Curious what my short scores look like? They’re, well, a mess.

Here are a few screenshots of the new wind piece, Turbine, in its current state. In this first shot, from the top town, you have winds, winds, low winds, lower winds, percussion, mallets, winds, percussion, percussion, brass, brass, percussion, mallets, mallets. (In other words, I obviously don’t pay any attention to clefs while I’m writing — which is why all of the unpitched percussion is in treble or bass clef, rather than a percussion clef, and why there are ledger lines all over the place.) This is from quite early in the piece, as the Turbine is building up speed (through tension, not tempo). Tempo in both examples (and throughout the piece) is quarter=184.

This shot, much later in the piece (this is the “flying music”), shows much more diatonic material. I don’t think any pitched instrument is playing anything with an accidental. (It’ll be a big contrast with the earlier material, like the first measure of the above example where the brass is playing F#, E, Db, C, B, A#, Ab, and G.)

If you want to see higher-resolution images, click here for example 1, or here for example 2.

Somehow, in the next three weeks, that mess will all be orchestrated and the score will be clean. Well, that’s the goal, anyway…