The Sky At Witching Hour by Stephen Weigel

When working with this piece, I abandoned conceptual ideas (which is rather unlike me). I created the form according to what I thought it should take, and where the mood was going. The piece is an ABA form, but I did not pre-compose the development. I used contrasting sounds to generate interest, and recognizable gestures to bring helpful repetition into the piece. The piece also has several 'pitched moments' where a bell noise is played and that sensation is temporarily experienced. I thought it really brought some contrast to the texture and its material.

I also have a graphic score for the piece, which so far only a few people have seen. It is extremely colorful, and its axes are time for the x-axis, and a combination of volume and pitch for the y-axis. I tried to order the sounds from low to high, and make bigger sounds louder (compromises had to be made, but this was fine, due to interpretation).

There are only three sounds used to create this piece:
-A crackling fire
-Wind chimes
-A bell

The aesthetic is also weird, which I love exploring. I tend to receive impressions of fear or awe from computer music works, which is not true of this music. I've somehow made something which really sounds like a strange hybrid of a more musical rhythm and sound itself, without resorting to traditional meter in the slightest. I suppose my feelings from this piece are similar to excitement, but not the same excitement I get from standard strong rhythms. It's hard to describe, and I really enjoy that. I also get the vague impression of hearing machines at work when I listen, machines that have come from sounds in nature.

Feedback welcome (not the kind that hurts your ears, of course).