COMPOSITION NOTES

Last week I attended part of the Warebrook Contemporary Music Festival - it was truly inspiring, and in just a few hours I learned many things, and was reminded of some things I'd forgotten.

Paul Brust was the composer/conductor working with me. My original music sounded great, BUT....

• it was almost all diatonic - using more tones would add SO much flavor (tension is good)
  
• repeats should never be exact - if it repeats, then something needs to change
  
  • dynamics, rhythms, pitches, move the melody to another instrument, etc.
• phrases - one way to help make longer phrases is to avoid the tonic
• the melody should move around to different instruments, and can be harmonized differently
• if there's a solo in a part later, make sure someone else gets the melody part earlier - this will create more variety

When we had a group lesson, we got more general advice on composing:

• set aside time to write every day
  
• keep a different folder for each piece of music
• write every idea down on paper, with very specific notes
  
  • articulations, dynamics, phrasing, etc.
• sketch out the entire piece -
  
  • how long will it be? 8 minutes?
    
  • what type of piece - melodic? spacey? virtuosic? melancholy?
    
  • first 3 min: loud; next 2 min: soft; last 3 min loud again
    
• when working on a piece, go through the whole thing objectively every time you start - some things may need changing
• motivic development (I remembered this from college, but have gotten away from it)
  
  • a motif can be any set of notes to be developed
  • development can be:
    
    • fragment
    • inversion
    • reversal
    • etc
• Andrew List had great inspirational advice about composition
  
  • he said it took 40 years before he was really writing pieces he felt were successful
  • if you write a piece for a specific group, they should agree to at least 3 or 4 performances of it
  • he finds many groups to write for on MySpace
  • we heard Sonatine for Bassoon Qtet, Halcyon Quintet, and Noa Noa: A Gauguin Tableau

These guys were so positive and inspiring. I worked on music today. So much of what they told me makes me realize that I need to take my time, be persistent, and keep writing. I don't have to be the performer, so the music doesn't have to be playable by me. The musicians who played this stuff could play anything I can write. They were really incredible.

Here are the two pieces:

Music

WOW - having my music played today was incredible! The musicians literally could have played anything. It makes me wonder how Zappa wrote music that wasn't possible to be played by humans. More to follow........