Blog (24.20.17): For this process I was very fortunate to have a real composer provide one to one feedback on my draft work. Jim Coyle was able to provide valuable feedback on score notation, for example:

• separating some instrument parts across two voices (guitar and piano) for ease of reading and playing,
• specific considerations to instrumental playing, double stopping, using open string notes where possible,
• providing a sense that I was going in a right direction, but still needed an extra section before the end!

I found this great motivation as was very stuck with the last part of this piece. This gave me a new sense of enthusiasm to developing the final section and new ideas on how to end the piece.

I also went back to my "baby steps" resource to help get some more ideas on what to do next. I had a firm idea for the first two sections and my original structure plan and resource had 3 sections. After working with the first two, I decided that for the third section, instead of introducing new material for a section C, I would reprise the A section and interweave some of the ideas from both the first and second section. This idea helped me fill in some blanks and generate more ideas on how to develop the final section. I was now able to complete my initial draft building on all the ideas from the first two sections. One of my main changes from my initial finishing idea was instead of phasing out, I decided to have all instruments playing the key motif at the end to finish strongly instead of phasing out.

Notation is improving now too. As we have to record this I want to make sure it is legible for sight-reading and also for later use!