So what are you working on?

I am working on two orchestral pieces now;

August is a two movement piece themed for Marco Polo's (yes we romanticised the whole thing, including how he had a romance with a chinese lady of the prime minister, etc) arrival and departure from China. A short film to be done by my school's Music and history Depts.

Variations in D minor is a single movement piece that is in the beginning stages of writing. Gloomy. hmm.

Variations in D minor is a single movement piece that is in the beginning stages of writing. Gloomy. hmm.

D minor IS the saddest key...

D minor IS the saddest key...

That's highly debatable. Refferences death, but not saddest. It's F minor.

Cows are the cowiest animals

D minor IS the saddest key...

"I call it.......'Lick my love pump.'"

Cows are the cowiest animals

Lies, chickens are the chickenest animals.

Comeon guys, which key is what-That is all very very subjective!

Why? It is so subtle? It has got to do with the ranges of the instruments and what parts they play, and the overall acoustic experience the individual tones and timbres add up to. and key is just one of the variables.

I swear i can write a happy piece in D minor.

wait. minor keys sound sad to me anyway. I shall retract my sworn statement.

:D

ck, see Daniel's post. If you don't get it, google it.

Ferkungamabooboo, I get what he IS trying to say, but i dont necessarily agree with what HE says. or what you said for that matter.

I was commenting on how it sounds gloomy. My piece, not the key.

Get my point? =)

and nonetheless, i was just trying to make my point known. hmmm.

Btw, I read that before, but its all fiction:

Nigel Tufnel of the fictitious band Spinal Tap believes that D minor is "really the saddest of all keys," and that when a musician begins to play in D minor, "everyone instantly starts weeping".

note the wording, FICTITIOUS.

Some character of a fictitious band says that. How would you expect me to believe in that? not like its an objective statement made by a reasonable authority with credible information.

and seriously, i dont think D minor itself is so sad, oh puh-lease.

PS: nothing personal. Got a tad too emotional. :angry:

Some character of a fictitious band says that. How would you expect me to believe in that? not like its an objective statement made by a reasonable authority with credible information.

*pssssst*

They were joking.

:whistling:

As a little byte of information:

D minor is considered in baroque through the un-even temperament to be an "aggressive" and sort of "take action!" key. You get pieces like the typical Bach D minor toccata & fugue and such other stuff which are generally pretty aggressive in character. See also the WTK pieces in D minor.

I specifically mention un-even temperament because that tuning system provides a real difference between each key (as opposed to simple transpositions in the even temperament system in use today.)

So if anything, I wouldn't say it's SAD. Sad in baroque affect is B minor, for example, while C minor is "intellectual" or a sort of high-grade thing (Bach's musical offering subject, the most complex he ever wrote, is in C minor.)

But anyways, enough of that. ;P

PS: CPE Bach was pretty much keen on "up to you" interpretations of the baroque affects in how he used them. Specially keys and modulations. Just for the record, he still used them but more liberally than his father or the polyphonic German tradition.

It is all in context. I don't believe in that bullshit.

In the case for the baroque things I mentioned there's a very specific point to be made in that affects and keys were well known to mean X or Y by the listener of that time. They'd expect something in B minor to be sad and something in D major to be heroic, triumphant, etc. Look at Bach's Magnificat in D major, or the D major prelude & fugue for organ and the WTC book 1 one.

Bach (and other composers of the time, of course) specifically wanted you to interpret any given piece in a certain way given the affects he used and the key he picked. It's not an "up to you" thing, that comes later with CPE Bach and further on by dropping the affects and this whole thing altogether.

Also interesting: Contrary to popular opinion, Bach DID NOT write the WTC books with even temperament in mind at all, since it would be pointless to write 24 preludes and fugues that were just transpositions of eachother practically. No, they were meant to be played with non-even instrument so each key sounded different, and the affects therefore not only make the effect in each piece that much more extreme but together with the tuning it's something very clear as to what he meant.

Anyways, once even temperament tuning became the norm, keys stopped being really different one from the other in practical terms and became just transpositions. So, by Schubert the context of having something in Eb minor (which was interpreted at the time to be the most tragic key to write in) is only psychological or cultural, because there's no real difference if you transpose it to A minor or C minor (in fact many singers do this and there are many versions of lieder that are transposed from their original keys...)

Just to clear that up.

Im new to this site, but from what I can see, there is a lot of jumping-to-conclusions.

I think that guy meant it to be a joke. there's a wikipedia article I was reading recently about d minor and that quote is from a movie called "this is spinal tap" . Its proabaly hard to get sarcasm thru the internet.

As a little byte of information:

D minor is considered in baroque through the un-even temperament to be an "aggressive" and sort of "take action!" key. You get pieces like the typical Bach D minor toccata & fugue and such other stuff which are generally pretty aggressive in character. See also the WTK pieces in D minor.

I specifically mention un-even temperament because that tuning system provides a real difference between each key (as opposed to simple transpositions in the even temperament system in use today.)

So if anything, I wouldn't say it's SAD. Sad in baroque affect is B minor, for example, while C minor is "intellectual" or a sort of high-grade thing (Bach's musical offering subject, the most complex he ever wrote, is in C minor.)

But anyways, enough of that. ;P

PS: CPE Bach was pretty much keen on "up to you" interpretations of the baroque affects in how he used them. Specially keys and modulations. Just for the record, he still used them but more liberally than his father or the polyphonic German tradition.

Horrifically off topic, but I find that really interesting - wasn't CPE the Bach until Mendelssohn reintroduce JS? It'd be really interesting to compare descriptions of affect in historical traditions over time... any good places to look?

Welcome, LD :)

It's so great that we have a thread where we can read about what people are working on! This forum is so great!

Horrifically off topic, but I find that really interesting - wasn't CPE the Bach until Mendelssohn reintroduce JS? It'd be really interesting to compare descriptions of affect in historical traditions over time... any good places to look?

Welcome, LD :)

Quite. Well, there are lots of books on it, but most of them that I know are in German and I'd have to look'em up since I don't have them personally (I usually read them at the library...) If you really want to get an idea for the affects you can simply look up the WTC and compare it to CPE's works of his early and late periods (since in between he worked with even tempered instruments, so his compositions from that period aren't such a good comparison.) You can look up also all sorts of stuff by, say, Frescobaldi or Froberger (his fugues for example, which greatly influenced Bach Sr.), etc etc. Fischer too.

Anyways, it may be off topic but since the topic did go there why not give some info that may as well be useful.

I get that SSC.

Thank you for the more in-depth.

See, but there is a distinguisable point there. There were expectations for D minor... but no real objectivity.

People mix up scientific with the socially engineered on this site all the time.

Don't confuse them more!

But it's so fun! :<

im working on nothing. im watching the olympics 24/7.

Something top secret that doesn't involve bumping threads...

And a string quartet, an easy keyboard suite, and some ranodm Just Intonation things.

Someone should write a modern piece based on the Olympics, somehow.

But I don't know how that'd work. Maybe a movement for each of the disciplines??

I am working on a piece called Inspiration. It's a four part piece. It's going to be my senior class's band present to our directors.

Lifelong March-very march-like. Heavy trombone licks since this director plays trombone, played for UT Longhorn band and was in the military band.

Dream Come True-French horn and flute duet practically. Very lyrical until the end where I throw in a spanish flare for the colorguard director.

Catch that Sax!-very Jazzy and light hearted. Humorous in a way. The saxes are going to play a part, the band attempts to copy but messes up and the saxes tell them wrong and try again. The band will finally get it...

Perc-E!-Percussion major piece being inspired by Transiberian Orchestra and Dream Theater.

Someone should write a modern piece based on the Olympics, somehow.

But I don't know how that'd work. Maybe a movement for each of the disciplines??

Winter and summer? Or two different pieces?

As I work out this ballet, I'm realizing how much I need to carry around a tape recorder to sing musical ideas into. I'm so used to coming at songs from a place of lyric first, and there's no lyric in a ballet. Mine's not your typical ballet (no details at this moment, sorry), but it is a ballet nonetheless, and it's harder to keep musical ideas solid.

If I get a lyrical idea for something, whether it has music with it or not, I can grab something and jot the lyric down. And then, generally, if I have the lyric written down, the melody will stick with me. Perhaps I should write dummy lyrics for my ballet?

For all y'all who work in strictly instrumental music: how much of it happens in your head, how much on paper, how much at the piano? (Is this a discussion for another thread?)

Winter and summer? Or two different pieces?

As I work out this ballet, I'm realizing how much I need to carry around a tape recorder to sing musical ideas into. I'm so used to coming at songs from a place of lyric first, and there's no lyric in a ballet. Mine's not your typical ballet (no details at this moment, sorry), but it is a ballet nonetheless, and it's harder to keep musical ideas solid.

If I get a lyrical idea for something, whether it has music with it or not, I can grab something and jot the lyric down. And then, generally, if I have the lyric written down, the melody will stick with me. Perhaps I should write dummy lyrics for my ballet?

For all y'all who work in strictly instrumental music: how much of it happens in your head, how much on paper, how much at the piano? (Is this a discussion for another thread?)

Dunno. Maybe two set of pieces? One for winter and one for summer?

Also, writing dummy lyrics can help if that's how you work better. I would try it if I were you at least.

And as far as I go, I never use the piano to write music. If I have to try out sounds and stuff I'll do it at the PC real quick, but generally most of the "how it should sound" is directly in my head and I don't really need to check it, only write it down.

I sort of leave instruments for playing, not composing. Personally it helped me develop a sort of sense for how things should sound and should be written without really having to hear anything. That's probably also a matter of experience if you're used to playing/writing a lot of varied music.

Though, I don't have a problem if anyone wants to orient themselves with a piano or whatever, so long as they get stuff done that they aren't whining about later on!

I do mostly all instrumental composition. The basic idea and concept take place in my head. Layering it with different instruments that I hear happen on paper, along with things like cool little licks. Not much of my time is spent on the piano for the matter of I write atonal pieces therefore, I use my intuition and my mind to create everything.

I'm working on this: Lego Universe: Behind the Scenes as well as a few other projects with NetDevil then also stuff in my home studio.

I am working on five things.

River Boat Stomp, a Two Step in F Major. It's an A1-B-A2-C-A3 progression and I only need the C part really then it is completed. I am having some trouble getting it out on paper since I am mainly ear trained.

Alkaline Shuffle is a ragtime march in F# Major. I am in love with the main theme and I am currently in the middle of the B part. It's an A-B-A progression. I'm having a really hard time writing this one out but I can play really well.

Winnipeg March is another march this time in G Major. This is mainly just rough ideas so far.

I also am doing an untitled (so far) ragtime waltz in Eb Minor. It also is just a bunch of ideas.

I am sort of working on a Fugue which I play either in C or Eb depending on how I'm feeling. I'm pretty much stumped on it and rarely make any progress.