Lesson with Raining_Hail (General Composition)

So, Rain, what can I do for you?

You MSG'd me already with some of the areas you want to review or work on. So, pick something and let's get to work.

Hi

Firstly, for the purposes of outsiders who are reading this, I am at University about to enter my final year. But for reasons out of my control for example illness, it has been a several months since I did any serious sort of composition. I find, as a result, I am a more than a little out of practice and I have the next 4 weeks free. These lessons will be more of a refreshers course in basics as well as development of my weaker areas.

I am thinking we should do something a little simple to get started. How about I write a little ABA work for string quartet so you can see where I am currently at?

Sounds good.

So, any progress? Anything you may want to show me? :>

Actually .... not really. I don't particularly want to go into details but yet again my personal life has killed any and all chance of me just composing just for the sake of it. This time, however, I am just lucky to still be a student.

I did however have to in the course of sorting out the above have to write something for uni which demostrates very clearly what is going on. I can't upload it right now, the phone company messed up my internet at home and I am stuck on crap university computers but I should be able to upload something this weekend.

Actually .... not really. I don't particularly want to go into details but yet again my personal life has killed any and all chance of me just composing just for the sake of it. This time, however, I am just lucky to still be a student.

I did however have to in the course of sorting out the above have to write something for uni which demostrates very clearly what is going on. I can't upload it right now, the phone company messed up my internet at home and I am stuck on crap university computers but I should be able to upload something this weekend.

I'm sorry to hear about that (also sorry for not replying sooner) but well if there's anything I can do for you, I'll be glad to help.

Hi SSC, I am sorry. Final year is really really hetic now. My composition supervisor though has taken me under his wing so to speak - I am a lot happy now.

Hi SSC, I am sorry. Final year is really really hetic now. My composition supervisor though has taken me under his wing so to speak - I am a lot happy now.

No problem. Glad to hear about your teacher, but my offer obviously still stands and since we already have this thread going feel free to use it if you want to bounce ideas off me or maybe discuss something.

If you want we can also put it on hold, up to you.

Can we discuss rhythm a little? In particular I mean looking at rhythm in accompanying parts.

Here are two examples of my work (apologies for the slurs in the pdf, I am trying out a trial on a new program and clearly it doesn't like them)

Rosebuds (2008)

Score (audio to follow when I can get all 50mb of it uploaded)

I recently completed this, I was in a rush but I hit a common problem. I wrote 2 melodies which I used the woodwind for and played out with. Then when it came to strings, I was like OMG, how the hell to write for them and keep them in the background? I wanted the piece's focus to be the woodwind colour and keep the strings simple - though what I achieved might have been overkill on simpleness.

Under the Celtic Barrow (2006) Score Audio

This actually HAD to have simple strings with very little movement as a piece requirement for coursework but I am uploading this because this is the culprit. Ever since I wrote this piece, I can't get rhythmically interesting ideas into my music because I am so focused on the lyrical side of my melodic material.

My composition supervisor is trying to get me to forget about melodic material for the time being and told me to go to a piano and compose an 8 chord progression. I have no luck with the progression but I did come up with an 8 bar melody. ;)

EDIT - Sorry about having to download the files before viewing, I used to use another site but I forget my password and I am still awaiting a new one

Just as a tip before I say anything else, you can convert .wav files to mp3 using audacity, for example. So in case you have to upload stuff it doesn't take so long. :>

Well, I think one of the major things to keep in mind is that both melodic development and rhythm go hand in hand. Look at Bartok or Stravinsky's usage of rhythm, it's always accentuated by how the melodies are working.

I think one thing that would help you a bunch is writing for solo percussion, or focusing on percussion some. With the difficulty to establish a melodic/etc ground (in a traditional sense) you would be forced to think outside of that context and work more with rhythm figures.

Another idea is, if not working with percussion directly, invoke percussive elements such as accents/noise produced by extended techniques such as the flute/clarinet keys hit noises, etc etc. Of course, it's just a thing for loosening up the hand if it's gotten complicated to get in the mindset you want to write rhythmic sections or work with rhythmic material.

So, something to think about regarding that particular issue which I hope is helpful.

As for the pieces you posted, I'm interested to hear why you don't think the effect you wanted to achieve with the first one worked properly or not as you would've hoped. I think both are quite static, but static/stillness is also a useful tool and in this case I think that the simplicity may not be so bad considering the duration of the piece and that it paints a significant character clear. But that's of course only my opinion.

Ok, Percussion is my weakest area - I don't even know where to begin with it so maybe we could look at a few simple things there.

As for the first one, I needed a bit in my piece to have "chordal harmonies" though it didn't have to be that way the whole way through. If you look at the parts, each players is either playing for the whole bar unless it has a passing note.

I am not happy with it because if I was the violinist playing that piece, it wouldn't matter what the woodwind was doing, all I would see is a boring part in which there is no chance for me to get a melody or to be brought out of the background. The harmonies it creates and the effect on the piece is nice in its way, in my opinion but to me I feel there is something that I could have done with the strings which would have had a better effect.

Ok, Percussion is my weakest area - I don't even know where to begin with it so maybe we could look at a few simple things there.

As for the first one, I needed a bit in my piece to have "chordal harmonies" though it didn't have to be that way the whole way through. If you look at the parts, each players is either playing for the whole bar unless it has a passing note.

I am not happy with it because if I was the violinist playing that piece, it wouldn't matter what the woodwind was doing, all I would see is a boring part in which there is no chance for me to get a melody or to be brought out of the background. The harmonies it creates and the effect on the piece is nice in its way, in my opinion but to me I feel there is something that I could have done with the strings which would have had a better effect.

Hmm. Well, for percussion we can look at the classical example: Varese's Ionization. But there's a lot of percussion literature around. Thing is, you don't need to really "write a piece" for percussion, you just need to play around with the possibilities. Grab a couple of percussion instruments like, say, a couple of tam-tams, bells, and so on. You can even pick out a marimba if you want some melody/tone quality to it, but remember the key is the percussive part.

Varese used things like Cymbals, tam-tam, gong, a cowbell, side-drum, etc etc. Experiment with the different percussion groups, it's the best way to get a sense of how they sound. I would suggest that if you can, you should talk to a percussionist and try them out yourself, or at least how they sound. Working with percussion can be tricky but it is rewarding if you put time into it.

As for the piece, yeah I think I can see what you mean and if you feel that way then perhaps something you could've done is implement something like a slow type of change that happens gradually over the piece. For example, it can be something like a very slight rhythm change which is incremented every couple of bars. So the first few bars are 4/4 but the next few are 4/4+1 16th, the next few are 4/4+1 8th, etc. Sort of like Messiaen's valeur ajout

Thank you for your response I will check it out really soon.

This is going to sound so bad, but I had this is my head all night and I just remember what it was. I really want to get rhythm into my music and this is a prime example of something which in my opinion has a really pretty melody but the rhythm (and the percussion of course) really makes this.

So without futher delay, ladies and gentleman,

Static pretty melody raining hail is nice but I want something different.

EDIT - In future I recommend I don't come on here after having no sleep, I say funny things - this isn't music I want to compose like but that flute melody like simple but still melodic but you have that steady bass rhythm which just .... Here I go again no sleep and too much work make raining hail think Pokemon is a masterpiece.

Hi SSC,

I have had a think and I would like work with you a short overture like orchestra piece which I can use as part of my application to summer school.

I don't want to look at that yet but I would like some help working with rhythmic passages. I can write a decent melody (in my opinion) but rhythmic passages are something I find hard.

One of my favourite aspects of music is music for film or games so I grabbed this as a simple example of what I mean. I love the opening on this and then when it drops right down to a simple melody and accomipaniment style (what I am more use to) but what I am more focused on is from 1:55, I just never can seem to grasp this type of writing.

Let me know what you think.

Hikaru Utada, right?

What she does here is simply a march-like rhythm that underlines the entire section. One of the things you could do to try it out is to write a simple marches with different alternating rhythms, it's not really that difficult because once your rhythms are fixed they don't really change much at all.

Hm, there are many composers like Beethoven, Schubert, etc who wrote marches and passages that look like this. Beethoven's 3rd symphony for example uses stuff like this in various ways, you ought to check it out.

Another typical example is Mars from Holst's planets.

March (music - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

Check this stuff out, if it's what you meant. We can also do some exercises and/or analyze some of those examples I mentioned if you want.

So, can I do anything for you? :>

So, can I do anything for you? :>

Well two things. I have another thread, with two works that I am hoping to send off in the next few weeks to several summer schools in the US. I would appericate it if you could have a look. I could really do with a good critcal review.

The second would be to take a look at a wind quintet I am writing at the moment. I can't post it because of my university's requirements but the problem is I have to get it finished by Thursday along with sample chapters of my dissertation so I am sort of stuck in the mud ;)

Well two things. I have another thread, with two works that I am hoping to send off in the next few weeks to several summer schools in the US. I would appericate it if you could have a look. I could really do with a good critcal review.

The second would be to take a look at a wind quintet I am writing at the moment. I can't post it because of my university's requirements but the problem is I have to get it finished by Thursday along with sample chapters of my dissertation so I am sort of stuck in the mud ;)

I'll look at your pieces.

As for the quintet, well, we can do something about that right?

I'll see if I can pm the wind quintet to you.

Thanks for checking out my pieces for america - after this week, I get more free time so maybe we can start properly looking at a few things.

I have been ill the last few days so that work we discuss wasn't submitted and I still have a lot to do but I'm ready and willing to begin the lessons we discussed the other day.

Unfortunately, I haven't had a lot of time to tend to my students as of late, but hey sorry & have a little patience everybody.

With that said, I think that the first order of business is "shaking" you up. Both in terms of rhythm and stylistic in general.

I'm going to write a bit on Bartok, rhythm and polyphony for Voce's lesson thread which I want you to keep an eye on since I'll be dealing (and have dealt with so far actually) stuff that is interesting to you as well. In the meantime, I think that we should get some small exercises out and test what you can/can't do and where you need more help.

The first exercise is about "dots and lines" so to speak. What this means is basically, I want you to treat note durations in two categories, small values (dots) and long durations (lines.) The goal of the exercise is to write a small segment which pays no attention to actual note pitch and instead is only aimed at exploiting rhythm contrasts between dots and lines.

The setup is as follows:

1. Make a score with 4 staffs. Instrumentation doesn't matter, so pick whatever you want or just leave the staffs with no instrument assigned. Midi playback is pretty preferable though so you know what it sounds like (and this is key.) The note pitches are unimportant, but what IS important is that each staff only plays a single note pitch during the entire exercise. In effect you can have each staff play a different note so long as they only play that note all the way.

2. Serialize the note values that you'll be using for the exercise. That means, make a row from 1 to 5 and choose values for it. For example, 1) 4th, 2) dotted 8th, 3) half 4) dotted 16th, etc. You should make then four different variations of the row order for each staff. That is, if the first is 12345, then the second can be 54321 or whatever you want in the way of arranging the numbers around.

3. Proceed to fill out the score with the material you have from the rows and the variations you did. This doesn't need to be long exactly, but if you want you can make either the rows longer (1-12) or repeat the sequence once (1234512345) but that's up to you.

4. Now, "lines" are note values which you choose to tie, while "dots" are note values which stand by themselves (not tied.) You're free to manipulate this at your discretion too.

That's the entire exercise. When you're done, post it here along with a midi of the result. If you have any questions please do ask. :>

I'm a little confused.

My understanding is that I should create a rhythm row of 5 rhythms, create 4 variations, one for each instrument and then I repeat the row over then add lines where I like.

Is that correct?

yep. :>

OK, got it.

Slight problem which I have. I am using a score in 4/4 but the row I will cause notes to go over this bar lines on repeation and therefore cause lines. Not a problem except in my viola where the row causes some werid notation problems. Any ideas?