composerorganist

Very simple, say you want to move from B flat major to C# major. You modulate to C major and then through an enharmonic modulation you move to B # major which serves as a VII of C# major. Or say you are in C major and and managed to get your self to G # minor. You could easily get to a B sharp major chord that could be enharmonically respelled later as C major as you try to return to this key. It is esoteric and useless if you take Reger's modulations at face value - that is employed for 2 - 4 bars literally (and I do believe there is a bit of tongue in cheek in that book). These are rather models which Reger offers the composer to employ imaginatively in his own compositions. For the example I gave, More sudden enharmonic modulations occur in a few pieces of Chopin - a famous example is one of his waltzes where within just a few measures moves to the #V of A flat major and stays there for a little bit before respelling the chord as the flat VI. .

Thanks for the clarification! If I get time I'll try to compose a tenor sax piece but grad school is resuming -- the madness will begin shortly!

Ah welcome to composing! Yes develop one idea. How? Here are a few "games" to get you going: 1) Try it in duple (eg 4/4, 2/4) , triple (3/4, 6/8), or a mixture (5/8, 7/4) pattern 2) Write the backwards version of it, you r end note is your start note. Invert the intervals or melodic interval. So if you melody jumps up a fifth, create another that inverts the jump down a 4th. When you do that try the inverted idea backward. 3) Create a round, eg something like Row Row Your Boat is a common canon. It might not work at first but as you work out the round you might end up with a nice short piece. 4) Take one of your ideas and ask does this seem as it is posing a question or providing an answer, or both? Usually ideas do one or the other rather than both. Provide an answer to your question and vice a versa. Hope these ideas help.

I have an soprano sax piece - check in the chamber music thread and look for High . The piece allows for quite a bit of rhythmic freedom so you can have the piece longer than the performance given. If you can do microtones, then you might like the ending - the performance I posted does not capture them exactly. Depending on the compensation and length you desire I might be able to add more pieces.

Writing convincing larger scale forms. I am stuck at the 12 minute mark. Allowing myself to fail at writing orchestral pieces so that I finally get to writing a good orchestral piece. Charge more money for the services I can provide well - piano technique for beginners to early advance students, most undergraduate theory and counterpoint Improve my counterpoint further Set a more consistent composing schedule - especially when non-music jobs or non- composing activities dominate my time. Read more poetry, study more scores and read more theory analyses Perform my own works in public a few times a year to know what I am putting my fellow pianists/organists through! Write another string quartet and woodwind quintet to improve form, and counterpoint.

Yes but this always crop up because we have new members who admire many composers of the past but a few might not have had wide exposure OR just prefer older music (just as some people prefer 1960's and 1950's pop music over anything else). This will, as usual, fizzle out. I just put up an opposite poll to show the futility of such polls in providing anything but fuel for a flame war.

Maybe we should have a poll for those who write tonal music? Poll: Those who write tonal music do so because they are copping out, lack imagination, and can only do style copies? Yes of course you silly bird. Would you like to join me in selling those tonalists quill pens, lead mascara, and powdered wigs! Ah only a few can truly get away with writing good tonal music since much of the possibilities of tonal music have been exhausted! Of course not, there are all sorts of tonality - pick one shall we? Indian ragas? Arabic maquams? Western major/minor scale - or octatonic as Schubert was the first to use it. Ah, I write twelve tone music a la Mozart and can wrestle late Romantic harmony into the strictest counterpoint a la Bach - I am awesome, none shall threaten me. Not applicable, I work with spatial music, sound design, and resonating the universe's aura, tonality is just one consequence of my music that meets the needs of ALL seeking enlightenment!

Yes and no Tokke. His stuff is in its orchestration and scope very much of its time but structurally and harmonically was able to introduce innovations to get the symphony from the concerto grosso form (Vivaldi was trying but never freed himself from the irregular Baroque period structure). Some of his work did get overshadowed by Haydn but the guy did so many things which Haydn and even Beethoven used as a foundation to expand. One small example, Wagenseil would articulate a cadence on the tonic at the end of exposition but then repeat the chords to land on a weak beat thereby creating a rhythmic displacement 9a rhythmic dissonance) that would be resolved only upon taking the repeat in the exposition. Check for comparison Haydn Roxelane Symphony. Anyway here is an example of a Wagenseil Symphony - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_XEbQIQhyw And btw congrats on the music engraving job! Saw it on your LinkedIn. Oh and I heard a fantastic performance of Shostakovich's Lenningrad Symphony for a benefit for Doctors without Frontiers working in Syria. Amazing players they got Neidich on clarinet, Azmeh also on clarinet ... and orchestra players from NY Phil, Philly, regional and international orchestras. It was at Carnegie Hall last night (the 13th). I never got that symphony until I heard this performance, pacing and playing was brilliant and it convinces me this is just one of those symphonies that suffer greatly from recording - you get a ton from the visual choreography Shosty had in mind.

Sigh, never quite sure. My best pieces to me are always the ones I am working on at the moment - then reality sets in! But based on reactions from listeners here are a few some of which (without a link) you can find at my soundclick page - http://www.soundclick.com/comporgan Chamber: "The Other Side" Quintet for piano and string quartet. Very personal worked I slaved over for almost 2 years. Not perfect by any means but it means much to me. "Mood Music" for Wind Trio, flute, bassoon, and oboe. Another personal work that seems to peak interest from a few listeners and I find one of my more successful experiments. Solo: "Volcano" for solo organ. An oldie but a goodie which is a crowd-pleaser though occasionally I get some who don't care for it. "Interlude for solo organ" a very short work but interesting as I take a very traditional cadential formiula and expand it into a work. Some people really like it though i have not gotten a live performance yet. It was an annoying piece to write as it literally was crying to be written until finally at 1 am I started to write just on paper and pen and slowly refashioned it as I heard the Sib replay. Here is one case where the playback can be helpful - pointing out some sounds that you might not care for and then revise AWAY from the computer. "Etude" for piano is one of the most fun pieces I have ever wrote using Gershwin and Czerny as a model. here is a computer rendition, awaiting release of me performing it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vGbV6dIURaU "Variation 1 from Intro and variations for solo clarinet" - one of my most experimental pieces as the whole thing is multiphonics. Worked intensely with a clarinet player which makes its playability quite limited. But check the recording for how beautiful clarinet multiphonics can be! Vocal "Crossing the Straits" I am more proud of it for its ambitious scope and my first opera scena. I enjoy the mezzo soprano aria best but I am very proud of this work as I wrote both the libretto and music working with an excellent opera composer.

The roots of Romanticism started with CPE Bach overall but his style is so idiomatic to say it was early Romanticism, it is simply CPE Bach. When you get to late Mozart (about 1787) you hear already early characteristics of the style of Schubert. In some cases with Mozart his music gets so chromatic to suggest early 20th century (much like late Bach is harmonically and contrapuntally as ambitious as Wagner and beyond). The full onset of the Romantic period really was in the 1790's, you can hear it in Haydn's Op 76 Quartets already and some of Clementi's Sonatas. Finally, Rameau in his ORIGINAL manuscripts incorporated a ton of harmonic daring which he later revised to make more palatable for French audience (for example removing diminished chords here and there). I tend to think of musical styles as cyclical where form and chromaticism grows for period (for example late Lassus in 16th and Gesualdo in early 17th) and then is reformulated (monteverdi) and simplified (Schutz's late works) before another cycle resumes (again we can argue with late Bach and some Vivaldi). But here are a few links: CPE Bach (very much of the Sturm and Drang of this time) - 1756, only composer doing similar harmonic exploration might have been Rameau (who died in 1750). But we do here where Haydn, mozart, and early Beethoven got their ideas! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3mmvr50lXBc Mozart Gigue written about 1787 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQvzXirNzJk JS Bach 6th Partita for keyboard http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ijFIBPN5mro

Wagenseil was an innovative symphonist which history books mention in passing as the composers who formed the transition from Vivaldi's Concerto Grosso to the symphonies of Haydn, Mozart, and CPE Bach. JS Bach was also an important influence but Wagenseil use of form and harmonic displacement as well as some of his harmonic progressions were grabbed by Haydn and Mozart. I suggest checking any of Symphonies and comparing them to Haydn's from about Hoboken 30's through 50's.

Yup do know Biber. Also introduced some wild string techniques that were revived in the late 20th century such as placing paper between the strings on a violin. In fact a good thread that might be educational is to have people add similar "near greats" who were very influential on more famous composers. I'll add Wagenseil who was one of the early to mid century 18th century symphonists who had a profound effect on Haydn and in some ways Mozart.

Many of you are familiar and write well in the early 19th century Romanticism style, but the source of this was Cherubini in his operas. Cherubini came up with three key expositions - that is you have three key areas as the primary material is presented in the exposition of a work. A famous exmple is Schubert's late Quintet which has C minor, E flat major, and G major in the exposition. Of course late Mozart and even in Haydn they range oall over the place at times (sometimes to the point the material is entirely chromatic) but these are only temporary modulations to a key that is not established. And french opera was already showing some preogressive strains under Gluck but even Mendelssohn said the first half of the 19th century in Western art music is indebted to Cherubini. Interesting thing is as composers such as Beethoven and later Schubert caught onto Cherubioni's innovation and his style was out of favor due to the new leader of France (yes politics play a huge role in art!) he retired to be a counterpoint teacher at the new Paris Conservatory and became stylistically conservative. But it wasn't until I took a good grad level music history/analysis course that this was made clear. So, it illustrates in a way the danger of worshipping the canonically accepted "great" composers. Here are a few links to his opera overtures. Medee (1797) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5vvwSMgcZTE Der Wassertrauger (1801) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DsrYbDxFoiM Late work of his Requiem in D minor http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rqDutniURP4 Unfortunately he was a pretty poor teacher and his opera output in quality and amount fell off - though he praised Mendelssohn (he rarely praised musicians, he said of Beethoven's late works it made him sneeze) Here is a history probably taken from Grove - http://www.theodora.com/encyclopedia/c/maria_luigi_carlo_zenobio_salvatore_cherubini.html

Well, accessibility is dependent on sociological conditioning and what the listner can compare it too. Here is a good example Which would be more accessible Richard Strauss or Mahler to a listener only mildly acquainted with classical music? Straus probably because his orchestration has a sound that much film music has used for decades if not the past century. Also, Strauss has written some shorter work, I forgot to mention length does determine accessibility. Even devout classical listeners that think nothing of spending six hours with Wagnerian opera is a bit uncommon - a scena, overture, or a portion fine. There is no such thing as atonal just something that does not use a commonly found scale or pitch class system. I am not sure what is inaccessible. For those not familiar with classical music some of the songs from Peirrot are extremely difficult to get - but only some. The poster's experience with the Boulez is enlightening as an interesting rhythm can cover severe weaknesses (think of what gets on the radio because as one person told me music has to have a "beat") or make palatable a very intricate design that requires multiple listening for its beauty. Finally, social condition ing is huge - I recall a concert where a guy into drum and bass sitting next to me loved the loud dissonant sections of Rite of Spring and quickly fell asleep when things quieted down.

Hello Vince. Interesting duel here. When I have time will taken a hear and look.