Fifth and Final Movement

As I finish up my fourth movement, I've been mulling over the fifth movement. I know that it is an outside anchor / a companion movement to the first. I originally wanted it to be about the granite monoliths in the Valley, but with all the slower movements in the piece, I want it to be faster. So instead of worrying about the inspiration of the piece, I thought about the musical nature of the piece. It needs to center on C.

On Saturday I attended an Orff workshop where we spend half of the time working on canons. We manipulated canons, including doing simple phasing (ala Steve Reich). The phasing idea was simple enough that it gave me an idea of where I'm heading with my string quartet. I like the sounds of the gamelan, and I would like to use ringing tones (harmonics and open strings) to accentuate the sparkling sun off of water, probably Tenaya Lake.

So today I started and have about 30 seconds of idea sketched out....