Diabelli Project 136 - String Orchestra

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.

The rules for Diabelli Project flash compositions are simple: within the allotted ten-minute span spontaneously compose, and stop when time runs out. Before I make a fair copy of the sketch for posting to the blog, I'll play through what I wrote to make sure it's intelligible. I try to keep corrections to a minimum and edits even more so. The goal is to document what happened in that ten minutes without refining it afterward (that's a different project).

In this case, I did make one editorial decision after the fact. I did conceive of this as a string orchestra piece, with the viola section getting the solo. As I was making the fair copy, I had second thoughts. The melody is supposed to be freely expressive, something that might be problematic for a string section.

No, that's not an oblique viola joke -- I'd feel the same if the melody had been given to the first violin. So I made a slight edit and made the viola melody a solo. It may be bending the "rules," but it just seems right.

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 123 - Piece for String Orchestra

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 decided to go for something a little more ambitious. Although with only ten minutes allotted, music for larger forces can be a problem. If I was trying to write something along the lines of Thomas Tallis' "Spem in Alum" for 40 voices, I'd probably only get the first beat written before time ran out.

In this case, all I knew was I wanted something for larger forces, and I wanted to start with everyone in unison. Here's what happened:

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 115 - String Orchestra Piece

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's sketch was something of an experiment in rhythm. The goal was to have this rumble of noise underneath the melody in the first violins. But I didn't want just a random sound -- rather, I wanted a strong rhythmic pulse that kept driving everything forward. And, after a ten-minute flash composition session, here's the result.

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.

Just for fun,  I did a time-lapse video of me preparing the fair copy of the score. I know that computers are faster, but there's something therapeutic about doing this work by hand (especially now that I no longer have pressing deadlines associated with it). Consider it my version of an adult coloring book (albeit one in black and white).

Diabelli Project 072 - Movement for String Orchestra

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's sketch is perhaps my most ambitious to date. Remember, I only allow myself ten minutes to write as much as I can. And in this case, well, it turned out to be quite a lot. Here's the fair copy of the sketch for string orchestra, which runs two manuscript pages. (click on images to enlarge)

And here's the original sketch, scribbled furiously during my ten-minute flash composition window.

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!