Took a break from 7/4 nonsense to write a little bit of waltz. Because I do love waltzes. They’re fun!
I’m actually trying to pay attention to proper phrase length and such this time around. I’m thinking it’s going to be four sixteen-bar sections with a short introduction and conclusion. I’ve drafted the first two sections today and it’s going pretty okay so far. I’m just glad I’ve listened to enough Strauss to be able to pull waltz-y melodic gestures out of thin air when I need them!
This one is a gift for indecentdrawer, who’s pretty rad and good at drawing people. Danes is a creation of hers who reminds me of a couple of my college friends. I might do a few more character pieces for her because the characters she creates are fun.
Danes stared at the flower arrangement in his office with a wary expression. It had been delivered to him three hours ago, prompting questions and praise from everyone else in the precinct. Who was his secret admirer? They all asked and received no answer, just a brush and a quick retreat to his office. He knew who the flowers were from. There was only one person bold enough to do such a thing.
Miko.
It was rather concerning, Danes thought. Sending an entire bouquet of flowers to his precinct without a note, without a reason, without any indication that it was happening. He stared harder at the flowers. Waiting.
Miko hadn't been in Danes' life that long but he knew he had every right to be suspicious. These couldn't be ordinary flowers. They were going to do something, or something was going to pop out of them, or they were going to transform into something to scare him. If he kept a vigilant eye... Nothing would happen. Or, he would be prepared for it to happen. Either way, he wasn't taking his eyes off the flowers.
After what seemed like hours, his door flew open without so much as a courtesy knock. He didn't have to look to know that it was Miko entering his office.
"Hey, Mr. Danes!" Miko said, a sly smile plastered on his face as he walked in and dropped his bag next to Danes' desk. "You got my present!"
Danes eyed him over the flowers. Had to be a distraction. "What's in them?"
Miko blinked, taken aback by Danes' tone. Despite Danes' best effort to be friendly with the kid, to be open to all the... weird things that he brought into Danes' life, he was not a fan of pranks and he would not tolerate them.
"Um, what's in flowers? I'm not a botanist dude, but I can look it up if you really wanna know."
"Don't play around," Danes sighed. "What did you do to the flowers. What... magical thing is going to happen?"
A dawning realization spread over Miko's face, shortly followed by a smug smirk. "Aw Mr. Danes. You think a good boy like me would mess around with you?"
Danes couldn't help the blush that crept onto his cheeks from the sultry cadence of Miko's voice. Whenever he spoke in such a low, suggestive manner, Danes reacted immediately.
"I... Yes. I do."
Miko laughed, "Well you got me there."
With his suspicions confirmed, a deep frown settled onto Danes' face and he opened his mouth, ready to tell the kid to leave for the day and take his prank flowers with him, but Miko cut him off.
"But! I didn't do that to you. Those are normal flowers, sweet smelling and pretty- just like you." The blush darkened, making Miko smirk wider. "Besides, I like messing with you in other ways..."
Miko leaned over the flowers then, blowing softly at the flowers and using his magic to make the petals flutter as if in a breeze. The side effect was the magical wind snuck up and caressed Danes' ear, resembling the feeling of someone kissing and nipping at his ear lobe. As he stammered and blushed, Miko gave Danes a two finger salute and picked up his bag.
"Enjoy your flowers, Mr. Danes," Miko said, winking at him before strolling out of the office leaving Danes a flustered mess. He stared down at the flowers, somehow... they really did end up getting to him.
And now this actually has an introduction, and an expanded ending!
A fun little project all around. I’m probably going to get back to the 7-4 thing tomorrow, since I want to get that finished; but then I think I’m going to do another character sketch; or maybe finish one of my half-written things into a character sketch? Not sure.
I’ve also gone through my actual blog page and cleaned up the compositions and arrangements pages! So now they hopefully work! Yay! I’ve also discovered that there’s still a lot of finished stuff that I’ve done that never made it on to tumblr, so I might post some of those on days when I don’t get any writing done. We’ll see if I remember.
Anyway, enjoy this. Go give Danes’ creator some appreciation. Make interesting sounds.
Got up early and spent a couple of hours working on this. It’s now essentially done, although I want to spend some time cleaning up the score and writing a nice introduction. Also want to figure out why Finale is totally flubbing the pedal transition in the second ending of the third section, because it shouldn’t actually sound that muddy.
I’m thinking I might do a foxtrot next, although I need to do some research on common chord progressions/harmonies, rhythmic figures, and phrase length. I’m also going to figure out why I can’t seem to lower the volume of the individual staves independently, since that’s definitely a thing that’s required of pianists, and would make this piece in particular sound much nicer.
As before, Danes is a character belonging to IndecentDrawer.
I screenshot this intending to respond later but now I can’t find the post that Aidi reblogged. Either way, Aidi makes me laugh in the most evil ways because true
