Heavenly Harps and the Root of All Evil

Today, go to YouTube and listen to some Harp music. It's just such a beautiful instrument. Might I recommend Paul Hindemith's Harp Sonata. It's only about 11 minutes long and would be the perfect background music for relaxing or any tasks you might need to accomplish today.

Composition update: I've been having fun taking an old piano piece and turning it into a string quartet. Also working on a piece for clarinet and piano. Orchestra piece is taking me in a few unexpected directions. Overall, nothing overly exciting to report

What am I going to talk about next?

My feelings on the complex relationship between art and money (especially in the United States) have been accumulating over the past few years but in light of a recent event that is near and dear to my heart, they have been pushed to the front of my mind. Next blog post, I'm going to unleash these thoughts. Sometimes I feel I don't have the right to talk about money as I am still in school and have little "real world experience." However, I have read enough books and taken enough classes on the history of music to at least understand how much money can screw up the arts. I will be examining everything from the beginnings of music in America all the way up to why there are so many cliches in movies. So stay tuned for that.

Analyzing the short piano piece

So yesterday your assignment was to listen to this short piece. Now I'm going to talk about a few techniques I tried to use. If you want to try to find these techniques in this short piece I have provided the sheet music here

Chromatic Saturation

this is the subject

a subject is a short idea for which a whole fugue is derived. I can go more into the details of how this works if there is interest.

This subject is chromatically saturated which means that it contains every chromatic pitch between the lowest and highest note of the melody. here the lowest note is C and the highest note is G 

below are all the chromatic pitches between C and G 

this example shows that each note is present in the subject

Thematic Transformation

the numbers shown in the previous two examples will be used to explain scale degrees. Currently these numbers represent pitches in the chromatic scale but they can be applied to different scales.

Now the theme is made up of scale degrees in this order: 1,7,5,7,4,8,8,3,2,6

so if we apply those numbers to the octatonic scale instead of the chromatic scale we get a subject that looks like the one below

 any scale can be transposed (each note shifted proportionately up or down a certain number of semitones) the example below is the Octatonic Scale 0,2 transposed up three semitones

If you look in the right hand (the top staff) at measure 9 in the score you will see a transformed, transposed version of the original subject.

Stretto

To understand stretto, one must understand imitation. typically when one voice imitates another, it repeats the material of the first voice DIRECTLY after the first one is finished with the idea. sometimes it might be at the same pitch level (or transposition) or it might be at a different one

here is how that plays out at the beginning of my short piece

however, stretto occurs when the second voice enters with the imitation before the first voice finishes the initial idea such as in the example below

there's something about this imitation that is unusual. It has to do with one of the previous terms we learned. If you can figure it out then post it in the comment section of this article.

So I've been doing these daily composition exercises in a similar vein to the Mikrokosmos by Bartok. It's been a lot of fun so far. These are short pieces for piano that are derived from a small amount of material but that meticulously monitor each parameter of the composition (range, dynamics, number of notes used in certain sections ext.) For the exercise I'm going to show you today (written a few weeks ago) I tried to focus on chromatic saturation, thematic transformation, and stretto. If you don't know what these terms mean, don't worry! I'm going to explain them tomorrow (in a hopefully non-boring way.) Hurray! You get to learn something over the summer! I know you are all thrilled :P

For those of you who already know what the previous three terms mean, see if you can hear them in this little piece I wrote. 

The piece is only 43 seconds long so give it a listen!!! Bear in mind that this is an exercise

Social Media

Right now, while the summer is still young, I am scrambling around trying to get a presence set up online. In the relatively near future (less than a month) I hope to have a functional website up and running which will connect you to this blog, SoundCloud, Facebook, and my YouTube page as well as provide contact information and a comprehensive list of my compositions to date. Here's a link to my SoundCloud account which I just put up today. There's only one thing right now (a choir piece I wrote last year) but continue to check back because I will be gradually adding more music every few days or so. Anytime I do I will be announcing it on this blog.

Now for composition stuff. Yesterday I wrote a short piano exercise. This is part of a daily composition exercise I am trying to do. While these are mostly intended for my own private study and development, I might occasionally post a midi recording of one here and there. They are mostly in a similar vein of the Mikrokosmos pieces by Bartok. This comparison is in reference to the kinds of extreme limitations that are put on the parameters of each miniature piece. Maybe tomorrow I'll talk about what those pieces look like and give an example of one I did a few weeks ago for anyone who is unfamiliar with the Mikrokosmos. I don't claim to even be close to the same level as Bartok. I just think that this is an easy way to exercise your creative muscles through limitations. So look for that tomorrow.

Moving On

Yesterday was mostly dedicated to recording a flute version of Rylee's Theme and figuring out how to put the violin version on YouTube. And with that I can kind of move on to other projects.

I'm hoping that one of the ways a daily blog will be helpful for my productivity is that it will force me to do enough  work to have somewhat interesting content from day to day. Although I'm excited about the prospects of this it is also incredibly intimidating. My biggest fear is that this blog will turn into a daily whining session about writer's block. I really, really, REALLY don't want that to happen. So now I am off to try to do something worth posting about tomorrow.

Rylee's Theme on YouTube!

 Click on the picture to hear Rylee's Theme on YouTube

Looking back on old pieces

Last night, I started reorchestrating a composition for Wind Ensemble that I wrote a few years ago.  There are many competitions for wind ensemble pieces and since I'm not a huge fan of the ensemble (what?! I just like strings, okay?!) I have only gotten around to writing one. And boy was that a strenuous process. I got my most intense and awful case of writers block trying to finish that dang piece. I even completely restarted the piece after getting about 70% finished with the original version.

I hadn't looked at the piece in a long time. When I finally came back to it, I was able to almost instantly fix many of the problems I had struggled and toiled with for so long while writing the piece. This experience was reassuring because it felt like a tangible way to measure how I had improved as a composer and orchestrator. In this field where progress in craft is often abstract, slow, and incremental, it is nice to have these occasional reminders of how far I've come.

I often have a very loathing relationship with time (as I'm sure most do.) I feel like time is always moving so fast. Far too often I hear my self saying "I wish I had a little more time!" But this is one of the times where I am thankful for time. Significant amounts of time placed between individual events can be extremely helpful in being able to find benchmarks. These achievements are needed for motivation to continue and to give a sense of energy and drive to the work that needs to be done.

Anyways, enough rambling for today.

Wedding music photo

I thought I would add this very cool photo my friend Maddy took of the music for my sister's wedding march

Inspiration: Podcast Interview

Podcasts involving dialogue with creative individuals about their craft has often provided a source of inspiration and energy in the face of daunting challenges. Because of this I would like to often share and promote these podcasts as well as other sources of creative insight on my blog.

Today I listened to a very good episode of a podcast I started listening to called Composer Quest by composer Charlie McCarron. The show has interviews with a wide range of composers from all levels. The one I listened to today was the season one finale, which introduced me to the composer Dimitri Tymoczko. Tymoczko is a very fascinating composer whose work seems very approachable considering how mathematical and theoretically based it is. 

Unlike many interviews I listen to with academic composers, this one shows warmth and a deep understanding for how music can be relatable to the human condition while still being artistically challenging. So often when I listen to composers talk about their music it is very cold, isolating, and selfish. This distinction is one very hard to define and would require discussion of specific examples and descriptions that I will save for a later date. Suffice it to say that I am happy to have discovered Tymoczko's work and philosophy. 

Tymoczko has written a book which I am very interested in reading at some point called "A Geometry of Music" which can be found at his website.

Flying Home

Well, the wedding is over.  I am now writing this post while sitting in the Atlanta Airport. The Wedding March went pretty well. I am an extreme perfectionist when it comes to my music  but the performers did incredibly well and the weather remained warm and wind-free. Most importantly, my sister was happy with the music. I was honored to be able to contribute my composition to her wedding as well as be a part of the wedding party and walk my mother and grandparents down the Aisle. It was a wonderful weekend and a beautiful ceremony in the mountains. A recording of the wedding march will be available on this blog soon. 

Waterfalls and Windy Rehearsals

Well, I'm in North Carolina for my sister's wedding. I finally got to hear my wedding march performed at the rehearsal. The piece is for violin and piano. Considering that we did the rehearsal outside in the freezing cold wind, everything went pretty well. of course freezing temperatures can make the intonation hard for a violinist and wind can really kill the volume of the sound. Luckily, the whether for the wedding tomorrow is suppose to be significantly warmer and less windy. I'm still working with the performers but the are doing a very good job.

This wedding is so much fun. It's great to visit so many old friends and family and meet so many new people. Today, the wedding party went on a hike in the mountains and I saw the biggest water fall of my life!

 

Off to a Wedding

Well, I'm up early getting ready to go to the airport. My sister's wedding is this saturday and I'm very happy for her! As I mentioned in an earlier post, I wrote her wedding march. I'm excited to hear how it sounds! Eventually I'll post a link to a recording on this blog. It's different than most of my concert music because wedding music serves a different purpose. Regardless, I'm happy with how many compositional techniques I was able to incorporate into her wedding march while still creating an approachable and easily understandable piece of music. It was a lot of fun to write and I feel honored that my sister asked me to write it. She's pretty incredible! :)

Piano Reductions and Competitions

     I decided to start commiting a good amount of time into studying orchestration and it's relation to form. Creating an easily distinguishable form for a piece through parameters such as texture, range, orchestration and many others has always been a struggle of mine when composing. Hopefully this score studying will be fruitful. Right now I am starting with two excellent orchestrators: Rimsky-Korsakov and Ravel. I started with the second movement of Rimsky-Korsakov's Scheherezade last night. I heard the piece on the radio while back and fell in love with it. Luckily, my school's library had a piano reduction of the score for me to use as reference as I try to aurally identify Rimsky-Korsakov's brilliantly colorful orchestration. I'm also using this same approach with Ravel's famous orchestration of Pictures at an Exhibition although for some reason I'm a little less enthusiastic about it.

     Also, I'm entering a string quartet I wrote into a competition. It's only my second competition to enter and I'm kind of nervous. I really hate advertising for myself and my music but that is often unavoidable when entering competitions. I guess I'll just have to get more comfortable with the concept.

     Until next time... 

Introduction: A Concerto for Orchestra and a Wedding March!

As the summer starts, I have high ambitions to drastically improve my productivity. I'm hoping that doing a short daily blog will be good. I guess the first thing I'll focus on is an orchestra piece. Right now I am at a more preliminary, conceptual stage of writing. My initial thought was to do a concerto for orchestra type of approach (being inspired by Bartok and Higdon's works of that name). This will be my first work for orchestra so that might be a bit ambitious. It will only be one movement. Currently, I've got an opening idea which might take me somewhere. 

On another brief note, In a few days I am going to my sister's wedding in North Carolina. I have composed her wedding march for violin and piano. Hopefully that will go well. I really hope it will be able to enhance her special day just a little bit.

A part of me is hesitant about sharing about the process of composing but hopefully this can be a platform for me to practice figuring out ways to share about my music in an engaging way because I find music can sometimes be a hard and abstract thing to discuss. People would rather just listen to it. I guess my belief is that music can be even more rewarding if go in knowing what to listen for and being active in your listening. All that to say, I like talking about music and the creative process and that's what that will be.

Until next time….