Full Pieces
The following picture was used as the basis of my first crop circle composition.
The three main rings of the center object meant to me that the piece should be in 3 movements. Because the center objects are circles, I decided to represent that with a 12 tone row to begin each movement. I designated the Subsection one to represent C, and thus I started the piece on C. The tone row plays out in it's entirety and then begins to repeat. Instead of repeating all the way through, the tone row is broken up every four notes and a new section is inserted. By breaking the tone row into thirds and inserting new material at these spaces, I have represented the 3 subsections even placement within the center circles.
Each subsection of music is also inspired by the crop circle. Subsection one (although hard to see in this picture), contains only a line through the middle. When a line is drawn through the middle of a note wheel of set theory, the resulting interval is a tritone. The musical material representing the first subsection therefore only uses tritones.
The second subsection contains squiggly lines that divide the circle into 6 even spaces. This reminds me of the octatonic scale, which splits the 12 chromatic notes evenly with whole steps. This subsection of music is consequently composed using an octatonic scale.
The final subsection contains a pattern that looks like a circle which breaks every quarter of the way around. This visual pattern is similar to the pattern of a fully diminished chord, which divides the octave into 4 equal intervals (each a minor third). No surprise, fully diminished chords were used to compose this section.
When the piece is complete, the movements will be attacca, and each movement will use the same material and process. It will be a lot like a theme and variation.