these sketches aren't great music. But perhaps (as in Diabelli's case) there's a Beethoven out there who can do great things with them.

There's something liberating about writing for a solo instrument -- and something challenging, too. In this case, I just started with a four-note motif, and just let it go where it will. That was the liberating part. The challenging part was making sure it stayed cohesive. I'll let other judge the success of that!

This installment is labeled part 1. I did continue on with this sketch the following week. I've done four solo violin sketches before this one -- but this is definitely the longest.

As always, you can use any or all of the posted Diabelli Project sketches as you wish for free. Just be sure to share the results. I'm always curious to see what direction someone else can take this material.

Diabelli Project 166 - Piece for Solo Violin

The Diabelli Project is about offering my weekly flash-composition sketches freely to all. Like Antonio Diabelli's theme, these sketches aren't great music. But perhaps (as in Diabelli's case) there's a Beethoven out there who can do great things with them.

This isn't the first sketch for solo violin in this series. When I went through the records, though, I was surprised at how long it's bee since the previous ones. The sketch below is only the third I've done in this flash composition exercise. The first was in 2014, the second over a year ago.

I knew when I started my 10-minute dash that I wanted to write without a set meter. That suggested a solo instrument, and the rest just flowed.

Is this part of the same piece as the other two sketches? I'm not sure. One thing that struck me was how much further I got on this piece before time ran out. The other two sketches run just three staves each. This has seven.

Of course, quantity isn't the same as quality. But I think I like this sketch better than the other two.

As always, you can use any or all of the posted Diabelli Project sketches as you wish for free. Just be sure to share the results. I'm always curious to see what direction someone else can take this material.

Diabelli Project 109 - Piece for Solo Violin

The Diabelli Project is about offering my weekly flash-composition sketches freely to all. Like Antonio Diabelli's theme, these sketches aren't great music. But perhaps (as in Diabelli's case) there's a Beethoven out there who can do great things with them.

When I do one of these flash composition exercises, there are always surprises -- even when I think I know where the sketch is going. Recently I've been concentrating on music for solo marimba, creating themes and working with ideas that eventually I'll tie together into a single work. This sketch started out that way. The triplet motif is pretty easy to play with two mallets. But then the runs started, and notes they were driving to seemed too high for the marimba -- but not for the violin. So sometime around the third measure, the internal sound of this music changed to that of the violin. And that informed the articulation marks, and indeed, the rest of the sketch.

It's not the first sketch in this series I've written for solo violin (see Diabelli Project 071). Perhaps they, like the marimba sketches, are all part of a larger work?

As always, you can use any or all of the posted Diabelli Project sketches as you wish for free. Just be sure to share the results. I'm always curious to see what direction someone else can take this material.

Diabelli Project 071 - Piece for Solo Violin

The Diabelli Project is about offering my weekly flash-composition sketches freely to all. Like Antonio Diabelli's theme these sketches aren't great music. But perhaps (as in Diabelli's case) there's a Beethoven out there who can do great things with them.

There's a reason why composers use the violin so much. It's an amazingly versatile instrument with a huge range, the ability to play more than one note simultaneously, and has an expansive repertoire of string techniques to create widely disparate sounds (think: harmonics).

No, I don't take advantage of all of those things in this week's sketch -- but I did keep in mind the violin's singing quality as I wrote. (click on image to enlarge).

What happens next? That's up to you. As with all the Diabelli Project sketches, I offer this freely to anyone who would like to use all or part of it. Just let me know the results!