Tuesday, March 31, 2009

Entry 13.

"Compositionall ADD: Not to be confused with its cousin "Compositional ADHD," this very common though sadly untreatable disease has been known to strike musicians of any age, race or gender and plagues hem with some very unlikeable symptoms for an unchartered period of time. Though its origins are unknown it has become very widespread, travelling through the air and has become a very contageous disease which can be transferred from musician to musicians without the musicians even having come into contact with another. Word of mouth is often enough to provoke a raging case of "Compositional ADD" and sadly, it must simply be allowed to run its course, as a cure has not yet been found."

- The J.B. Medical Dictionary.

This is not fun. I'm trying to buckle down and finish up what I've got left to do on 'Drole de Bete' and I still have a lot left to do for 'S'il te Plait...Apprivoise-Moi!" but I can't seem to find the concentration to do so. I'll sit down to do a bit of writing or editing but I'll get maybe ten minutes done before it becomes absolutely agonizing to sit still and write another note or put in another dynamic marking.

Not that I'm lacking inspiration, however. Over the past few days I've managed to begin two other projects- neither of which, sadly, have anything to do with what I'm doing in composition class. The first piece that I wrote I wrote under the influence of energy drink- something I DO NOT intend to do again. The result: a piece for piano and voice upon the request of one of my friends, called 'Jerkasaurus Rex R.D.' The title is just a joke- he refused to come to a concert last year because he wanted to be uncool and study so I jokingly called him a Jerkasaurus (I like dinosaurs) and later jokingly wrote a documentary on the Jerkasaurus and gave it to him. Yeah, I do weird things like that all the time. Anyhow, for a lark I've decided to put the lyrics in here just so you see why, exactly, I do not intend to write ANYTHING after having had an energy drink.

Jerkasaurus Rex R.D.

The Jerkasaurus Rex is
Very good at hexes
Often visits Texas
In the Fall,

They’re antisocial creatures
Preying upon preachers
And hiding under bleachers
In the mall

They supported Trudeau
Are very skilled on banjo
Grew up in the ghetto
And love chain-smoke

They beat up alligators
And terrorize the waiters
They wrangle elevators
Just for a joke

They like to inhale turpentine
They chase it down with moonshine
Shared a beer with Einstein
And a blind fruit fly

They’ve got X-ray vision
Cannot make a decision
Though they’re stellar at division
But only in July

They can stop a hurricane
Turned water into pink champagne
Built convents in the Ukraine
And painted hippos yellow

Microwaving teletubbies
Is one of their favourite hobbies
Along with defiling lobbies
And reinventing jell-o

So if you see this nasty reptile
You should run at least a mile
Away from this thing so so vile
And never you look back, cuz

Jerkasaurus Rex R.D
Will hunt you down and then you’ll see
That he’d eat either you or me
Just like he’d eat a snack.


Without elaboration, I can bet that you understand now why energy drinks + Jess Blenis = DANGER. The music is equally as strange- I wrote it to sound dinosaur-esque, afterall, so it ain't pretty, and it's only 1/4 serious. This isn't an April Fools joke, folks- I actually did write this piece- in about 3.5 hours, too, between 12:30 and 4:00 in the morning on Saturday I believe.

I began a more serious project tonight as well, and hate myself for doing so even though I like where this piece is going. I was asked today if I would be a chaperone for a high school orchestra trip in May, and said that I would. This is the orchestra I played in back in the day (from grade 8-12) and whenever I'm home for Christmas or the summer I usually help out with sectionals, concerts, workshops and such. So randomly I decided that writing for a high school orchestra would be fun, and now have about a minute and a half of materiel for that.

As nift-o as this is, I'd much rather put this muse toward something productive and necessary. I have a Folklore and an English term paper due within the week and here I am, scribbling nonsense about a Jerkasaurus. I have a piece for band due within the week and instead I'm writing for orchestra. It'll all get done, I'm sure it will. I just have to CONCENTRATE and not succumb completely to compositional ADD.

Friday, March 27, 2009

Entry 12.

So I've come to a slightly daunting realization- I like my stupid mistakes better than I like my intentional compositional techniques.

It sounds weird, yes, but it's definately true at least some of the time. I'm beginning to find as well that about 50% of the little things I like most about my compositions are things I've done by accident. Usually I'll have made a stupid mistake, whether it's forgetting about transposition or writing a rhythm in wrong, and then when I get the computer to play it back I realize my error and often end up keeping it and changing the other parts to go along with it. I could go ahead and use a Machiavellian type of retrospect, I guess, and could say 'hey, whatever, the end justifies the means,' and shrug it off and I know I'm probably digging a hole for myself by admitting that about 50% of my pieces comes from the mistakes I make while writing them. This isn't alays true- sometimes I'll have a piece which is 100% intentional, but other times I'll fling notes on the page without realizing exactly what I'm doing, play it back and decide whether I like it or not.

It could be described as a careless or effortless way to compose, so I'm a bit ashamed of it in that regard. Some people put an intense amount of concentration into developing the right chords or melody while I occasionally find them by experimenting or by making some dumb error which could otherwise be seen as some type of a Freudian slip. I feel a bit guilty calling my pieces mine when even though I am the one fully responsible for all the errors, I still know that they weren't intentional and that I wouldn't have been able to play around with my errors if I didn't have a program which would play it all back to me. In this way, should I give 'Finale 2005' credit for my pieces, seeing as otherwise I might have realized my error before having my piece played and changed it to make it something completely different? This is confusing.

So...Should I go with Machiavelli and say that I don't really care how I compose, as long as it's what I want, or do I side with Freud and say that these mistakes are actually coming from my subconscious mind? I think I'm just going to go with option C and say screw the philosophers, I'm a composer, not a psychologist.

Sunday, March 15, 2009

Entry 11.

So it’s back to the grindstone I go…After taking a bit of a hiatus due to health issues which I haven’t quite gotten rid of I’ve decided to really buckle down on this one and do some hard work, even if it's pretty late at night. At least it’s entertaining, and I seem to compose better when I’m less than half awake anyway, as I was shown when I composed ‘Subconscious.’ It’d be nice if I could have another compositional dream, because that way I could both compose and sleep, but I guess we can’t always get the best of both worlds. I'm going to try and pull an all-nighter to finish one of the movements of my band thing just to see how far I get. I just realized now that I have no idea what I'm going to name the thing as an entity, though I'll probably be able to draw some inspiration from the text.

Tonight (well, this morning- I'm starting this at 12:55am) I'm focusing on the second movement, which is called "Un Drole de Bete." My apologies- I still can't make accents on my computer- it has a laptop keyboard and doesn't do the whole 'press down alt and put in a combination of numbers to make an accented letter' thing. The author of the book, Antoine Saint-Exupery, drew pictures that go with various parts of the book, and in this part it shows the little prince in the desert looking down at a yellow snake in the sand. The position of the snake makes it look almost as though it's just another ripple in the sand, which gives me a few ideas about layering chromatic passages one on top of the other- but I don't want the texture to get too muddy.

So I've got to start at the beginning. I want to start with the brass, seeing as I've neglected them a bit in the first movement which hasn't made any progress since I presented it last time in class...I'm a failure. Sometimes.

Random idea- maybe Asteroide B-612 for a title for the entire work.

...And the ADD begins....But I like to jot down ideas as they come to me, even if I'm mid-sentance....But only relevant ones. I think if I wrote down every thought that came to me, I'd be rambling myself off a cliff, and no one would be able to follow my thought process. I'm tryig to keep reminding myself to heed the advice given in Clark's last blog entry about extending the opening section longer than I might be naturally inclined. Looking at what I've got written already, I think he's right. I began with a kind of fanfare-ish opening which lasted a grand total of four bars- but in my defence, it begins in 7/4 time, which is almost like having eight 4/4 bars. The extending has begun...

I've done as much as I'm going to do right now- 26 bars for an intro, which then goes into the 'Tango del Muerte.' I think thats means 'Tango of death,' either that or 'tango of the dead.' I'll google it at some point. It's 2:04am, and I have class at 10:00 which I'd like to be at least semi-alert for, and I really shouldn't be up this late anyway while sick.

I think this is when composing becomes decomposing.

Thursday, March 5, 2009

Entry 10.

Sooooo....I wasn't able to find what I had already composed which is a bit of a bummer, but seeing as I wasn't a great fan of it anyway, it can stay lost. I'll probably find it some other day while going through my computer and maybe it'll be of use to me then, or maybe I'll find another way to make it more appealing. It had a good few ideas which I can still remember, but nothing that really stood out to me. I'd really like to do a stellar job of this composition now that I'm finally settling into a kind of compositional niche, and right now it doesn't involve what I had written prior to this.

This being said, I've made a few more decisions about what I'm going to write. It will be a 4, possibly 5 movement work inspired by the book "Le Petit Prince" By Antoine Saint-Exupery. The ideas that I have to the movements are as follows with the text that will preceed each movement (sorry, I can't make accents on my laptop so I'll have to do without right now):

1. "Dessine-moi un Mouton!"
Text: "Le premier soir je me suis donc endormi sur le sable a mille milles de toute terre habille. J'etais bien plus isole qu'un naufrage sur un rideau au milieu de l'ocean. Aloes vous imaginez ma surprise, au lever du jour, quand une drole de petit voix m'a reveille. Elle disait:
'S'il vous plait...dessine-moi un mouton!'
Translation: "The first night, then, I went to sleep on the sand a thousand miles from any inhabited country. I was more isolated than a man shipwrecked on a raft in the middle of the ocean. So you can imagine me surprise when I was awakened at daybreak by a funny little voice saying, 'Please...draw me a sheep...'"
Music:
- tonal qualities but with enough ambiguity and movement that it is not quite tonal, tying the listener's ears in (non-painful) knots.
- express the setting- the Sahara desert
- introduce the "Petit Prince," "Serpent," "Renard," and "Rose" themes.
- It will be an overture of sorts but with enough unique elements that it can stand on its own. It wil be predominantly the piece which introduces le Petit Prince and sets the mood for the entire work.
- quiet at the beginning with the desert theme- percussion and use of reed instruments.
- some reference to the magnitude of outer space- brass, use of mallet percussion to make a star like sound.
- "Petit Prince" theme- flute, piccolo and mallet percussion, light, tinkling, melancholic.
- Ends with a quiet question before leading into the next movement after a short pause.

2. "Une drole de bete"
Text: "'Ou sont les hommes?' Reprit enfin le petit prince. 'On est un peu seul dans le desert...'
'On est seul aussi chez les hommes,' dit le serpent. Le petit prince le regarda longtemps:
'Tu es un drole de bete,' lui dit-il enfin, 'Mince comme un doigt...'
'Mais je suis plus puissant que le doigt d'un roi...'"
Translation: "'Where are the people?' The little prince finally resumed the conversation. 'It's a little lonely in the desert...'
'It's also loney with people,' said the snake.
'You're a funny creature,' he said at last, 'No thicker than a finger.'
'But I'm more powerful than a king's finger,' the snake said."
Music:
- dizzying yet lugubrious tango
- slides in the brass section
- chromatic up and down runs in the woodwinds simulating the movement of a snake
- return of the desert motif
- ominous, lots of low brass, hand-held percussion
- tension held then resolved in the chords

3. "S'il te plait...Apprivoise-moi!"
Text: "'Tu vois, la-bas, les champs de ble? Je ne mange pas de pain. Le ble pour moi est inutile. Les champs de ble ne me rappellent rien. Et ca, c'est triste! Mais tu as des chevux coleur d'or. Alors ce sera merveilleux quand to m'auras apprivoise! Le ble, qui est endore, me fera souvenir de toi. Et j'aimerai le bruit du vent dans le ble...' Le renard se tut ey regardera longtemps le petit prince: 'S'il te plait...Apprivoise-moi!' dit-il."
Translation: "'You see the wheat fields over there? I don't eat bread. For me wheat is of no use whatsoever. Wheat fields say nothing to me, which is sad. But you have hair the colour of gold. So it will be wonderful, once you've tamed me! The wheat, which is golden, will remind me of you. And I'll love the sound of the wind in the wheat...' The fox fell silent and stared at the little prince for a long while. 'Please...Tame me!'"
Music: Minuet and Trio form.
Minuet:
- Lighthearted, bordering on being tonal though fluidly lilting from one key to the next, unrelated key like wind through the wheat field.
- Only woodwinds/percussion
- 3/4 time, with two repeats, very short.
Trio:
- Minor key/more melancholic
- bittersweet
- no percussion, just woodwinds
- some rhythmic ambiguity
- return to minuet

4. "Puisque C'est ma Rose"
Text: "'Vous etes belles mais vous etes vides,' leur dit-il encore. 'On ne put pas mourir pour vous. Bien sur, ma rose a moi, un passant ordinaire croirait qu'elle vous ressemble. Mais a elle seule elle est plus importante que vous toutes, puisque c'est elle que j'ai arrosee. Puisque c'est elle que j'ai mis sous globe. Puisque c'est elle que j'ai abritee par le paravent. Puisque c'est elle dont j'ai tue les chenilles (sauf les deuz ou trois pour les papillons). Puisque c'est elle que j'ai ecoute se plaindre, ou se vanter, ou meme quelquefois se taire. Puisque c'est ma rose.'"
Translation: "'You're lovely, but you're empty,' he went on. 'One couldn't die for you. Of course, an ordinary passerby would think my rose looked just like you. But my rose, all on her own, is more important than all of you together since she's the one I've watered. Since she'd the one I put under glass. Since she's the one I sheltered behind a screen. Since she's the one for whom I killed the caterpillars (except the two or three for butterflies). Since she'd the one I listened to when she complained, or when she boasted, or even sometimes when she said nothing at all. Since she's my rose.'"
Music:
- very thick texture, despite being quiet.
- quite chordal- soft chords being played, with the melody floating over top of it.
- sensitive yet hardly fragile melody- conjuct and disjunct.
- Not much chromaticism in melody but lots in the chords.

5. Retourne a B-612
Text: "C'est la un bien grand mystere. Pour vous qui aimez aussi le petit prince, comme pour moi, rien de l'univers n'est semblable si quelque part, on ne sait ou, un mouton que nous connaissons pas a, oui ou non, mange une rose...
Regardez le ciel. Demandez-vous:'Le mouton oui ou non a-t-il mange la fleur?' Et vous verrez comme tout change...
Et aucune grande personne ne comprendera jamais que ca a tellement d'importance!"
Translation: "It's all a great mystery. For you, who love the little prince too. As for me, nothing in the unverse can be the same if somewhere, no one knows where, a sheep we never saw has or has not eaten a rose...
Look up at the sky. Ask yourself: 'Has the sheep eaten the flower or not?" And you'll see how everything changes...
And no grown-up will ever understand how such a thing could be so important!"
Music:
- revival of the 'Petit Prince' theme
- elements of all previous movements
- ends in the same way as the first movement.
- tonal ambiguity, but with a clear, ethereal sound throughout


So that's what I've got for an outline of this monster. It should be quite the thing once it's finished, I hope!

Monday, February 23, 2009

Entry 8.

Well I'm working on what will more or less be the final draft of 'Subconscious,' which is probably ideal- seeing as the concert is on Friday. After meeting with Clark today to go over the piece, I've got a few things to tweak, but none of them seem to be terribly time consuming:
- Add an eighth rest at the end of bar 3 in the cello part (I found another bar later on that was missing a few rests too)
- Listen to see if the D in the oboe part honks in bars 9 and 12 and edit accordingly. I fixed the one in bar 9 since it was held for three beats, but the one in bar 12 I'm not too worried about.
- The flute part and oboe part, where they have the triplet sixteenth notes need to have spaces in which the player can breathe...Obviously I'm not a wind major seeing as I gave them no chance to do so in the original score. I've got this hald done right now, and will finish doing that once I've posted this.
- maybe have the flute/oboe come in a bit later on the triplet sixteenth notes in some places so it's not so predictable
- no capitolization of the 'C' in crescendo
- add tenuto markings in the flute part in bar 65
- maybe edit the ending, with a few more bars in the piano and don't have it end so suddenly- end with a dotted half rather than an eighth note.
- put bowings in the cello part
- Consider rewriting the piano part for two hands rather than putting it all in one clef. I think I might do this later, but it'd probably take up too much time to do it right now.

Crazy, but it's almost finished. Yay!

Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Entry 7.

So I've been thinking about the next project, and I'm stuck between two ideas.



The first is something that I might compose for orchestra. While standing outside the instrumental room last week waiting for the wind sectional to end so that we could go in for the string sectional, I heard the jazz band playing in the choral room, and had a small discussion with Saird about how jazz bands get some pretty groovy music, and I don't want to knock Haydn or anything, especially since it's the 200th anniversary of his death this year, but I'd rather play a jazz piece any day rather than the 'Surprise Symphony.' So I began to toy with the thought of composing a piece for jazz orchestra. I'd have to listen to a lot of jazz music to get the general idea of it, since I have relatively no experience with it whatsoever thus far, but I think it'd make for a neat composition, though I can imagine that I might run into some balance issues where the orchestra doesn't have quite as many different parts as the jazz band, and I'm not really interested in writing for a full orchestra- just a string orchestra. Sorry winds!



The other idea I have is one that I'm leaning toward actually using, because I'd be able to submit it for the Terra Nova thing and I'd like to at least take a shot at that. The inspiration for this, which I intend to write in several, short movements, comes from a little novel by Antoine Saint-Exupéry called 'Le Petit Prince.' I haven't decided on how many movements I want this piece to have, but I've got a few ideas for elements of the novel I can use as a motif or inspiration for a movement.

- Asteroide B-612. This is the name of the planet that the narrator of the story believes that le Petit Prince came from. It is very tiny- no bigger than a house, and he lived there alone before leaving, carried by a migrating flock of wild birds. On his planet are three tiny volcanoes, one of which is extinct, which rise only to le Petit Prince's knee, a few small flowers, baobabs which le Petit Prince digs up before they can grow to bee too big and one rose, a vain and selfish plant who eventually asks so much of le Petit Prince that he decides to leave his planet, despite how much he loves his rose.

- Les Sept Planètes. Le Petit Prince visits seven planets in total, including the Earth which is his final stop. He meets a man who lives on each small planet (Asteroids 325, 326, 327, 328, 329 and 330) and begins to discover just how unlikable and trivial human adults are. The first is a pompous king who is obsessed with having subjects, the second is a vain man bent on being admired constantly, the third was a drunk, unhappy man who only wants to forget everything, the fourth a serious business man who counts stars believing that he owns everything he counts. The fifth a likeable, yet odd man who spends all his time following the order he is given- to light a lamp every night and put it out every day, though unfortunately for him, his planet is so tiny and turns so fast, each day is only a minute long. The sixth planet is inhabited by a geographer, who is more or less harmless until he tells le Petit Prince that he wouldn't mark a rose down on a map because it is ephemeral, which upsets the boy greatly. The last planet he visits, of course, is Earth. I'm not sure I would use any of this in a movement, because making up seven different themes and putting them all into one movement might be a bit much for such a short piece.

- Dessine-moi un mouton. The first thing le Petit Prince says in the book is this- <> as he asks the narrator to draw him a sheep. He wants the sheep to eat the baobabs which grow on his planet so that he won't have to work so hard digging them up. If he lets them grow too large, they'll take over his planet which is why he must pull them out when they are young. It is of great importance to le Petit Prince that the narrator draws a sheep, but he is worried by the fact that the sheep would eat a rose too, and resolves to have the narrator draw a fence and a muzzle too.

- Le renard et le serpent. Two animals that le Petit Prince meets, which are of great importance, are the fox and the snake. The fox is an odd little fellow that le Petit Prince eventually tames, upon its request. The fox gives le Petit Prince good advice, and the two become good friends before the boy leaves to explore more of the earth. He also meets the snake, who is wise though dangerous and caniving. It is the snake who convinces le Petit Prince that the earth is not a good place, and that he has the ability to send le Petit Prince back to his planet with a single bite.

- Puis-que c'est ma rose. One of the things that le Petit Prince learns from the fox is that he is responsible for everything that he tames, and that his rose is unique to him. While on the earth, he walked through a garden full of roses which were all just as beautiful as his and this upset him greatly, as he thought that his rose was truely unique and beautiful. The fox explains to him, however, that the roses in the garden mean nothing to him, as he has not taken care of them or made them unique to him in all the universe as he has his own rose, back on his planet.

- Pays des larmes. There are several times throughout this book where the characters are moved to tears. I plan to either finish with a movement which is thoughtful and sad, or have it be one of the later movements, to express the sorrow that can be drawn from this book.

- On se console toujours. This will probably be the main motif for the last movement, based around a speech le Petit Prince gives the narrator:
<<...Tu regarderas, la nuit, les étoiles. C'est trop petit chez moi pour que je te montre où se trouve la mienne. C'est mieux comme ça. Mon étoile, ça sera pour toi une des étoiles. Alors, toutes les étoiles, tu aimeras les regarder... Elles seront toutes tes amies. Et puis je vais te faire un cadeau... Les gens ont des étoiles qui ne sont pas les mêmes. Pour les uns, qui voyagent, les étoiles sont des guides. Pour d'autres elles ne sont rien que de petites lumières. Pour d'autres qui sont savants elles sont des problèmes. Pour mon businessman elles étaient de l'or. Mais toutes ces étoiles-là se taisent. Toi, tu auras des étoiles comme personne n'en a... Quand tu regarderas le ciel, la nuit, puisque j'habiterai dans l'une d'elles, puisque je rirai dans l'une d'elles, alors ce sera pour toi comme si riaient toutes les étoiles. Tu auras, toi, des étoiles qui savent rire ! Et quand tu seras consolé (on se console toujours) tu seras content de m'avoir connu. Tu seras toujours mon ami. Tu auras envie de rire avec moi. Et tu ouvriras parfois ta fenêtre, comme ça, pour le plaisir... Et tes amis seront bien étonnés de te voir rire en regardant le ciel. Alors tu leur diras: "Oui, les étoiles, ça me fait toujours rire !" Et ils te croiront fou. Je t'aurai joué un bien vilain tour... Ce sera comme si je t'avais donné, au lieu d'étoiles, des tas de petits grelots qui savent rire...>>

So those are my ideas. I may find other things in the book to add in this to possibly base a movement on, though I'll have to find a French copy of the book first. I went to Chapters to find it and they only had the English version which could suffice, but the French version is so much better. :)

Wednesday, February 11, 2009

Entry 6.

Hard to believe that the semester's pretty much halfway over- I've got my flight booked for home already too though part of me seems stuck in winter mood- I've had 'Rockin' around the Christmas Tree' stuck in my head for hours. I seem to have drawn the short straw this semester, and 2/3 of my exams are late but I guess to find the silver lining would be to find that I've just been given more time to prepare for my two later exams...Neither of which have much of anything to do with music...But this paragraph doesn't really either, which is why I'm going to change the subject now and write about compositions and stuff.

So I presented some new materiel in class today- the piece that I had in a dream last week while in a bit of an ill daze. I got some really good pointers today in class, especially regarding the instrumentation. I'd really like to use the vibes, but as it was pointed out, and as I had suspected myself, the notation would prove to be a bit tricky and there's not very much time left between now and the performance, so I think I might put what I've got written in the vibe part over onto piano, and write something different for vibes with the motor thing running to add to the texture. I should probably research it a bit first, to make sure that that's the sound I want, and how it can be modified.

A few things have been brought to my attention in the oboe part as well, which should be easy enough to fix- I took down bar numbers and will be more mindful of 'honking' notes on the oboe.

I've also been prompted to graph where I want the piece to go, seeing as I have relatively no idea right now. I'm just letting the texture and harmony of it waver all over the place, going where it wants to go, and I'm very relieved to hear that it's not tonal, despite the fact that it has a lot of tonal elements. I'll try and make some kind of graph to give myself a better idea of its path, hopefully It'll help me have a better destination in mind.

I've had a few other ideas come to mind to. We've been encouraged to introduce an aleatoric element to the music, and I haven't exactly done that. I've been toying with the idea of having someone read a text while the musicians play the music- whether I'll write the text or use one which already exists I haven't decided yet, though I'm leaning toward the former. I won't give the reader any indication of speed or rhythm for the words- I like the natural inflection better than notated rhythm, and it'll produce a different performance every time depending on the speaker. It's just an idea, though I'm beginning to like it more and more.

Monday, February 9, 2009

Entry 5.

I should be outside. Seriously though, we should all be outside- it's sunny and almost warm, despite the wind, and we all know by how just how scarce the sunshine can be around this time of year. But instead here I am, composing in one window and writing in another while trying not to be distracted by the sun coming in the windows from outside. I think I like house windows much more than I like computer windows right now, but we've all got to deal with these things one day or another.

So I had a bit of a change in plans...Almost. I'm not sure yet. I've been working away on my atonal composition- the one with the voice, vibraphone, tubular bells, bass, clarinet and piano, but am discovering that the way that I write for voice- as we discussed in class last time- is perhaps a bit too challenging for the vocal artist, unless they had perfect pitch. I'd like to tamper with this piece a fair bit and actually finish it, seeing as it's close to being three minutes long already and I am enjoying it, but obviously it needs to be made a bit more physically possible to sing. I found it highly amusing in last class though, when it was suggested that I sing the piece because I'm already familiar with the vocal line and have perfect pitch...Unfortunately, however, I refuse to do so on the grounds that I firmly believe I'd butcher it. Hold a gun to my head and I can, and will, carry a tune, but otherwise, don't bother, because I don't like to sing solo in public. I've toyed with the idea of making it a piece for people with perfect pitch, but that's kind of selective and discriminatory, and I don't want to do that- I'm all for diversity and equal rights.

On a slightly different note, though...I might have come up with something else...While asleep. It sounds weird, I know, and you're probably thinking right now that I am the ultimate dork for composing while sleeping, but it happens every once in a while and if I'm lucky, I can remember what I've written in my head while sleeping and write it down. Funny thing is that I don't usually realize that I'm the one composing the piece until after I wake up and go 'oh, well then, that was nice of me.' I usually dream that someone else had written the piece that I'm listening to, and am often made fairly jealous by said composer's style and flair. I've never quite been able to reproduce note for note what I've composed in a dream- not like Coleridge who somehow managed to write out 'Kubla Khan' in a somewhat similar state (I say somewhat because opium has had no play in my current, past or future state as far as I'm concerned) - but I like to try, and I can usually get the basis and elaborate upon it if I like it.

So my goal for Wednesday is this- to finish my first composition and get enough done on the second one so that the class can have an idea of what I'm working on. This one is for vibraphone, piano, flute, oboe and cello. It has much softer timbres and borders on being minimalistic, rather than the disjunct piece that I've got nearly completed. For once I think I've written something that's almost pretty...I've become a bit frustrated with my past few compositions, because the style I seem to be falling into is more dramatic, filled with turmoil and angst rather than being ethereal and pretty. Guess I just have to get in touch with my subconscious side which seems to surface while I sleep, and maybe share some ideas and tips over imaginary beer and nachos with it. It's worth a try, no?

Sunday, February 1, 2009

Entry 4.

Newfound music- I think this was my favourite year out of the three I've experienced. I don't have to write anything about it for any other classes, but since this counts as a blog entry, I'm definately down for doing some good old rambling about what I went to this year.
1. Riley's 'In C.' I remember studying this very briefly in music history, and though that it was kind of nifty...I think it was even one of our listening examples, but it wasn't on the final exam (I don't think, at least) which sucks because it was one of the easiest pieces to pick out of the others. I was impressed that it stayed together without completely falling to pieces, and it actually sounded really groovy in some places, especially toward the end. I'm glad I got some of it on video- I'm not sure how much, seeing as my camera kind of died, but at least I got the beginning of it.
2. Scott's lecture on writing for high school band. It was really neat to hear about his experience writing for a band, though I had expected him to tell us how to write for band, not how he wrote for a band. Nevertheless, I did learn a lot from this session, especially from hearing what he wrote. My experience with a high school band was pretty terrible. I played french horn in grade 12 because no one else knew how, and I knew how to play five notes on it. Little did I know that I would be one of the better players in the band by the end of the year....How's that for a sad little story? We played at the rememberance day assembly that year, and after butchering Canon in D and making an incredible mess out of our own national anthem, the band hasn't been asked to play for another formal assembly since. With this in mind, I was leery about what I could write for a high school band, rather than what I wanted to write. In other words, my expectancies for a high school band were pitifully low, but I was enlightened by the recordings that Scott played and have a renewed amount of faith for high school bands which aren't absolutely decrepit. I'm really looking forward to this now, and definately agree with what was said in class- most of the repertoire for bands is too basic and unexciting, and the kids would be more apt to rise to the occasion of playing a slightly more difficult piece rather than slumping in their chairs while playing "Yankee Doodle," (another song that my band ruined). I also learned another important thing- get whatever money you can from the governement by whichever means possible. :)
3. Orchestra rehearsal- Yeah, so I was technically a part of this rather than sitting down and listening, but I was able to listen to what we played while playing, if that makes any sense. I think one of the best parts was getting to meet Cliff Crawley after having played a few of his pieces. I really liked what we played while we were in Russia a few years back- I can't remember what it was called, but it was something along the lines of "Down the Rabbit's Hole," or something like that...I know it had something to do with Alice in Wonderland, anyway, and I think that was my favourite thing written by him until I heard Tim and Nancy play 'The Lark.' That's something I'd really like to play someday.
4. Concert celebrating Cliff's 80th birthday- This was an awesome concert, and I enjoyed it from start to finish though I wish that I had been able to see the second half rather than sitting in the instrumental room playing the violin part on my viola and then trying to play the viola part on Tilly's cello to fill in the time before we went onstage. 'Not Waving but Drowning' is one of my favourite poems and it was features in the second half- which I missed- but hopefully it'll be performed again someday.

All in all I really enjoyed the Newfound Music festival this year, and am looking forward to seeing it again next year.

Entry 3.

I really feel as though I got a lot of good feedback on Wednesday, and am glad that I tried to write everything down so that I would remember it when I went to tweak my compositions again and so that I have some materiel to write about in here. Unfortunately my computer seems to have caught the same bug that everyone else's has, and is acting like a grumpy child who insists on throwing their rattle out of the pram and then whining about it. Its fits seems to have decreased, though, and this is the most that I've been able to write thus far without it pulling one of those 'windows is not responding' jokes...Let's just hope it's smartened up and decided not to throw any more child-size fits. Back to the notes...
- the fugue-like beginning seems to be liked, which makes me happy since it doesn't really fit in with the material I've used for the rest of the piece, but I wanted the introducting to give the instrumentalists something at least, rather than just being harmony and background noise behind the voice, and to set the mood.
- I've figured out what part the waltz-like section was from that Melissa liked, and had forgotten that I had initially planned on elaborating more on that...but then I forgot. Thanks for reminding me again, Melissa! I plan on extending that section a bit more today or tomorrow.
- The rhythm in the vocal line could stand to be more adventurous, and I completely agree. I've made it fairly deadbeat rhythm-wise, just because the notes are all over the place, but I might not be giving singers enough credit...heh, sorry! I'll work on that.
- The sextuplet part sticks out a bit, and I agree, though I kind of like it...Maybe I'll find a better transition, seeing as the direct one is...Well, direct. Go figure. This will hopefully give the piece more unity, as the changes are a bit abrupt and perhaps there are a few too many of them.
- and my piano writing is conservative...I just don't know what's physically possible and what isn't! I really wish I knew how to play piano better, that way I'd have a better idea of how to write accompaniments. I'll talk to Kim about it, and maybe even try my own hand at playing the piano part, just to see what it's like. I plan on looking at more piano music too, to see what kind of nuances there are that I like and can encorporate.
I've been thinking a lot about the next project as well, and have made a bit of ground on it though I haven't started writing anything yet. My natural inclination would be to write for an orchestra, which I've done on a few occasions before, but the competition thing is quite alluring, and if there's any chance that I might possibly win some money..Hey, it's got to be worth a shot, right? And then at least I'll have the experience of writing for band. My idea for the time being is to write a three-movement work inspired by Antoine Saint-Exupery's novel 'Le Petit Prince,' which is definately my favourite book. The first movement will be fairly minimalist I think, to invoke the image of le Petit Prince travelling through space with his white birds, the second will be....Uhm, I'll let you know when I have an idea...And the third movement I'm oping will be peaceful, beautiful and sad yet bittersweet. I still can't read the book without feeling very sad at the ending. I intend to use quotations from the book as the movement titles, but haven't really decided on them yet.

Well that's all for now,

J.

Friday, January 23, 2009

Entry 2.

I suppose it's about time that I do another blog entry, and since I should technically be in class right now, this is the best way to make up for my absence. I know, I should be in class, but for some reason after donating blood yesterday I woke up this morning feeling as though I was hit by a truck which isn't a nice feeling. Anywho, enough about that, it's time to get back on track and focus.

I presented the first draft of my piece in class on Wednesday, January 21 and took notes as comments were given.
- It sounds sort of like inspector gadget- I never thought of this while writing it, but I can definately see it now, and find that to be quite amusing.
- It's coherent and keeps the brain listening- this definately makes me feel good about what I have so far. We've discussed how hard it can be to follow atonal music sometime, but I'm glad that I can write atonal music while still retaining the listener's interest.
- The bells- nifty but should be used sparingly, and possibly use a vibraphone- This is an idea that I like more and more, and will be adding in to my piece. I think the bells will only be used when the text of the piece (Death, Be Not Proud by John Donne) calls for them.
- Consistant harmonic language- I decided to make the opening of the piece kind of like a fugue, in order to give it a type of form before I deviate away from that into the middle section, which is where the voice comes in. I know that the instruments have to more or less accompany the voice for the majority of it, which is why I gave them the beginning of the piece, to show them off rather than having them be in the background the entire time.
- Moniter the texture around the voice, use sparse activity in the background in order to keep from losing the text, but not necessarily by just making the instruments play softer. This will mean that I have to expirament with texture and layering and such, and make sure I don't let the instruments swallow up the sound of the voice completely.
- The voice has two functions- melodyc quality and the ability to express text. I'm hoping to do a bit of word painting with this piece, which should be fun seeing as I'm basing it off a poem with very vivid language and colourful descriptive words. The voice and the instruments should allow me to do this.

One thing that I've been toying with is using the vibraphone and piano in the background behind the voice (possibly the bass as well) while using the clarinet intermittantly, possibly fill in the silence between the lines of text. You know, because the vocalist has to breathe...Honestly though, all the demands that the voice has...(That's sarcasm, which doesn't translate through text well.) I was playing around with the idea of doing a sort of vamp in the piano while the vibraphone elaborates on top. I wrote a bit of it down in theory one day (I do try to pay attention in class, but when something like that hits me I have to take a minute or two to write it down, otherwise it'll be gone with all the other good ideas I've had that I didn't write down.) and have been toying around with it since then. It seems to provide a good backdrop upon which I can construct a vocal line which will be in the forefront without there being too much empty space in the background. I figured out that you can use a few instruments behind the voice, but the melodic interest has to be in the vocal part. A nifty way of doing this, I've noticed, is to repeat the same thing over and over in the background, making only minimal changes so that attention will be focused on the voice rather than the music in the background.

I'll just keep plugging away at it. Tomorrow's the 12 hour overnight Relay for Life, so I'll have 12 hours (minus the times where I'll be walking) to play around with this, and hopefully I'll have a lot to present next Wednesday.

Monday, January 12, 2009

Entry 1.

Well it's back to the proverbial grindstone I guess. I worked on a couple of things over the winter holidays, but was fairly busy doing Christmas baking and cleaning and all those other quaint, godforsaken trivialities we obsess over to do much of anything. Needless to say it's great to be back at school and composing again.I have to admit I'm quite daunted by the second project....Writing for a full concert band? I'm definately going to have a look at some concert band scores and listen to some band music to get an idea of which instruments generally have which parts, and get myself used to the thought ot writin for so many people all the while remembering everything that I learned last semester about writing music. I'm coming to the realization that the composer's mind worked on about 63 different tracks and here I am, a person with a stubborn one-track mindset trying with a sad amount of concentration to pat my head and rub my stomach at the same time. These things just take practice though, and that's more or less what we're doing now...Except we have to show the results of our practicing in front of a class, and later, an audience. Eep.

I'm not too worried about the first project, though since it involves words like 'aleatoric' and functional harmony' which are almost as scary as words like 'omnibus' which, in my mind, sounds like a terrifying bus that's omnipresent and goes around eating people...Okay so I have an overactive imagination from time to time and that's what I do in theory class- I sit there imagining a bus that can be everywhere at once, eating people. No wonder I failed the first time around.

Anyhow, we've been asked to invent three atonal chords, make a scale out of those chords and then make up some melodies based on them, folowed by harmonies. I naturally started out by doing things all out of order- I made up a scale, based on the first four notes of a gypsy scale, starting on C. The notes went C D Eflat Fsharp, and then the same semitone/whole tone pattern was used for the nest four notes- G A Bflat Csharp. Then I made a chord progression out of those which sounds pretty nifty in places, but since that's not what we're supposed to do, I'll save it but not really use it...Ok, I probably will end up using it at some point because I like it, but we'll see.I ended up making three chords which I think (and hope) are atonal- they certainly sound wonky enough, and made a scale out of them. I started playing around with some melodies, which are pretty rough, but it's something at least.