My phone seemed to serve as an acceptable substitute for a recorder to record myself playing until the iOS updated, when it seems everything bad happened.
I was planning on getting a camera for video anyways, so does anyone have recommendations for webcams or anything like that? Was thinking I might be tempted to stream improvs or something one day.
COMP CHALLENGE #6: RIDING SOLO (latent harmony) Aug 20th to 27th roughly
Compose a short piece for a single monophonic instrument. Instruments with limited polyphonic capabilities such as the strings can be used if those techniques (double stops, etc) are avoided. The piece should make use of latent harmony, the harmony implied by a single line ala Bach's Cello Suite prelude. This should be the primary driving force of the piece, it should not sound entirely like an unaccompanied melody.
wasn't there this guy with his solo pieces for oboe? He wouldn't even need to write a new piece for this challenge.
Adam Cook
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Brandon Nelson
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Jonathan Sullivan
What do I read after finishing the teoria music theory tutorials?
Camden Howard
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Nathan Flores
can it be for a keyboard instrument if only one note is played at a time?
John Wilson
should be okay. I was considering organ pedals for a moment, but that tone range makes it slightlly difficult.
Owen Mitchell
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Matthew Bailey
Try the jazz harmony books. I think the first one is mostly repeated stuff but randomly skipping to the 3rd it has some cool stuff that I doubt was on teoria
Caleb Hill
My submission. The scoring is not perfect, I should rework the beaming and add more phrasing slurs and such.
The only prerequisite for being a composer is composing music. As long as you do that, a LOT and leave a decent oeuvre when you die, then you are a composer.
Lucas Ortiz
take the world by storm, chappie chaps
Bentley Martinez
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Christopher Gutierrez
why is composing so hard
Luis Taylor
Lots of composers flunked theory my dude. Live your life
Kayden Wood
if it wasnt hard it wouldn't be worth spending your life perfecting
do your best and dont give up senpai
John Morales
Creative things are hard. If you aren't motivated to write music every day, it might not be for you
Chase Bell
I guess I'll just go ahead and ask for more criticism on this
Dylan Garcia
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Gavin Morales
I would recommend against it because you have the ability to play legato with overlaps and you have the pedal, which would get in the way of the purpose somewhat. Up to you though
Owen Miller
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Benjamin Ward
nothings hard except hard work. the biggest lie told in the creative industry is that you need to sit there and navel gaze until you feel motivated by some godly force inside you to do it. no it's just like any other field of WORK, you force yourself to do it who cares if its shit you can always scrap it it's all about momentum, of course inspiration is important and it almost always comes from listening and living a well-balanced life. if you're too lazy to keep that going then go get yourself hit by a truck and collect your disability cheques.
Brandon Nguyen
Is it an Half Cadence if it ends in v instead of V?
Isaac Reyes
sure, but it wont feel as awesome as a good renaissance or baroque style half cadence
Ryder Young
I just want it to be subtle, you know
Matthew Cruz
This is very nice. I like your melodic phrasing, it really avoids being repetitive.
Some notes: Bar 5 is sexy as fuck, scale that was broken when you hit the repeat now continues when it's the new section? It's like my favourite thing in the world. In bar 8, I think the Ab is a little too sudden? I would personally re-attack the G before it, as a pause right before this non-diatonic departure makes it stick out more. Are you going for an N6? Might feel more natural if we heard a C before the Ab and Eb, but I dunno.
Really love the Eb section, but I personally don't like the triplets. They really disrupt the character of the piece so I think they should be saved for bar 19 where they make a lot more sense in my opinion. Love the ending, I have the littlest change because something bothers me. In beat 4 of bar 32 you break the pattern and instead of having the pedal on the 1st 16th you put it on the 2nd 16th. I'd really like to make that disruption more natural by making that A resolve down a step to a G instead of the F#, so you get a sus 4 -> 3 thing too.
Really like it though.
Caleb Hughes
Get rid of the triplets
Jayden Bell
Waaaay too repetitive. Makes everything sounds like one section when they just keep going on and on without much development. Try writing something using on I IV and V, you're basically only relying on harmony to keep your piece interesting, but your melody and rhythmic interest tank the piece. When you hit the development it's really clear, because you don't have any material to clearly develop upon
Henry Bailey
I CAN TELL WHEN YOUR THIRD IS RAISED YOUNG MAN
You can't fool me
Gavin Gonzalez
When you play chords in a guitar, how important is it to keep the same number of voices?
Ryder Turner
Depends, if the ambitus stays fairly consistent (lowest note and highest note don't jump around unreasonably much), it doesn't matter if there's a difference of up to 2 voices in the chords. Guitar chords are often not strictly treated as voices, similar to the harpsichord and lute. Still, you could try to use that in a way that supports the dynamics of your piece. Bigger chords for louder parts, smaller chords for sorter parts etc.
Julian Anderson
>you're basically only relying on harmony to keep your piece interesting >theme one consists purely of I, IV and V
Kayden Thompson
And then there is no development except for harmonic development in the rest of the piece. I did word it wrong, but basically everything in the piece stays exactly the same beginning to end except for the harmony
Jack Cook
I did a lot of melodic development, though, like in the bridge where I transform the main motif into an accompaniment, measures 16-17 where I transform the main motif into the arpeggiation of theme two, the end of theme two in measures 30-31 where I turn the LH into a reflection of the RH, the first and third parts of the development where I develop the LH arpeggiation by slowly expanding it, the second part of the development where I recontextualize theme two in a circle of fifths, measure 49 where I replace the RH with the motif which has been used to signal cadences in the past, measures 50-51 where I add the motif used to signal the cadence in theme 2 and have them played simultaneously, etc.
Mostly I'm just arguing about this because I deliberately set out to keep my harmony grounded and uninteresting, and went with a set of very simple melodies with very few rhythmic motifs so I could practice motivic development, which is why I called it Sonatina-Etude. So I'm a bit shocked. Did I really manage to have the harmony dominate the piece yet again?
Lucas Diaz
It's basically all pointless though, out of all that development what actually sounds different? Your development is not taking the piece anywhere. I think your motif was just not good enough, to the point where you can permutate it all these ways but it doesn't stop the piece from being boring.
Joshua Gutierrez
I don't really see how it doesn't sound different. I think that's just a matter of opinion though
Ethan Sullivan
Your developments don't change what was making the piece repetitive. You're not really "developing" because it's not going anywhere, you're making homologous alterations
Thomas Sullivan
What are your thoughts on Schoenberg's harmony book? I just started it yesterday
Jaxon Rodriguez
I guess you're talking about the consistent sixteenth notes? If I change that, though, the aesthetic evaporates.
Cooper Thompson
thanks for the feedback!
The attemped Neapolitan at the end of the expo didn't work too well, I guess, I made it a German chord instead to get an authentic ending for that section.
Gonna start practising some clarinet again and maybe learn this piece, as it's close to impossible to bring the adequate amount of rubato into the midi. The 8th > triplets > 16th > sixtuplets thing is supposed to be a written out accelerando kinda thing, but you're right that it comes a bit too early in the piece, and there's no need to do it twice. The sus4-3 thing indeed works better.
Nicholas Roberts
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James Evans
shit out an mp3 senpai i wanna listen to the changes
>6/8 >whole notes Am I missing a meme or am i retarded
Colton Adams
bump
Camden Wood
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Luis Perry
what about 6 over 8 signature time prevents the usage of whole notes?
Hudson Ortiz
the fact that a whole note will not fit in one bar
Eli Bailey
I'm confused what the significance of whole notes in 6/8 is. If it were >no dotted minums that would make sense, but whole notes aren't some sort of "default" in 6/8.
Brandon Reyes
so give it more than one bar
>dotted minums ???
Jaxson Ramirez
whole note = 8 eighth notes 6/8: 6 eighth notes per measure A whole note doesn't fit in one bar.
>so give it more than one bar That would be a dotted half note tied with a quarter note, not a whole note.
Brandon Nelson
why would you write something in 6/8 as opposed to 4/4?
Jeremiah Phillips
I always misspell minim because I learnt theory when I was 4. My point is, what's the significance of wholes notes in that piece? What is conspicuous about their absence? Am I being trolled or am I just really stupid?
Ok guess I'm just being trolled
Aiden Price
why would you ever write something in anything other than 12/8 is my question
Dominic Campbell
this desu senpai baka african traditional drummers had it right
Christian Watson
is studying theory necessary if I just want to make pop music?
Noah Thompson
by no means. It makes things easier though.
Jaxon Reed
Doing some analysis with seventh chords. Some of them only include only 3 pitches.
For example, in g minor I have, Bb, G, D, G as half notes. Bb being the bass.
Since the exercise is for seventh chords, I'm not sure what's up.
Normally I would think of the chord as i 6-3 with a doubling root. But it's supposed to be a seventh chord according to the exercise. Can I assume it's a i 6-5-3, even if the F is not included?
Oliver Scott
653 is the closest in terms of identical notes.
Could of course be an Edim5|7 in 642 with a missing root and doubled third (though that's a bas doubling choice from a voicing perspective). Maybe look at the context, what chord came before, what chord follows.
Nicholas Robinson
>While the tonal system, in an atrophied or vestigial form, is still used today in popular and commercial music, and even occasionally in the works of backward-looking serious composers, it is no longer employed by serious composers of the mainstream, it has been replaced or succeeded by the 12-tone system.
/comp/ BTFO
Jacob Lee
If you just want to make pop music the best way to learn is to learn how to play all the parts to your favourite songs and think about them, and come to an understanding of what makes them work. You will inadvertently learn theory, but to write good music you need to know theory, either academically or by ear.
Ryder Bell
>not neoromanticism >not aleatoric music >not minimalism >not neotonality >not integral serialism >not even fucking non-12-tone serialism
Liam Roberts
Thanks for clearing that up. Good to know that the book isn't fucking with me and I'm not completely retarded.
The previous chord is C, A, D, F#. V 4-2.
>Could of course be an Edim5|7 in 642 with a missing root and doubled third (though that's a bas doubling choice from a voicing perspective) Currently the book only mentioned doubling the root and missing the fifth, so I'm supposing that I'm not that far in yet.
Luis Sanchez
then it's definitely a I 6, as it's the non-jazzy way to resolve a V4-2.
Nicholas Baker
can someone give the abriged explanation of the 12 tone system and serialism to me?
Jonathan Kelly
Schoenberg gave us the future 100 years ago and people are still afraid of it today.
Easton Roberts
So uh, 6-5? Not the 2.
Also, this is from a random collection of chords in an exercise, not an actual piece of music.
Jonathan Howard
6 as in 6 3, there's apparently no seventh in there, so that's just a tetrad with 3 different notes.
Your exercise probably _includes_ sevenths, but doesn't consist of sevenths entirely.
Jack Rivera
not that abridged i find it hard to understand since i dont have a theory background?
Tyler Rivera
Yes, you're right. It's mostly sevenths, but about 3 chords do not have one. Guess I'll go forward and resolve all of them in the most logical way.
Jaxon Stewart
Starting with 12-tone and the reasons behind it. Essentially, composers were looking for ways to destroy all sense of tonality in their compositions. One way to do that is to use all twelve pitches of the chromatic scale equally often, but even if you do that you can still imply a tonal center if you aren't careful. So Schoenberg developed a way to systematically use all twelve tones in such a way that no tonal center is actually the default state of things with it.
With 12-tone, you have a specific order in which you must use all twelve pitches in order. This is the prime row. Let's say your prime row is >0-1-5-4-10-9-6-7-2-3-8-11 You can start the prime row anywhere. You can start it on C, on Ab, on A, anywhere. But you have to do them all in order (harmonically or melodically) once you start it. So if you start on C, you have to play >0-1-5-4-10-9-6-7-2-3-8-11 >C Db F E Bb A Gb G D Eb Ab B if you start on Ab you have to play >0-1-5-4-10-9-6-7-2-3-8-11 >Ab A Db C Gb F D Eb Bb B E G Anywhere. (bad example, I kind of accidentally wandered into several triads and implied triads by just randomly typing numbers. Ideally you avoid that.)
There are two main things you can do to your prime row. You can invert it, which means reflecting it over an axis. So from >0-1-5-4-10-9-6-7-2-3-8-11 essentially you subtract 12 by each of them to get the inverted value. (because of octave equivalence, 0 = 12.) So you get >0 11 7 8 2 3 6 5 10 9 4 1 starting on C >C B G Ab D Eb Gb F Bb A E Db
You can also retrograde it, which is essentially turning it around. (I'll stick with letter notation for ease right now.) So from >C Db F E Bb A Gb G D Eb Ab B you get >B Ab Eb D G Gb A Bb E F Db C and all of its transpositions.
You can also do both at once, this is called retrograde inversion.
running afoul of post length so I'll stop here. Non-12-tone serialism is simply the same thing, but without using all twelve pitches of the chromatic scale.
Jose Morgan
I think I'm starting to understand a bit better/ I have a few questions if you don't mind? 1. With the 12-tone system, do the pieces have a key (like sonata in B flat major) or does that disappear?
2.are all 12-tone pieces considered atonal?
3. Why this pattern of 1-5-4-10-9-6-7-2-3-8-11 specifically? is that the ONLY pattern to make it not have a tonal center?
Thank you for taking the time to explain it. This is fascinating and obviously an important part of contemporary composing.
Colton Reyes
Some things I wasn't able to include. Schoenberg himself didn't view the tone row with nearly as much reverence as later serialist composers. All he was interested in was the fact that all tones were being used equally often. The very first piece this new technique was used, he did things like cut the tone row in two and retrograde half of it, so he could write the music he wanted.
Why did other composers like the idea so much they digressed from the original point and started doing non-12-tone serialism? Well, autism.
Compare this piece (pic related), dreaded by every music major as that piece you have to analyse: youtube.com/watch?v=r8o_X_nIcgg
