Miniatures

A couple of weeks ago I bought a Faber Manuscript notebook with the intention of writing some miniatures.

This has been partly inspired by Mike Abrahams (who I recently helped out a bit on one of his projects), by György Kurtág Játékok (Games) (after listening to Pierre-Laurent Aimard's recording on Pentatone) and the fact that I have always been interested in systems and process. I enjoy playing scales, arpeggios and other exercises such as the Dozen a Day books by Edna-Mae Burnam and Schmitt's Preparatory Exercises.

Mike Abrahams has an ongoing project (Four Letter Words) where he produces a word a day. I had the idea of doing something similar with music but I don't want it to be a project with set time limits; I see it as ongoing without deadlines.

The overarching idea is that I will write a series of miniature pieces (not necessarily all for the piano) and in common with all of my work these pieces will follow a process. Similar to the Music Machines they will be simple, clear and explore a single idea.

The first one was completed on 5th August and here is the score.

It is for piano and uses all the notes of the C major scale. It uses these notes in four different sequences. With the exception of the starting note (middle C) each note appears in a different position in each sequence. The pedal is pressed throughout.

Here is a recording: