Fluxion

So far for pieces we have analyzed in this class, I would say the theme is definitely “songs with very little melodic structure and that surprise the audience.” This genre of music is much more abundant than a previously thought. There are many composers that write this kind of “music”. While similar, I would say that this genre is moreso just pleasant sounds than music. Maybe these composers are levels ahead of everyone and one day their music will be the new hit thing. Or maybe these pieces are intended by the composer to not be sung and catchy and to just be pleasant sounds.

In the piece, the flutist does makes many different sounds on her instrument. She does things percussive like striking the valves hard to make a soft and subtle thud sound. She also breathes through the instrument and strikes the valves for a different color of percussion sound.

The piece starts and stops a lot. It sounds as if it has no pitch center either, which makes me think that this piece may be chromatic. The flute sound was very sharp (not referring to the pitch, but the timbre of the flute sound was very short and heavy, oh wait that’s just marcatissimo), but also could be very smooth and melodic while still maintaining that rough sound.

I would say that the point of this piece is to spotlight all the unique things that a flute can do. Personally, I was never aware of most of the sounds that the flute could make that she fortes in this piece. I was very surprised.

There are a couple things that I would use in a piece of my own from this piece. Number one being that I never knew that the flute could bend notes like the flutist does in this piece at 2:13 for example. The second thing I would incorporate into a piece of my own is the pitter-patter of flute keys being struck down. I think that kind of sound could be very cool in a band or an orchestra piece of music.

The piece as a whole has lots of short phrases that don’t have a lot of correlation with one another. While the phrases are separate, the percussive sounds keep the song together. If this song did not have the beautiful sound of a flutist striking her flute keys swiftly with their fingers, the piece would feel separated and incomplete, at least more than it already does.