more scrittles

The last few days, when I've sat down to practice (I've been revisiting the melodic minor modes, spending a day with each, trying to get to know its quirks and characters), I immediately get distracted by some random chord and end up spending the whole time composing. This isn't a bad thing, though I'm really feeling the need to put in heavy-duty practice time...I've been coming up with interesting stuff. One thing started with the simplest of chords, really just a first-position G sus, which I slowly arpeggiated and for some reason got taken with. I formed a bit of a concept - stay in first position and keep the two bass notes the same, while providing some movement - and pretty soon got quite far from the G tonality. Yesterday, I got really excited about a different concept - a composition where no more than one note is fretted per chord. It's amazing how much the remaining open strings change in context, and how much impact it has to fret one string, removing it from its previous role. I put in a rubato section entirely in harmonics, which arguably are an exception to the concept rule, as I'm hammering on a bass note and at the same time fretting a harmonic. But every hard-and-fast concept should be messed with anyway; it's all about getting you on the road to something new.