Cadenza91

A series of pieces for solo instruments.

As long as it's treated as a non-chord tone, it would be 'correct'. That's no fun though ;)

No one will probably notice unless you give them a score and they're looking for things to nit pick.

Well, the 'more' modern way often doesn't even distinguish dissonance from consonance where intervals are concerned. Many composers focus on other elements to create a sense of push and pull (texture, color, etc.)

It all depends on what you want. You can't really trouble yourself with 300 year old rules when writing music today.

This is the main reason I've moved past concept-music and theoretical systems. The ideas themselves were beautiful from a logical perspective but composing with them was kind of like hitting the '=' button a calculator and the musical result would usually leave a lot to be desired. This approach wouldn't leave much room to fall short of the original idea, but it definitely fell short of being musically stimulating (for me). For some people, composing with systems and concepts produces music they like by a comfortable means. I now prefer a more open-ended approach completely guided by intuition. I definitely fall short of small-scale things from time to time with things like pacing, direction, etc. but I'm trying to accept more of these things for the sake of keeping up creative momentum.

the second one

Keep in mind: if this is something you really want to do, don't wait around until you find someone willing to do the work for you. Learn on your own. It really isn't that hard. Harmony, counterpoint, form...it's not rocket science. Good luck.

Yes, but you're essentially asking for a workhorse. You stated you want someone to take your 10 minutes of music and write 50 more minutes. That's not a partnership. The whole avoiding money thing is nicely Utopian and all, but money (especially when a lot of time and work is involved) is how you know everyone is on the same page. Maybe I'm wrong and you'll find someone here who will be thrilled by your music and would want to do all your work for free but realistically, 'shared credit' and your deepest thanks isn't going to be enough an incentive for most people.

So you have 10 minutes and want someone to write 50 more minutes while remaining consistent with the specific styles already set in place? For free? Then after, you want the same person to educate you on composition? For free? How are you going to expect someone to do all that charity work on your behalf when you're not willing to do any of the hard work to educate yourself and develop as a musician by your own will? Maybe I'm being harsh, but you're being incredibly unrealistic.

I didn't know Eric Whitacre was a member on YC

Lately, I've been approaching 'basic' irrational beat divisions in a certain way which has been of some help. What I do is subtract the 2nd number from the first and then put the remainder in a fraction as the numerator and the 2nd number in the original ratio as the denominator. For example: 4:3 would be 4-3=1 and then 1/3. I then add this fraction to every original division of the beat. This shows me how the original division fits into the irrational one (in this example, the old division is equivalent to 1 and 1/3 of the new beat division). Of course, something like 4:3 can be more easily 'felt', but this approach could be extended to more complex irrational divisions. The obvious weakness to this approach is that it's a bit imprecise: you would need to have a feeling for how much time the beat occupies since the new division would be more important for calculating specific durations. After working out rhythms in this way, it has made me wonder if using 'wrong' ratios (smaller #: larger #) would be more effective, since the original division would be remain prominent when calculating durations. For example: if we were working with 3 8th notes in the time of 5, each of the 3 8th notes would be equivalent to 1 and 2/3rds the length of the old 8th note value.

I'm unsure yet if it's actually a real issue, but I figured I would double check. Most of the piece is like this save for a few spots here and there (which absolutely need extra staves). I considered the 2-stave idea, but I think that having both voices in the same stave makes it easier to see how the polyrhythms line up and is more economic with the space. I understand that single-stave piano music in this style is atypical but so far, it seems that I've managed to get everything to fit snugly, though as you can see, I'm on the fence with what is traditionally proper and what is visually effective (though possibly misleading).

Are the slur/directions in the following bar and a half problematic? I felt that an exception needed to be made with the two slurs for better visibility, though I'm not sure whether or not I should make an exception for the ties. Although they're facing the right direction, I think it looks a little odd since the upper voice is in the relatively lower register while the lower is higher. Edit: for some reason, I'm unable to add my image to the 'My Media' attachments, so here is a link. http://i.imgur.com/iHamaRR.jpg

I use a 2mm lead-holder pencil like this http://www.reliablepaper.com/Staedtler_Mars_Technico_Lead_Holder_p/std780bk.htm?gclid=CO-z7875r7gCFWyCQgodfkQAQg&Click=53253 I get my paper from Judy Green: 15" x 12" with 14 staves.