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Polychords are an advanced way to achieve a grander sound out of whatever ensemble you happen to be writing for. A polychord is rather simply defined: "multiple chords". In the way we'll be discussing them here, this basically means that these "multiple chords" will be stacked on top of each other. "Why would I do this?" you may be wondering to yourself. There are several potential answers to this question. It could be to blur the line of modulation, create offset stacked harmony, or even simply to increase the color complexity of your piece. How do you make polychords? To start off with, you would take a bass harmony of whatever functional (or non-functional) location in your progression you're in, and add another chord (a triad, for now) on top of it. For example, in the standard ii - V7 - I chord progression in jazz, in C major, your D minor chord could have an E major triad on top of it to serve as a leading tone. In the example below, you can see that the E major triad on top of the D minor chord voice leads triadically to F major, which superimposed over the G chord sounds like a G11 chord, finally moving setpwise again to create a G major over C major triad, or what SOUNDS like a C∆9 chord (audio attached). How do I know what chords to pick? This is one of those times where there are two justifiable ways to compose with polychords. The first is simply how it sounds. Do you like how open that polychord sounds? The second is in the double-analytical style, where you analyze two chord progressions simultaneously; one in one voice, and another in the second voice. If it makes sense in terms of the tonic, then chances are it would work well in context. There are however more open/clean and more closed/tense versions of double polychords. Things that have more internal third related intervals or internal consonances generally have an open sound (this includes major AND minor thirds), and things that are based on internal minor seconds, or any other generally dissonant relationship (with exception of perhaps the major seventh, in certain contexts) are more tense. Polychords that use different variations of the same tonic almost always sound jarring for this reason. Obviously, you won't be writing just chords, so when writing melody and accompaniment/counterpoint it's important to keep your voice leading rules in mind to make sure your polychords aren't too stratified, that is to say, too obvious to tell. In my piece, "away, but never back", I use a polychord of Db major, Db augmented, and Db#4, and since the changed note is the 5th every time, it was very easy to make the chord blend (unless, of course, your goal is to have a jarring, super-stratified chord). However, it is important to note that any polychord can sound open or closed depending on your voice leading or spacing. The character of the polychord can be manipulated in this way, but inherent relationships will always exist due to interval inversion. Assignment, if desired: Write a piece for solo, monophonic instrument and piano that makes use of basic bichordal polytonality. I will check up to 4-6 people who want feedback. Write your piece, post to the appropriate forum, then post a link here, if you want.

T H E E N D O F T H E W O R L D YC SUMMER COMPETITION: 2018 Welcome, everybody to the Young Composer Forum's Summer 2018 composition competition! Be it the apocalypse, the rapture, or nuclear annihilation, people throughout the years have always had concerns over the world ending in some way or another. It's exciting, and awesome, and terrifying, yet nobody knows exactly how it will come about. In particular, composers throughout the years have tried to emulate the afterlife, or this process of death (Tchaikovsky Symphony No. 6, and Holst's Ode to Death, etc.) and now I'm asking you to put the fate of the entire world into your hands: how's it all going to go down? GOAL: Write a piece of any instrumentation under the theme of "the end of the world". Note that this is not a piece just about death, however you may follow one person/group of people through their experience of a dying world. You may call upon any context, inspiration, or story to make this happen (i.e. anything from the rapture to alien invasion). ELIGIBILITY: *You must be a member of the Young Composers forum in order to enter. Membership is free and found in the top right corner of the page. Sign ups for the competition will be in the comments below. Simply note that you are interested in judging or participating. *There will again be no limits to instrumentation. Extra points will not be given for smaller or larger ensembles. *The minimum length for this competition is reduced to 3 minutes, but keep in mind you'll have a lot to write about. The maximum is also reduced to 20 minutes. *You must have some sort of audio rendition accompanying your work, otherwise your entry will be disqualified. *A score is required, but is not as heavy a focus as previous competitions. If you want to enter and are not proficient at engraving, message @Monarcheon. *If you volunteer to be a judge, you may not enter as a contest participant. *Entrants should have an intermediate understanding of engraving and orchestration. *Entrants may only submit one work. SCORING: 1. Submit a piece that properly depicts the end of the world in any context. This piece should progress like a story, of sorts, not just simply the event that causes the world to perish. The relation to the source material should be clear in your music in one way or another. Since it is difficult to convey things through sound, your job is simply to convince the judges that you've thought about how to make it work. (/40) 2. The more technically based compositional aspects are judged here. These aspects include score quality (/15), audio file quality (/15), and orchestration (/15) 3. Submit a writing component explaining the context in which the world is being destroyed and explaining how your instrumentation and compositional sections depict your writing. This should include what techniques you used to demonstrate certain aspects of each, keys, styles, or anything else you feel is prudent. (/15) TOTAL: /100 Mark your entry interest by: August 1st Pieces must be submitted by (in another topic that will be posted later, not this thread): August 7th Judges must be finished grading by: August 14th PRIZES: All entrants receive detailed feedback on their works. The winner’s piece will be placed in the YC Competition Hall of Fame. It is possible that winners receive a full year’s subscription compensation to Sibelius, but we are still working on that (THIS FINAL PRIZE IS NOT GUARANTEED). ENTRANTS: @bkho @Youngc @Gustav Johnson @Ken320 @edfgi234 @Hugget Zukker @Noah Brode

Down bows are naturally stronger and up bows are naturally lighter, so if you have a pattern of quarter notes in a 4/4 section with nothing unusual accent-wise, it's best to have down on 1 and 3 and come back up on 2 and 4, to follow the natural accents of the phrase. For a strongly accented passage where there is time between notes, you might want a series of down bows. The player will have time to make a bow circle in the time between notes to reset the bow to play the next note as a down bow. But any time you change bow direction, be it up bow or down, there is also a slight feeling of accent compared to two notes slurred together. Slurred notes give a feeling of smoothness and phrasing. In a particularly smooth line, you'll probably want some slurring, but think about where you would choose to breathe if you were whistling the line. The bow should definitely change direction there at a minimum. Think about where there are natural accents in the line. Those are good places for the bow to change direction. Think about grouping notes according to a repeated pattern to preserve a sense of orderly smoothness: each measure is slurred, or every four eighth notes, or whatever makes sense. Think about how fast or slow a bow can move to play the dynamic you want. Eventually the player will run out of bow and need to turn around, but that will naturally happen faster at a forte than at a piano. Think of the bow arm as dancing. How does the arm want to dance, given the character of the music in a given phrase? Where would you want to kick out a leg or an arm if you were dancing? And don't worry too much about dictating every little thing. String sections generally make their own decisions about how to phrase a line. Sometimes a conductor will dictate how he would like them to slur something to change the accents and improve the balance between the different orchestra sections. They all do this for a living. Trust them. Marking every bowing is like marking which fingers to use in a piano score. It's done for beginning students and it's done in the occasional really tricky passage where it's not intuitive, other than that you can mark your slurs and mainly trust the player to find the best solution for up vs. down.