Cliche assignment

I've started my 2nd assignment: a composition based on a cliche. For my cliche, I'm planning on using a ii - V - I progression (AKA rhythm changes) which is popular in a lot of music, specifically bebop. The first thing I wrote was a complete circle of fifths progression, using a voicing I learned in an introduction to jazz styles and improvisation course. As usual, I'm having trouble getting the ball rolling on this. I have ideas, but none are really specific, and I think that might be the problem. I think this cliche is a good idea, but I'm having trouble turning it into reality.

One of the reasons that this progression is a good cliche is because it really sets up an expectation in the listener. After just a few chords, the audience will be able to anticipate where the next progression will go. This will set me up to change the progression into something unexpected (I'm thinking maybe to a doubly chromatic key), making it really interesting.

Instrumentation wise, I think I'm going to use a fairly standard jazz combo. We have to write for 3 instruments, which will be the piano and saxophone and one other instrument. I was initially planning to write for a drum set, but now I'm leaning more toward using a double bass (with a lot of pizzicato and walking bass lines). As for melody, there are a lot of famous tunes based on rhythm changes I can draw from, such as I got Rhythm, Serpent's Tooth, Oleo, Thrivin' from a Riff, and many others.

So with all these ideas, it sounds like composition should be pretty easy. But I'm finding otherwise. My first goal is to get something to work with: just a few bars which I can develop. I've got the harmonic progression, and some melody... maybe what I need is rhythm. (There's a pun in there somewhere... because I don't got rhythm...)

Finishing my first assignment...

I've read a few other blogs in which people exclaim about finishing their assignment, and how good it felt. I agree: finishing the first complete piece for this course does feel good! It was also cool to write program notes and get it bound so that it looks like a real piece of music!

Even though the 1st copy has been submitted, I'm not quite finished with the piece yet. Yesterday, I met with Dr. Ross to discuss my composition, and I have a few things to fix. One of the things we talked a little about was the fact (which I mentioned in my last blog) that my first two pieces in particular didn't quite feel finished; they could have gone on a bit longer and developed a little more. They weren't quite as refined, compared to the third piece. I agree with this 100%. I guess that is one of the things about writing pieces for a deadline (especially when that deadline is only a little over a month). My plan is to continue developing these pieces sometime in the not too distant future, making them at least as polished as my last piece.

Now, speaking of polishing, that's much of what I need to do to finish my assignment. I need to add a few more articulation markings in my pieces, phrase marks, and more specific dynamics. I had a few things wrong, such as the placement of the piano dynamics. As soon as I finish this, my first complete composition should be good to go!

3rd Piece

My last piece turned out to be the strongest of the three we were required to write. I guess even after writing just two pieces you start to learn things which make your compositions better. Something that I noticed about this piece was the inspiration was different. I wrote it after I returned from our midterm break, during which I was out in Lower Island Cove, a small town in which I used to live. It is right on the ocean, and there is a lot of nature out there (as opposed to a city like St. John's). It was this indescribable sensation that inspired me to write this piece. I think the reason that this piece is better than the other two is because of its development; it seems like it actually goes somewhere and says something. I feel that I had some good ideas my other two compositions, but they didn't develop like this one. If I could compare them to sentences, I'd say that this last composition is like a full, complete sentence, where the other two are more like a sentence fragment: one that starts out good but doesn't finish.

One of the things that I'm most proud of in this piece is that I used a minimal amount of compositional material. Everything that I wrote was pretty much based on the same 4 or 5 notes. This helped make my piece more coherent in its development, so that the individual ideas, which are all based on the same material, all flow out of and into one another. I hope the quality I've achieved in this piece will carry into the next pieces I write!

2nd Character Piece

The day my second piece was played in class was certainly an eventful one. Earlier that morning, I met with Dr. Ross to discuss it. I told him that I had trouble with the amount of material I was getting, proportional to the time I was putting in at it (a topic which I've struggled with and addressed in other blogs). We talked about taking previous material and reworking it: stretching your ideas to make more music. Repetition of basic ideas is also important because of its function in setting up expectation in the listener. In order to introduce more repetition, I expanded the beginning section to just chord progressions in the piano in longer note durations. My most significant break through of the day was that when I went to Dr. Ross that morning, I probably only had about 20 seconds or so of music, but when I wento to composition that afternoon (to present my piece) I had almost 2 minutes of music - and only spent 40 minutes or so composing.

What I ended up with wasn't perfect, though. I had to add a transition from some of the new material I added. Other than that, it was pretty good.

On a totally different note, I got the idea for this piece in a very different way than the other pieces. The melodic motive I used actually came from the top voice of the original chord progressions I had to write. I was very excited when I discovered the beautiful melody, however, struggled when I went to actually write it. The problem was that with the melody I heard, I also heard a tonal accompaniment/harmonic progression. What I did to come up with the harmonies I used was go through the chords and pick out a few with a tone color that I liked, and served the function I was looking for (i.e. didn't sound final, but kept the harmonic momentum flowing). One thing I found when searching for the right chord was that the same chord served a totally different function when transposed. I found it was very helpful to have a predetermined harmonic palette (the progression which was our first assignment). It gave me somewhere to start and something to work with, which makes the process of composition a bit easier.

Composition Titles

I recently discussed titles with Heidi, and read her blog entry which touches on that subject. Usually, my pieces (or these first 3 pieces did anyway) get their titles after I've finished them. Heidi alludes to the fact that there are many different sources from which your title can come: from your inspiration for the piece, from something actually in the piece, or many other areas. Im not really sure which one of these areas my titles come from. In fact, each title probably comes from a different area. Usually, I start with what I was thinking when I started writing the piece, or my motivation - a single feeling or adjective. Then I consult a thesaurus, looking for words which are more descriptive, accurate, or even just more acoustically pleasing. One problem with this is that I usually end up with one word titles, which I guess there is nothing wrong with, but it is sometimes good to have more than one word.

Specifically, I'm really happy with the title of my first piece: "Gustav". As I mentioned earlier, when I started writing the piece I was going for a heroic, adventurous character. When I ended, I felt that the character may have been a little more like a villian. It was also very chaotic and a bit of a blur. I eventually came up with the idea of a hurricane or tornado, which led to "Gustav", which I thought was an accurate description, tied it to a specific, emotional event, but wasn't too specific, inviting some deep thought about the title, which is always good. I guess the most important characteristic of a title is that it fits. I think when you find the right title, you just know.

1st Character Piece

For my first piece, I wanted to write something that was more upbeat than most of the other compositions I heard from my classmates. I took my ideas from a piece for trombone that I played last semester by Jacques Casterede. It is an atonal piece, and I really like the way it sounds, particularly its temporal and rhythmic aspect. It has a sort of cannonic feature; the piano more or less "chases" the trombone with the various themes in the piece, entering in stretto. I don't really think that my description does the piece justice, but I hope that you can get some idea of what I'm talking about. This thematic stretto effect is one of the things I was going for in my first composition. As for character, I originally was going for a "heroic" or "adventurous" character, however, that was somewhat modified in the end result. After playing the first few measures in class, I received some comments, one of which was that I should "thin out" the piano part a bit. There was a section the piano went through which had a lot of thick block chords, which made it sound really muddy. Really all I did was cut out a few notes in certain chords, and then cut out some chords all together. Not only did this make the harmonies sound clearer, it also added rhythmic interest with a hemiolic or syncopated effect - something which I used later in the piece. Another of the comments was that I had plenty of material in the few bars that I presented - enough to use for the rest of the composition. When I finished the composition, I didn't add any more material. Instead, I developed what I already had. To develop it, I took a small section of the piano "accompaniment" (the main melody was in the trumpet part), copied and pasted it, then transposed it, creating a sequence. I then composed a melody (also based on previous melodic material) to go over top of it. I then created a "climax section" based on an original idea I had in my original composition. It turned out to be a fanfare-like section. My classmates said it sounded kind of like StarWars (I took that as a compliment). I decided to develop this section a little as well. Once again using the copy and paste tool on my computer, I copied it and added some fast triplets to be triple-tongued in the melody (the trumpet player I was writing for, Heidi, requested that there be some triple tonguing). To finish the piece, I returned to the opening motive, with a small rit. I also got this idea from the Casterede piece, as his movements end in a way similar to this. This piece is not very long, however, I feel it is effective in its length. It is also significance to the title... but I'll talk about that in another blog!

Catching up: Compositional Barriers

So this blog will begin a series of blogs, serving to hopefully catch me up with the rest of the class. I consider myself to be a slow composer. It seems I have A LOT of trouble keeping up with the rest of the class, and how fast they compose (or at least how fast I perceive that they compose). I find that even if I have a general idea of what I want to compose, or in which direction I want to take my existing composition, it still takes me about 2 or 3 hours to get into the compositional headspace and start writing things that I will actually keep for my composition. I'm not quite sure why that happens, but I'm trying to strategize on how I can cut down this time span between which I start, and I actually compose. I haven't tried any of these ideas yet, but I will the next time I'm having trouble (i.e. the next time I compose). I might try reading some of the blogs which Dr. Ross has posted on this topic. I think this would help to get the "compositional juices" flowing. Something else which I have tried, and found effective, is to not write everything that I'm thinking before I finish a compositional session. I find if I leave something to write next time which I've already thought about, it kind of gives me a point to jump off of and gets me headed in a direction, so that I have some form of momentum before I start. I think with even just these couple of strategies, I'll be able to cut down on my compositional time.