Week 2 Forum - Some of David Harris's favourite things.

The first item was David's latest composition "Terra Rapta" which was written for the Grainger String Quartet. I really enjoyed it, particularly the disjointedness of the rhythms. Perhaps it really helps having such great musicians interpreting the music because they add an extra layer of musicality to the aggressive writing. I find Steven's view on program notes interesting. I think that they can particularly narrow your mind for instrumental music where there is no text and your mind is free to wander. But I understand that this piece was written with a particular theme in mind and so David was keen to express this.

The second part of the forum involved listening to an entire Schubert string work. It was definitely a great experience for me to listen closely for this amount of time (relating back to Steven's discussion of listening habits last week) however I didn't enjoy the majority of the piece much. I was very prepared to listen to it because I could tell that David really sees something special in it and so I wanted to try to see the magic that he sees, however I missed out.

References: David Harris. "Week 2 Music Technology Forum - My Favourite Things." Lecture presented at the Electronic Music Unit, University of Adelaide, 7 August 2008.