Uhor

Amazing! Please notate this, I wanna watch it unfold (and maybe send it to a competition because it has the quality and the edge).

I love this, devil's in the details they say, keep it up!

These past few weeks I've been obsessing over this work. It began as an homage to Ligeti and Denisov., which produced this first version. But the thing kept buzzing in my mind and so I intercalated new contrasting sections with a faster tempo. Finally I added some transitional sections. And so this is its first final form. Edit: added the score

This is really nice! Reminds me of Camille Pépin's Les Eaux célestes. I'm a sucker for anything impressionism so I'll be awaiting the end product with enthusiasm. The only suggestion not mentioned before is consider adding/elaborating more complex ostinatos in later sections, just simple ones can get tiresome if they span too long. There's some examples to be found in La mer (obviosuly) and of course in The Rite of Spring. As for new ideas: 1) Sections built mainly with syncopations. 2) Dark sections in Locrian or Phrygian or a combination of the two, for tonal and modal contrast. 3) Sections built with symetrical scales (https://chromatone.center/theory/scales/symmetrical/), still thinking Debussy but also Bartok and early Messiaen. 4) Climatic chorales with thick polychords as in Daphnis et chloe.

I composed these two short Orchestral pieces after a harsh bout of existential dread. In the first one I wrote the polymodal/harmonic plan first and then filled in with a "plastic melody" technique that I've been using for a while in which I divide an original melody and travel around its motifs. For the second one I only planned the sections once it was begun and the idea grew more intuitively into having pairs of contrasting sections that develop on their own terms. Also I've been playing around with "microsyncopations" that blur the beat in the more complex slow sections. The sound is Noteperformer, the scores are pending revision so I won't post them unless there's a lot of interest for them.

Reminds me of Bax's Symphony No.3.

Thank you for the review. My view on serialism is that it works only at larger structural levels and it is better for the lower surface levels to be done intutively / undeterministically if you want the result to sound natural. For example If you want to serialise rhythm its better to generate collections of rhythms and serialise the use of those than serialising individual durations and rhythms. About the chords, they are derived from combining two diatonic modes (with their important notes prioratized) each which produces often non-diatonic collections but retain some familirarity I think. About the counterpoint: I used to use too much, generating very dense polyphonic textures, maybe I went the other way in this now! I think it definitely can be improved in some ways you suggested with more focused phrasal structures and pseudo-cadences of various kinds so that the flow is less continued and the music breathes.

In this work I serialised my harmonic system, metre and tempi so that using two rows from Webern and classical and harmonic minor modes I obtained 12 chords in 12 diferent metres and 12 different tempi for 12 sections. Each section I tried to be a different combination of elements from texture and/or rhythm. I perhaps should have thought of 12 different modulations. The last two sections are a modified/enriched recapitulation of the first two. I think the overall result is a mostly meditative piece.

I work religiously from the bass-up, but there are three concepts that come to mind: The Undertone series The minor mode system as a reflection of the Major system Negative Harmony There is also this, you'd think it would sound awful but it's ethereal:

My experience online makes me think the opening statement is not true. There are plenty of young people interested in say Stockhausen, they even make score videos of his music and there is a whole accepting community on reddit and discord around classical music. There are more young composers than ever in History. What I do think is right is that high end classical music will probably never appeal to the wider masses again. We are up into metamodernism and the common folk can't digest even neoclassical stuff from almost a century ago. The only exception seems to be when it is features in a mass appeal movie. This is why I think we need a visual element encouraged in new music, perhaps artificial intelligence will make that a lot cheaper and accessible.

Some composers are very secretive about their craft, I think that is selfish and a stupid game for composers and analysts to play. Here I share the techniques that define the music I'm composing now, most of them are well known but still. Polychords and Polymodes: Take two or more scales on the same or different tonics. Label the scale degrees. Build common chords (tertian, quartal, secundal, etc) on top of each degree. Rank the notes of each chord according to the importance you want to give them, I usually rank root > perfect fifth > minor third > perfect fourth Combine the notes from the same degrees from the two scales, ranking higher the notes that repeat. Pedals Any note of high rank in the mode can act as a pedal. The principal chords also make good pedals. Melody and Progressions: Any melody that uses the high ranking notes of the polymode as goalposts can be the structural basis of the work. Any harmonic progression that follows the patterns of the melody in any direction is good. Harmonic sequences derived from repeatedly transposed sections of the patterns are also good. Only highly dissonant notes require resolution, conventional or otherwise. Doubling: Melodies can be doubled at any general interval that the chords allow. They can be doubled to form entire chords. The chords can move in parallel since their only purpose is thickening and colouring the line. More than one melody can be doubled this way but more than three at the same time is so muddy the melodies become unhearable. Rhythm and Metre: Schemes of either can be pitch-associated or not. Douple time is better for rest, triple for movement and odd for instability. Even rhythms generate rest, odd ones different kinds of movement. Syncopation by suspension pushes the music back. Off-beat syncompation does the opposite. Tuplets generate a floating/free feeling of time inside them. Polyrhythms that can be clearly discerned enrich a texture, if they cannot they generate an atmosphere. Texture: All four types stand equal footing but: Long Monophony needs to be extremely varied in durations and metre, otherwise it is boring. Heterophony needs to be more elaborate each layer, almost by definition, to a lesser level than monophony. Homophony can be more simple, specially when dealing with complex chords, though metrical changes are still most welcome. All polyphony is good, the more characteristic the individual melodies the better. Development Every developmental technique compatible with the above is allowed, some are: Augmentation and Diminution of intervals and/or durations. Insertion and deletion of notes. Fragmentation into motifs of longer melodies and progressions. Permutations of any of the materials. Modulation and transposition into other polymodes. Serialisation of different materials or paramenters of the piece. Pitch multiplication Retrogradation and Inversion Imitation, Canons and Fugues Hope you found any of this interesting or helpful, and share your own selection with us please!

How do I decide? I first think of a sonic colour, then I pick the instruments and harmonies that will express it best. For example: if I want a magical winter feel I'll go for clarinets, flutes, horns and strings and then harmonies derived from Dorian and Lydian. Which ensembles I find more challenging? Homogeneous ensembles like String Orchestra because timbre variety drives my creativity to a great extent.

I made a Reddit post about this a while back: I've noticed some commonalities in the music of a lot of contemporary living composers for orchestra: Timbre takes center stage: The purpose of the composition is to generate its own sound-world and different, sometimes exotic, instruments are used or highlighted for their evocative power. Limpid harmonies: the tones of the chords all blend well and sound clean as opposed to strident, blurry or muddy. Detailed rhythmic patterns that can be performed with good fidelity by top musicians. Rhythmic dissonance is preferred over harmonic harshness: complex polyrhythms permeate the compositions and the many interactions between them are at the crux of climaxes. De-emphasis of counterpoint: Any multiple lines present are treated primarily as texture rather than as independent lines. Clear self-similar textures: every element of the textures is necessary and can be discerned well, the textures seem to be constructed either by expanding a motivic pattern (bottom-to-top) or by carving a large structure in an ordered way (top-to-bottom). Textural layering: different contrasting textures are juxtaposed, each with their own direction or function, supporting each other or generating chaos. Abrupt accentuation: contrasting sounds that appear as point-objects can mark the transition from one section to another and/or have a smaller role as foreign elements that spice up the music.

I've been writing something Neomedieval. I wanted to introduce metrical changes into my music so I went to Greek poetry forms and settled on the two famous Aeolic stanzas. I used the most elementary form of their rhythms as scaffolding for this composition. The resulting structure is: u = half note, – = whole note Sapphic stanza, with harmonies from F Lydian, C Octatonic and G Phrygian. – u / – – / – u / u – / u – – – u / – u / – u u / – u / – – – u – / – – u / u – / u – u / – u / u – – Alcaic stanza, with harmonies from C Lydian, G Messiaen Mode 3 and D Messiaen Mode 6. u – u / – u – /u u – / u – – – u / – – – / u u / – u – u – u / – u – / u – – – u / u – / u u – / u – – After those I pick alternating verses from each and repeat them with some changes and additions. It ends in a dominant sonority, a cliffhanger. Perhaps I should write a follow-up poem to go after it.

I just wrote an introduction and a melody with some progressive diminutions of it and thought it was nice. The material for this little thing split off from a piece imitating Bartok I was writing first. I could expand it through contrapuntal operations and interval expansion, explore more harmonies, etc. but I don't think it's quite worth it.