Music 220Spring Quarter 2015

2-5 Wednesdays (Room: Digital Arts 340) seminar

1st class today April Fool’s Day 2015: Basics

April 8. Due. One complete short piece for three or more instruments in Finale or Sibelius or other notation program projected and played. Must be projected and played in class.

April 15. Due. One complete short piece for five or more instruments in Finale or Sibelius or other, projected and played.

Wednesday June 10, full large piece live performance during final exam period (4pm, Room 131).

Introductions

Be prepared to speak briefly: (1) a bit about what you hope to get from this class; (2) what kinds of ensembles are you interested in composing for; (3) a brief story about yourself.

Me first

Now you.

Commenting on pieces

Assume you like everyone’s piece so PLEASE no endless praise.

Top-Down approach (i.e., whole piece to ‘that should be a C# not a Db’).

We’ll listen at least twice.

Define your terms. (or use my definitions if you wish)

Helpful not derogatory.

My criteria

(Yours maybe different, but if so please be explicit so we know what you mean)

Quality

Most with the least (as opposed to least with most).

Beginnings – less is more (don’t give away the store).

Endings – really end (not just stop).

Transitions versus sudden shifts (both necessary).

Balance between timbre, harmony, counterpoint, melody, rhythm, etc.

Style – consistency with itself and/or with other of your works.

Replace “That’s a good piece of music,” with “I like that.” Good and bad are simply matters of opinion but we often make them sound like attributes delivered from on high. In here we’re talking about what you like or don’t like, not pronouncements of “that is good” or “that stinks.”

Professionalism

Playability (not just possible, but the easiest way)

Notation (spelling consistency, clefs, ranges, etc.)

Articulation (slurs, staccato, etc. every note deserves something)

Scoring (orchestration)

Balance (can oboe be heard)

Dynamics (see above)

Devices (con sord., senza sord. etc.)

Languages (see above)

Be sure to say “THAT could be interpreted as not very professional” rather than “YOU’RE unprofessional.” There’s a big difference between the two. Like “THAT could be construed as a racist comment” rather than “YOU’RE a racist.” The latter can cause all manner of hostility while the former can be educational.

Structure

Form too obvious?

Structure doesn’t work?

Use of point of arrival?

Cadences?

Repetition?

Variation? (motive/ideas)

Techniques?

Be careful using the word ‘derivative.’ Use it for sure, but back it up with names of composers, works, and so on. Realize (as we’ll discuss later on) that everyone’s derivative to a degree, so we’re talking about degree here. An ABA form is derivative, no question about it. But a subtle use of returning ideas that imply ABA is intrinsic to human composition.

Further suggestions about composing.

We compose what we hear (Stravinsky: “Good composers borrow, Great composers steal.” Picasso: “Stravinsky BORROWED that quote from me.”)

If you listen little, then you borrow. So listen a lot. Every day. To both music you like and dislike!!!!!!! You can learn from both (in fact, listening to music that you don’t like can often teach you more than than listening to music you do).

No such thing as composer’s block. That’s something we learned from romantic composers – temperamental inspiration.

Have you ever heard of trucker’s block or plumber’s block? Both fine professions.

Compose everyday. That’s EVERY DAY.

And you don’t need music paper. Compose in your head and then sing whatever you can to impress it deeply into your mind.

Or carry a notebook wherever you go and take notes.

Be careful of Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, music.

Do not compose directly in a notation program, it can literally help you compose something it wants rather than what you want. Transcribe later on.

Plan your works rather than having them waddle around on their own. Draw a piece on a 4x5 card and then explode it outward to an ever increasing level of detail. This is called an ALGORITHM. An algorithm is a plan (recipe) for a piece. Computers do it faster, but I’ve been an algorithmic composer since 1948.

Stravinsky placed blank score paper on his walls and put the double bar down first and then the approximate duration. Each day, then, he entered his studio and picked a place in the piece he felt like working on. Called non-linear composing.

Music as 50/50 mental and physical. Be sure to constantly sing, conduct, whatever as you compose.

The Brain

It functions based on two sources: 1) electricity (synapses, etc.) – most thinking; 2) chemicals (receptors, etc.) – most emotions. BOTH necessary.

Composing requires both. Listening requires both. Music is 50/50 – that’s why I love it.

Sing and conduct, as you listen/compose.

Titles are important. Make sure you spend some time on yours. Imagine what Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastique would sound like titled Symphony No. 1. Or Barber’s Adagio for Strings as Hi Diddle Diddle.

Don’t let techniques rule you. Schoenberg took many hours figuring out his row so that he knew what it could do and how he could bend it to get what he wanted.

Work with performers all the time. They are your best friends or can be your worst enemies. Make them the former even if they seem like the latter.

Thoughts from Stravinsky

The more constraints one imposes, the more one frees one's self. And the arbitrariness of the constraint serves only to obtain precision of execution.

To listen is an effort, and just to hear is no merit. A duck hears also.

Lesser artists borrow, great artists steal.

Too many pieces of music finish too long after the end.

I have learned throughout my life as a composer chiefly through my mistakes and pursuits of false assumptions, not by my exposure to founts of wisdom and knowledge.

My music is best understood by children and animals.

Examples 1

Stravinsky: THREE PIECES FOR STRING QUARTET

as a single piece or three. With score.

Stravinsky: Symphonies of Wind Instruments

without score.

Examples 2

Cope: Homage RFK

With score

Cope: Piano Concerto mvt. 3

With score

Now for something different

Other arts are useful guides

Stationary art (painting, sculpture, etc.)

Moving art (theater, film, mixed media, dance, etc.)

Writing (novels, short stories, plays, screenplays, poems, etc.)

Other music (film music, dance, media, etc.)

Metaphors and similes abound and are useful. Do not limit yourself to one only.

Literature

Author Lee Child says he NEVER plots his novels. If he does, the surprise has gone out of it for him and thus he’ll end up writing a different novel, one where the surprise of the ending may have gone out of it for the reader as well.

Author John Grisham says he ALWAYS plots out his books to the nth degree or else he’ll leave loose ends all over the place and the book will fail. His job is to fool the reader into thinking the story’s going this way or that, something he couldn’t do if he didn’t plot the whole thing out in the first place.

What do you do? Is it the right thing to do?

Visual Art

You can’t paint a painting by beginning in the left-hand upper corner and proceeding to the lower right. You need the charcoal shape and work with individual colors and ideas as you go.

You have to have a complete idea of what you’re doing in a sculpture, for as you do it you’re revealing what’s in the marble or clay as you go.