Sunday, September 14, 2008

Philip's First Class Presentation

Ok... so I've been experiencing some technical difficulties with blogging which are somewhat frustrating, but hopefully my post will work this time. My progression was presented in class on Friday. It was valuable to sit back and hear my composition played so that my classmates and I could critique it. I think it was generally well received; my tension contour was accurately identified, and I liked the sonorities I ended up with. However, just as I expected, it wasn't perfect. There were a few chords I needed to rearrange, and a comment was made that some of the chords weren't perceived as having a clear tension contour as they sounded too much alike. To improve the contour at this point, I rearranged a few of the chords and then altered and removed some of the notes to create the amount of tension I desired in the chord. I think I also might try revoicing some of the chords to see what I come up with.

Sunday, September 7, 2008

Blog #1

So, I don't really know anything about composition... or blogging.  I've really enjoyed theory courses so far, and have been wanting to try my hand at composing my own music, so I guess this is my chance!  When Dr. Ross said the first assignment would be a non-tonal composition, it scared me a bit.  However, after looking at the description of the assignment, along with Dr. Ross' "How to compose atonal music" steps, I am quite excited about the assignment, and can't wait to hear what I come up with!  And hopefully I'll get better at blogging as the semester progresses too...