I've been reasonably productive for the last month or so.
- wrote a couple Thinking Songs
- wrote a more-or-less randomly generated string quartet
- finished Objects
I expected to have more to say, but I guess not. Everything's kind of wrapped up at the moment, and I don't get much out of talking about stuff that's already done. I'll try to make a point of posting once I start on something new.
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
Friday, October 10, 2008
Objects again
Shortly after my last post (about four months ago), I wrote two more movements for Objects. I wasn't happy at the time with the way it was turning out. Then I was distracted for a few months. Today I went back and listened to what I had, and was surprised to find that I liked it. So, I think Objects works.
Here's the first page of the second poem, if you'd like to see a bit of what this looks like.
However, I don't think I'm going to keep working on it. The process of writing it is too methodical to be creatively satisfying, and too creative to work on when I don't feel like thinking. I'll probably change my mind some day and go back to it, but for now I'll regard the three poems as done. It's already about 6½ minutes of music as it is, so it might be for the best to leave it be. Although I have to admit there really should be at least a few more movements; it wasn't meant to be complete at this point, and it doesn't feel complete.
But for now I feel much more like doing something John Cage-ish. Maybe I'll write a few Thinking Songs to get back into the swing of it.
Here's the first page of the second poem, if you'd like to see a bit of what this looks like.
However, I don't think I'm going to keep working on it. The process of writing it is too methodical to be creatively satisfying, and too creative to work on when I don't feel like thinking. I'll probably change my mind some day and go back to it, but for now I'll regard the three poems as done. It's already about 6½ minutes of music as it is, so it might be for the best to leave it be. Although I have to admit there really should be at least a few more movements; it wasn't meant to be complete at this point, and it doesn't feel complete.
But for now I feel much more like doing something John Cage-ish. Maybe I'll write a few Thinking Songs to get back into the swing of it.
Monday, June 9, 2008
Objects
After a bit of a break from composing, I'm back to it again.
I mentioned briefly in the last post that I wanted to write a piano solo based on "Objects," the first part of Gertrude Stein's Tender Buttons. The basic idea is to have a melody which mimics the speech sounds of reading the poems out loud, and harmony which mimics the overtones of vowel-production. Every sound is made up of many overtones - that is, many different pitches stacked on top of each other. The differences in the space between these pitches is what makes one sound sound different from another. In music, it's how you can tell what instrument you're hearing. In speech, it's how you can tell what vowel sound you're hearing. Basically (and this is over-simplifying a lot), the pitch of the second formant (the 2nd-lowest pitch in the sound) relative to the first formant (the lowest pitch in the sound) defines a vowel sound. So in a sense, vowels and harmony are the same thing.
The piece has two voices (a melody and a counter-melody). The lower voice is written by listening to myself read the poem, and mimicking the pitches and rhythms. The upper voice harmonizes with the lower voice at intervals roughly corresponding to the intervals which produce the appropriate vowels. Simple enough, right?
Last week I finally got around to trying it out, and it sounded like crap. Even though I picked poetry which has a distinctly musical sound, the sounds of speech translated to piano music do not sound musical anymore. The aspects of speech which contribute to that "musical" sound in the poetry are just a small part of all of the (technically musical) sounds that are actually going on. You don't expect speech to sound "musical," so I think your brain can isolate the aspects which do and just appreciate those. But when you take it out of the context of speech and play it on a piano, it works the other way around; your brain isolates the aspects which don't sound musical.
I tried to fix it today by simplifying everything. It was already over-simplified to start with relative to actual speech, of course, but now I'm really cranking up the simplification levels -- rounding off all the awkward edges and leaving something much easier to listen to. Also, I'm slowing down the tempo a lot; the harmonies here don't work like a normal harmonic language, but I think if it's going slow enough to really hear everything, you can hear that there is something going on that works on its own terms. I've done the first poem (about 40 words) that way. I think it works, but I'll hold off judgment until I listen to it fresh tomorrow. Honestly, I'll be surprised if it works well enough to make it worthwhile to keep at it.
I mentioned briefly in the last post that I wanted to write a piano solo based on "Objects," the first part of Gertrude Stein's Tender Buttons. The basic idea is to have a melody which mimics the speech sounds of reading the poems out loud, and harmony which mimics the overtones of vowel-production. Every sound is made up of many overtones - that is, many different pitches stacked on top of each other. The differences in the space between these pitches is what makes one sound sound different from another. In music, it's how you can tell what instrument you're hearing. In speech, it's how you can tell what vowel sound you're hearing. Basically (and this is over-simplifying a lot), the pitch of the second formant (the 2nd-lowest pitch in the sound) relative to the first formant (the lowest pitch in the sound) defines a vowel sound. So in a sense, vowels and harmony are the same thing.
The piece has two voices (a melody and a counter-melody). The lower voice is written by listening to myself read the poem, and mimicking the pitches and rhythms. The upper voice harmonizes with the lower voice at intervals roughly corresponding to the intervals which produce the appropriate vowels. Simple enough, right?
Last week I finally got around to trying it out, and it sounded like crap. Even though I picked poetry which has a distinctly musical sound, the sounds of speech translated to piano music do not sound musical anymore. The aspects of speech which contribute to that "musical" sound in the poetry are just a small part of all of the (technically musical) sounds that are actually going on. You don't expect speech to sound "musical," so I think your brain can isolate the aspects which do and just appreciate those. But when you take it out of the context of speech and play it on a piano, it works the other way around; your brain isolates the aspects which don't sound musical.
I tried to fix it today by simplifying everything. It was already over-simplified to start with relative to actual speech, of course, but now I'm really cranking up the simplification levels -- rounding off all the awkward edges and leaving something much easier to listen to. Also, I'm slowing down the tempo a lot; the harmonies here don't work like a normal harmonic language, but I think if it's going slow enough to really hear everything, you can hear that there is something going on that works on its own terms. I've done the first poem (about 40 words) that way. I think it works, but I'll hold off judgment until I listen to it fresh tomorrow. Honestly, I'll be surprised if it works well enough to make it worthwhile to keep at it.
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
gradual process
Finished the Canons piece last week. Decided to omit the titles as they didn't contribute anything, and just designate the piece 3.2008.
I'm not sure how I feel about writing it out by hand rather than using the computer. It did save time, but it's somehow less satisfying. It doesn't feel finished that way. Maybe next time I'll compromise by using the computer but relaxing my formatting standards.
Sorting through my files (both electric and physical), I found a lot of stuff I had forgotten about, or that I like better than I remember. BUT, none of it demands my attention. If anything's unfinished, it's something that I don't feel strongly enough about to finish. Everything is done! Now I can start writing new music, and that's pretty sweet. I'm starting with a piano piece that's been an idea waiting patiently in my head for a year or two, based on Gertrude Stein's Tender Buttons. More on that later.
One thing I came across in my sorting is a clarinet solo I wrote for a music theory seminar in college, and I particularly like it. Another piece with no cause for a title, so I'll be consistent and label it 2.2005. The project it was written for was to present a "theory" to the class, along with an original piece of music using that theory. I picked Steve Reich's "Music as a Gradual Process." Go read the article. It's short and clear and important (to me personally for a number of reasons, but also to the development of music for several decades following its writing), and explains 2.2005 better than I could. Except I will say that one challenge I put to myself writing it was to make the piece sound like "me," not like Reich.
Here it is: Page 1, page 2
I'm not sure how I feel about writing it out by hand rather than using the computer. It did save time, but it's somehow less satisfying. It doesn't feel finished that way. Maybe next time I'll compromise by using the computer but relaxing my formatting standards.
Sorting through my files (both electric and physical), I found a lot of stuff I had forgotten about, or that I like better than I remember. BUT, none of it demands my attention. If anything's unfinished, it's something that I don't feel strongly enough about to finish. Everything is done! Now I can start writing new music, and that's pretty sweet. I'm starting with a piano piece that's been an idea waiting patiently in my head for a year or two, based on Gertrude Stein's Tender Buttons. More on that later.
One thing I came across in my sorting is a clarinet solo I wrote for a music theory seminar in college, and I particularly like it. Another piece with no cause for a title, so I'll be consistent and label it 2.2005. The project it was written for was to present a "theory" to the class, along with an original piece of music using that theory. I picked Steve Reich's "Music as a Gradual Process." Go read the article. It's short and clear and important (to me personally for a number of reasons, but also to the development of music for several decades following its writing), and explains 2.2005 better than I could. Except I will say that one challenge I put to myself writing it was to make the piece sound like "me," not like Reich.
Here it is: Page 1, page 2
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Canons again
To solve the instrumentation problem from last time: rather than use an ensemble that can re-group itself for each movement, I re-wrote the piece so that it only calls for 1 grouping. The new instrumentation is 2 flutes, clarinet, piano, 2 violas and cello.
And so I did that, and that took an hour or three, and then I set about actually writing the sucker out. Six hours later, I've got the first movement. This is why I get bored before finishing anything. Using Finale (the desktop music publishing program), putting down 8 pages of simple, straight-forward music [at least as far as notation goes] and making it look the way I want it, with all of the thinking done before-hand, took 6 hours. While the actual creative portion of three times as much music took half that.
And finally this afternoon it dawned on me. I don't have any reason to be doing that. These pretty, professional-looking scores that I'm printing are just going into a file box anyway. I could totally just write these out sloppy-wise on paper and save the formatting/data entry of computer-produced scores for when I have a reason to print it up nice-looking.
Sometimes I'm a genius.
And so I did that, and that took an hour or three, and then I set about actually writing the sucker out. Six hours later, I've got the first movement. This is why I get bored before finishing anything. Using Finale (the desktop music publishing program), putting down 8 pages of simple, straight-forward music [at least as far as notation goes] and making it look the way I want it, with all of the thinking done before-hand, took 6 hours. While the actual creative portion of three times as much music took half that.
And finally this afternoon it dawned on me. I don't have any reason to be doing that. These pretty, professional-looking scores that I'm printing are just going into a file box anyway. I could totally just write these out sloppy-wise on paper and save the formatting/data entry of computer-produced scores for when I have a reason to print it up nice-looking.
Sometimes I'm a genius.
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
recursive canons
My "Canons" (formerly "Orchestral Canons" -- they don't have new a name yet) are a 4-movement piece I had originally started a very long time ago -- probably the start of my Junior year (2003), but I'm not sure. They're a ridiculously simple idea, which probably accounts for why they're very effective.
The only work I had left on them was orchestrating the final movement, and it looks from my notes like I had a good start on that. But in this case I'm actually glad I didn't finish. In reflection, with the benefit of a much clearer philosophy, I can see that I was screwing them up.
Here's what it sound(s/ed) like:
The orchestral reading sessions were (I assume still are) one of the highlights of UW-Madison's School of Music. Anyone who wants to (granted he knows what he's doing and can commit to the massive amount of work involved) can sign up to have something sight-read (and, time allowing, rehearsed for a few minutes) by one of the school's two orchestras.
Here's the second movement ("Gag"*): UW-Madison Chamber Orchestra -- Reading Session (Bear in mind that this is sight-read.)
It sounds kind of cool and pretty in that Ligeti sort of way, and I was pretty damn pleased at the time. It doesn't sound at all like me, but that's not something I really care that much about -- either it's worth writing or isn't. But the problem is you can't tell what's going on.
Here's what's going on:
Each movement has a very simple theme, or germ or kernel are better words. In the case of "Gag," the kernel is only four notes in two voices:
The shape of the kernel dictates the shape of the piece as a whole. Each note will represent a statement of the theme (or vice versa). First there will be a statement of the kernel at a given transposition and augmentation. (For non music people: transposition is pitch level (how high or low it is), and augmentation is something like duration (how long the notes are).) The second note (in the second voice) begins halfway though the first note, so the second statement will begin halfway though the first statement. The second note is a 4th lower than the first note, so the second statement will be a 4th lower than the first statement. The second note is 3/4 the length of the first note, so all of the notes in the second statement will be 3/4 the length of their counterparts in the first statement. And so on.
You could call this recursive or, at a stretch, fractal. There is such a thing as fractal music, typically rendered by synthesizers and written by computer programs, and this is certainly not that. I've pointed out before the importance of clarity to me. The audience should be able to hear exactly what's happening, and everything that's happening.
In that regard, these pieces are complete failures as I've orchestrated them.
The problem is that I used an orchestra. Blending is something an orchestra, especially the strings, does automatically. It's one of its major strengths. For these to work, every statement needs to be clearly distinct from everything else that's going on. If there are four simultaneous statements of a two-voice kernel (and there are), it should sound like four distinct things happening, not an 8-note chord.
My next step is to figure out what instruments I'll use. The trick here is that most of the movements call for three groups of three instruments, while the second movement calls for four groups of two instruments.
Ideal for 3x3 would be something like 3 woodwinds (flute, clarinet & bassoon), 3 brass (maybe trumpet, horn, tuba), and either piano or 3 strings (maybe violin, viola, cello). Piano has the advantage of not blending as easily as strings, while strings have the advantage of being able to sustain a note for ridiculously long periods of time (important for the piece).
Ideal for 2x4 is harder to pin down - probably 3 pairs of identical instruments plus piano. I keep coming back to piano because of its advantage in being able to be both a 2-voice or 3-voice (or 4-voice) group.
So, how could I make a 2x4 instrumentation out of the suggested 3x3 instrumentation (or something similar to it)? I'm thinking as I type, here. I could use woodwinds, strings and piano for the 3x3, then use (1) high winds, (2) high strings, (3) low wind and low string and (4) piano for 2x4. No, strings blend too clearly - if I use them at all, they have to stay together. I could have a player from each group of 3 sit out for the second movement, and have the piano cover 4 voices. I don't like that, though -- the second movement builds up, and having two players sit out would counter that effect. This is clearly going to take more thinking than I have room for in an already long post.
*The other movements are "Tic," "Sneeze" and, probably, "Song." At the time, I liked to name things after I was done with them. I haven't decided weather or not to keep the titles; they're cute, but don't really add anything.
The only work I had left on them was orchestrating the final movement, and it looks from my notes like I had a good start on that. But in this case I'm actually glad I didn't finish. In reflection, with the benefit of a much clearer philosophy, I can see that I was screwing them up.
Here's what it sound(s/ed) like:
The orchestral reading sessions were (I assume still are) one of the highlights of UW-Madison's School of Music. Anyone who wants to (granted he knows what he's doing and can commit to the massive amount of work involved) can sign up to have something sight-read (and, time allowing, rehearsed for a few minutes) by one of the school's two orchestras.
Here's the second movement ("Gag"*): UW-Madison Chamber Orchestra -- Reading Session (Bear in mind that this is sight-read.)
It sounds kind of cool and pretty in that Ligeti sort of way, and I was pretty damn pleased at the time. It doesn't sound at all like me, but that's not something I really care that much about -- either it's worth writing or isn't. But the problem is you can't tell what's going on.
Here's what's going on:
Each movement has a very simple theme, or germ or kernel are better words. In the case of "Gag," the kernel is only four notes in two voices:
The shape of the kernel dictates the shape of the piece as a whole. Each note will represent a statement of the theme (or vice versa). First there will be a statement of the kernel at a given transposition and augmentation. (For non music people: transposition is pitch level (how high or low it is), and augmentation is something like duration (how long the notes are).) The second note (in the second voice) begins halfway though the first note, so the second statement will begin halfway though the first statement. The second note is a 4th lower than the first note, so the second statement will be a 4th lower than the first statement. The second note is 3/4 the length of the first note, so all of the notes in the second statement will be 3/4 the length of their counterparts in the first statement. And so on.
You could call this recursive or, at a stretch, fractal. There is such a thing as fractal music, typically rendered by synthesizers and written by computer programs, and this is certainly not that. I've pointed out before the importance of clarity to me. The audience should be able to hear exactly what's happening, and everything that's happening.
In that regard, these pieces are complete failures as I've orchestrated them.
The problem is that I used an orchestra. Blending is something an orchestra, especially the strings, does automatically. It's one of its major strengths. For these to work, every statement needs to be clearly distinct from everything else that's going on. If there are four simultaneous statements of a two-voice kernel (and there are), it should sound like four distinct things happening, not an 8-note chord.
My next step is to figure out what instruments I'll use. The trick here is that most of the movements call for three groups of three instruments, while the second movement calls for four groups of two instruments.
Ideal for 3x3 would be something like 3 woodwinds (flute, clarinet & bassoon), 3 brass (maybe trumpet, horn, tuba), and either piano or 3 strings (maybe violin, viola, cello). Piano has the advantage of not blending as easily as strings, while strings have the advantage of being able to sustain a note for ridiculously long periods of time (important for the piece).
Ideal for 2x4 is harder to pin down - probably 3 pairs of identical instruments plus piano. I keep coming back to piano because of its advantage in being able to be both a 2-voice or 3-voice (or 4-voice) group.
So, how could I make a 2x4 instrumentation out of the suggested 3x3 instrumentation (or something similar to it)? I'm thinking as I type, here. I could use woodwinds, strings and piano for the 3x3, then use (1) high winds, (2) high strings, (3) low wind and low string and (4) piano for 2x4. No, strings blend too clearly - if I use them at all, they have to stay together. I could have a player from each group of 3 sit out for the second movement, and have the piano cover 4 voices. I don't like that, though -- the second movement builds up, and having two players sit out would counter that effect. This is clearly going to take more thinking than I have room for in an already long post.
*The other movements are "Tic," "Sneeze" and, probably, "Song." At the time, I liked to name things after I was done with them. I haven't decided weather or not to keep the titles; they're cute, but don't really add anything.
Fingerpaint again again again
Fingerpaint is finished, last Friday. I don't really have anything else to say about it. For all my posting about it, I realize I've actually said next to nothing about Fingerpaint. I'm very happy with the way it turned out, but I'm also kind of sick of it after dragging out its "writing" for so long. If you really want to know what's up with it and can read music, I'd be happy to send out the score. But it will be a few months at least before I'm willing to talk about it intelligently. So I'm just going to immediately go on to posting about the next thing I'm working on.
Friday, February 1, 2008
Fingerpaint again again
Okay, it's been over two weeks since I've done any writing. There have been a lot of other things going on, and I could easily use that as an excuse. But the truth is, I've had plenty of time to work, and I just haven't been. This piece could have been finished almost over night, but instead it's been dragged out for almost two months. Enough of this.
New rule for Daniel: Until Fingerpaint is finished, I won't listen to any new Glenn Gould CDs (I've been working my way through the wonderful box set of his complete studio recordings), and I won't rent any CDs from the library.
Also, so I don't lose any momentum after Fingerpaint is done: From now on*, I won't open Winamp, play a video game or read a book unless I've already spent at least an hour writing.
This seems childish, I know, but it's what I need.
*during the day, on weekdays, assuming I'm not away from home
New rule for Daniel: Until Fingerpaint is finished, I won't listen to any new Glenn Gould CDs (I've been working my way through the wonderful box set of his complete studio recordings), and I won't rent any CDs from the library.
Also, so I don't lose any momentum after Fingerpaint is done: From now on*, I won't open Winamp, play a video game or read a book unless I've already spent at least an hour writing.
This seems childish, I know, but it's what I need.
*during the day, on weekdays, assuming I'm not away from home
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
Are we there yet?
I'm considering abandoning "Fingerpaint." When I came back to it after being away for several weeks for the holidays, I found that it wasn't quite working. Now, that's not a big deal. I could easily figure out what wasn't working, why, and how to fix it, and I did, and it's back on track. The problem is that it got that way in the first place without my noticing.
Writing it at this point is a chore, but one that I considered worthwhile because (1) I like the piece and (2) if I don't force myself to finish things, I won't ever finish anything. But "Fingerpaint" is supposed to be light and simple. The time and effort I find myself having to put into it is completely disproportionate to the results. Not that there's anything wrong with the results -- it's turning out how I wanted it to. But since I'm bored with it, I'm writing excruciatingly slowly, and a light, simple piece is a disappointing result to all that time.
If I walk away from it at this point, I'll probably never come back to it. Maybe I should use this thing I've heard about called "will power," and just write the thing and be done with it.
Writing it at this point is a chore, but one that I considered worthwhile because (1) I like the piece and (2) if I don't force myself to finish things, I won't ever finish anything. But "Fingerpaint" is supposed to be light and simple. The time and effort I find myself having to put into it is completely disproportionate to the results. Not that there's anything wrong with the results -- it's turning out how I wanted it to. But since I'm bored with it, I'm writing excruciatingly slowly, and a light, simple piece is a disappointing result to all that time.
If I walk away from it at this point, I'll probably never come back to it. Maybe I should use this thing I've heard about called "will power," and just write the thing and be done with it.
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