composer who lives in the clouds making music for birds (and games and animation)! 🇵🇭🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍🌈


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soundcloud.com/paperaviator

i really love a lot of the pieces i wrote in school, but i've been hesitating to upload them cuz i didn't know if they should be separate from paper aviator or not. but after a tiny poll, i've determined i will upload them to the paper aviator soundcloud!

it shone bright only for a moment. is a chamber ensemble piece about trying to hold on to fleeting moments. listen to it here:
https://on.soundcloud.com/mMFyN

read more about it below!


this is one of my most favorite pieces i've written—i used it as the finale for my senior recital. so, i just wanted to write a little bit about it. first of all, here are the program notes:

it shone bright only for a moment was composed for the UCF New Music Ensemble concert, FREE VERSE, at UCF Celebrates the Arts. Each composer for the concert wrote a line to a poem, which became the title of their piece.
When I came up with the line “it shone bright only for a moment,” I found two interpretations:
The first is that our lives are nothing but short blips in the timeline of the universe. Yet, to us, our lives are bright and vivid, filled with unique stories and experiences, both good and bad.
The second interpretation was from my friend, Bec, who related it to a specific feeling: you want to experience happiness, but you’re scared it’ll be short- lived, and you’ll return to a dull and sad place. You can try to enjoy the happy moments, but the anxiety of what could be is always there.
For this piece, I took elements of both interpretations, and tried to capture the feeling of trying your hardest to hold onto fleeting moments for as long as you can. I also tried to paint the image of an old light bulb flickering on, only to shine brightly one last time.

here's a little bit about the process/the musical ideas:

just to preface, we had a 4-minute time limit (i went over, but it was ok) and every piece in the concert had to have improvisation involved in some way.

the main idea is that the piece would "flicker" like a lightbulb, until it finally warms up and shines brightly, then slowly dies away. these flickers are represented by big chords stabs that occur throughout the piece. before i even started writing, i knew i wanted all the instruments to "flicker" independently and crescendo into a big, lush beautiful section.

i also knew i wanted these stark chords because i knew the reverb would be excellent at steinmetz hall, where the concert was held. i also tend to have a habit of avoiding silence in my pieces, so i tried to embrace that here.

one thing i think was cool was how the chords were built: first they are built from stacks of sevenths—a very weird, dissonant, ambiguous sound. soon, we move to fourths, fleshing out the harmony more, even if it still sounds a slightly dissonant. then it moves on to fifths, then more tertiary harmony, before finally returning to the sevenths. i find it interesting that, by the end, you've become so used to the sound of the sevenths that they don't feel as strange; they feel a bit comforting, though also bittersweet.

the main idea for incorporating improv was borrowed from julius eastman (we had played femenine the semester before). i really wanted the peak of this piece to feel organic and wild and passionate, so performers are instructed to improvise with continuous 16th+32nd notes. i love the way the clarinet and the flute feel trading solos near the end, soaring over the main melody.

this was a lot of the performers' favorite piece to play from the concert, which i was happy to hear! i glad i was able to give the viola and bass fun parts (i gave a solo to the bass because we had been talking about a lack of good bass stuff in compositions). it was also nice having worked with everyone before to be able to imagine how they'd sound. i could really vividly hear jomar playing the cello melody when i wrote it.

i really love this ensemble now (fl, cl, 3 perc (gl vib, sus cym)., pno, vln, vla, 2 vcl, bass), it's like a chamber orchestra, but even smaller! i'd love to write a soundtrack for this ensemble sometime. i just generally love the intimate sound of smaller ensembles vs. an orchestra. i'd also just love to get a studio recording of this piece somehow.

this piece also came super quickly; i think it was the only time i didn't procrastinate and got a piece done well before it was due haha.

anyway, that's all for now! hope you enjoyed the piece!


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