Headway

Well, I've been at the string quartet composing for 12 days now and have just completed sketching the first two movements which run 10 minutes in total. It's flowing in a pretty unfettered way as that's a fairly quick output rate, especially as the sketch is very detailed in the sense that all the individual parts are worked out already in the way the music is distributed between the four players and the basic dynamics and tempo markings are there too. I'll only need to add detailed dynamics, articulation and bowing when I do the score itself. I've been spending 5-6 hours a day on it but had the weekend basically off, just checked and tweaked a few things. As with solid instrumental practice, 5-6 hours a day is pretty much the outer limit when the work is highly intense and demanding as this is. I've worked much more (up to 16 hours a day) when working on a film score and a deadline is imminent, but that's generally not as aesthetically rigorous and may involve less creative acts like routine orchestration - those kinds of things are better suited to ridiculous hours as they are harnessing basic craft skills rather than trying to achieve a series of continuously inspired moments in which case one would prefer not to be working while exhausted in case this has a subtly deleterious affect on the inspiration.