James' Day 17 - Circles #2

Now before anyone starts... I know that the piece I wrote on Day 12 was also called Circles. Its not that I've run out of titles. Throughout my September, the idea of music which is circular or cyclic just seems to keep recurring. Maybe its because I'm doing the same thing every evening (i.e. writing yet another piece) - it starts to feel like Groundhog Day after a while.

Anyway, Circles #2 is extremely different to Circles #1, other than being, you know, circular.

One of the wonderful things about having a child is that when she's gone to sleep, you still have a house full of arts and crafts stuff. Today's piece was therefore made using a very old-school 'cut and splice' (or to be more precise, cut-and-pritt-stick) method. I actually do this quite often in my more conventionally-notated music to get different linear fragments into the correct alignment. But of course usually no-one ever sees this chopped up and reassembled Frankenstein sketch, because I then re-notate it all and typeset it on the computer. Most of my large-scale pieces have a moment (or many) which was either made in this way, or my other favourite method of blue-tacking cut-out fragments to the wall of our long upstairs corridor.

So now you know. Circular music, presented in its bare bones.