Son RadRob advises on 26 March 05 in his journal http://www.livejournal.com/users/packbat/3498.html:

When you write a piece of music, write one piece of music! Not two, not ten, not one-third of one, but one!

He goes on to explain the need for this rule:

• when a composition shifts incoherently from one style or theme to another, then another, then yet another (perhaps because the composer has "... too many 'toys' ...", Robin speculates /* correction: although Respighi's "Roman Festivals" does have too many toys, the correlation does not establish causation - RadRob */); and contrariwise
• when a good motif gets chewed on ad nauseum without ever developing into a complete piece

I particularly applaud the "Not two, not ten, not one-third ..." metaphor because it applies to countless areas other than music — including ^zhurnal entries, eh? I must try to get better at proper factoring of too-big multithreaded blobs, and contrariwise at proper development of promising-but-fragmentary ideas into maturity ...

(see also BarryLawsAndPrecepts (18 Aug 2001), TwoButNotThree (24 Sep 2003), ...)

TopicArt - TopicZhurnal - TopicJournalizing - TopicWriting - 2005-04-02

(correlates: WindToThyWings, AugustAptorisms, MisterChristmas, ...)