Reflection

This process has seemed much more "horizontal" than my normal process.  Typically I don't reflect much on the edits I make while working, I'll either like it and keep it or not like it and discard it and move on either way.  This typically leaves me with a greater quantity of less thought out and developed elements.  In this project I feel like I've added less elements than in my normal process but spent more time thinking about each concept and developing it.  The fewer quantity of more developed elements seems like more of a "horizontal" work flow while the greater quantity of less developed elements I'm used to feels like more of a "vertical" work flow.  Both achieve similar results, however the process to get those results is much different.

This piece has a lot of improvisation which is a process I'm borrowing from other practices and haven't incorporated much in my own work.  While I'll create ideas from scratch, by the time my process reaches the point of performance most of the ideas are pre-planned thoughts.  This created a new aspect of the process that I'm not used to.

It's sometimes hard to explain or gauge the complexity level of ideas that want to be tested.  Because there are variations in discipline and the background knowledge that comes with each, it's hard to understand or express challenges that come with testing new ideas.  It's an interesting specific type of communication I didn't think much about but am learning as the project unfolds.

The biggest compromise in this collaboration seemed to be instrumentation.  With a wider variety of instruments, MIDI devices and players possible in the group as opposed to any of our own individual process, instrumentation was difficult.  As the project evolves, instrumentation has still changed even recently because of all the combinations possible.  Another compromise that's similar seems to be the actions done by the performers.  With a multitude of capabilities from each group member, even though each is creating and modifying multiple elements of the piece, all members are capable of more than just what their contributing to the piece which was hard to refine and compromise.

I hope to spend more time thinking and developing each element of my music, while also having a lot of layers to try and combine the "horizontal" and "vertical" workflows I've discovered.

I now understand the importance of the thought behind each element of a piece.  When working individually, I always fully understand my own ideas and capabilities on both ends because there's no translation.  This makes thought before action automatic and made me under appreciate the planning of each element as we started this project.