jimmiew

I'm currently a junior in high school and I'm almost certain I want to follow composition into college, I would like to attend some sort of camp or workshop or something this summer to get some clearcut advice and study in a foreign place. So far I've looked at Interlochen and Oberlin for there summer programs but I'm not so sure I want to go for 6 weeks (I'll miss a lot of marching band type things that could put a hamper on my leadership role). Also, I live in Columbus, Ohio but I'm willing to travel; something cheap or with lots of assistance would be nice but not necessary. Thanks for the advice, Jimmie

I recall seeing something about this somewhere, obviously VSTs take a lot of space so if you can drop $150 on a nice external hard drive with a TB of space this would free up your regular hard drive for the rest of your life. Is this possible? Is there any lag? Should I look for something in particular such as firewire or is USB fast enough. Comp Specs: 2.00 GHz processor 3 GB Ram 32-bit OS (Vista SP 2) Thanks for the help

Have you tried simply reauthorizing it with your old info?

penissimo? the only thing other than french and italian bassoon parts that still get me is when anything with Bass in the instrument name is copied so that you get donkey Clarinet, donkey Guitar, assoon, donkey Marimba

Ya, you definitely write more idiomatically but I think that to a certain degree you also write better parts because you know which notes are louder because of how much air/bow is needed and many small details like this. With all of these points already being made, my reason for posting is that I think you're time plots are way off. In my opinion, to build up enough knowledge of the instrument it should really take less than a month of LIGHT practicing. The point of learning all of these instruments as a composers is knowing many small orchestration details and these can be found in less than a month. I personally feel VERY strongly about this topic and have actually put it to work myself, I've play guitar, bass, banjo, cello, viola, violin, trumpet, trombone, saxophone, flute, clarinet, piano, percussion and organ. Once you learn an instrument of a family, which this will take a couple weeks of regular practicing it is MUCH easier to learn enough about the others, I learned what I feel is adequate for composition on violin and viola in less than 5 hours.

Sounds good, the one thing that kind of throws me off is the top of the line where the oboe plays eighth (16th?) notes, it just doesn't feel as mellow and soothing as I think it could if you had the same note length there as the 3 before and then had the subdivision a couple beats later

Both Schoenburg books are absolutely amazing, harmony would be a great area to study next. That being said, I think there are few books you could go wrong with and my method of finding sources like that is to go to used book stores because not only are you likely to find good books but they're cheaper and you can get more. I spent $30 for the Theory of Harmony, then i spent $1.35 for stravinsky's Poetics in Music (I believe thats the title) so really you can get a lot more and sometimes find more interesting things depending on where you live.

Thanks gollam, the stylistic list helps. Ive already been exploring reich, cage and a little bit of adams, ill start taking a look at the hungarian composers next

I think part of why this is so important is because what used to actually be caused by the keys is now caused by the range, our ears are used to hearing songs with a certain passion in a certain key and when we play that key we subconsciously get that feeling. I had honestly never read this and going back to many of my improvisations in different keys, many of them match these almost exactly. Our minds play such a large part in everything we do and we don't even realize it nor have control over it. I recently discovered (in a VERY interesting chamber music workshop) that talking to your hands when you have difficulty playing a part can actually help you play it. This is because one half of your brain is getting frustrated and sending negative signals to the other and when you stop and talk you send positive signals. It honestly works and I think that is a large part of these, our brain hears things and interprets them better than we could ever want, it's basically undiscovered perfect pitch.

I love the beginning and the use of so many voices, the exchanges are great, I can't wait to here the recording.

In jcharney's direction, where did you go? Where are there better composition programs in the area? I've looked at cleveland institute and capitol and they seemed decent (cleveland more than capitol)

Thank you Plutokat, it really helps to have a big list like that, luckily I still have a year until I need to answer that question so I can really read up and listen and maybe even try to find performances.

Thank you Voce, that helps me decide what sort of things to look into. Would Steve Reich count for both of those? Edgar Varese for contemporary? My experience with contemporary music is VERY limited. Thanks

I'm about to start my junior year in high school and I've began attempting to prepare for college and in looking through requirements for composition majors one of the questions Oberlin college of music asks is: Applicants wishing to major in composition will be judged on their knowledge of contemporary music. They should submit lists of the following: 1. contemporary music pieces (scored for traditional instruments) they have heard; 2. electronic pieces they have heard; 3. jazz pieces (or performers) they have heard; 4. 20th-century pieces in other categories (such as multimedia) they have heard; and 5. the pieces, composers, and performers they prefer from each of these categories. Could anybody explain to me and possible give me examples for 1, 2 and 4? Also, has anyone here had any experiences at oberlin? It looks like an amazing program and I would be curious to hear others opinions.

Good luck man, if i had the money I'd go for it right now. Have you thought about updating your cpu instead of just getting rid of it?