Ideas for compositions

One of the ideas for a set of pieces that has been haunting me recently has been to create a massive set to depict elements of urban life....or urban history.

I've been on the cusp of finishing a piano suite entitled "Music for a Suburban Scene" for almost 5 years. I hold it off and I hold it off longer in hopes that I will develop more as a musician. That I will gain an individual voice that will be original and interesting. I know that all i need is an hour a day for a few months to get me to where I want to be with these pieces.... unfortunately I moved to the east coast and no longer have Sibelius available.

But the piece I now really want to write, what I crave to do, is create something on-going. Something that never is finished. A set of compositions which literally will be worked over years and years for the rest of my life.

la Cité Radieuse is one concept for a title. This is a title of a radical work of architecture by Le Corbusier, but it is also a concept which he extended to urban planning for a modern city. a "radiant city" is one full of exuberance, energy and diversity. I think that is what I want to try and capture musically. Some pieces for piano, maybe some for ensembles, some for other solo instruments.... All to capture images of what could be scenes in a "radiant city". Thats what I'm obsessed with at the moment.

That and Abbie Hoffman, who seems like someone I would have liked to have known. A character who would be at home in the diverse, exuberant "radiant city" of my imagination.

Now that school, and its associated thesis is firmly out of the picture, I'm going to try and concentrate on music again. My goal is to write out the entire Music for a Suburban Scene out by the end of the year. Its high time I get the damn thing finished in some form (even if means later re-writes). I've also decided I want to undertake an even more personal project, the creation of pieces for all my close friends and family.

Right now I have written out one of these kinds of things. A short, simple piece called For February 18th (my friend's birthday) and I Have every intention of writing a For December 18th, For July 2nd, For September 26th, and so on. Its a little more personal than a card. I always liked doing art projects for friends. Gives me a purpose to make something. I mean, if its just for me, whats the point?

Composing for a friend

My best friend's birthday was not long ago, and since he doesn't need more crap, I decided to do that artistic thing and make him something. Since I'm only good at making two things, music and sketches of buildings (this statement is very much debatable ) I settled on writing him a little piece of music.

Now thats all personal and crap, but when I actually settled down to writing the piece, I was faced with a problem. I like Louis Andriessen. Bang on a Can, Steve Reich and co. this comes across in a lot of my stuff... and i know, easy going peter will not enjoy tense, dissonant music. So ... I'm pushing myself to make something of a compromise. It has to be smooth enough and consonant enough that it doesn't provoke any intense feelings (and pianistic pyrotechnics are strictly forbidden!) , yet its gotta be interesting enough and progressive enough to be called contemporary. This aint easy, so its my work in progress.

Midi is a cruel mistress. My music sounds calm and smooth on my keyboard and harsh, ugly and uninteresting on the computer. It hurts a little, inside.

Again

Its Fall, again. The third since i started this blog. School again, this time I'm happy to report that I'm taking Spanish. I'm enthusiastic about it, there are lots of similarities with french and i can't help but francify what i'm studing. I've been writing "L'Hombre qui hablar..." things like that. Anyway, I can understand a lot of it already. Hopefully i'll reach a decent level of spoken spanish before my life's out.

In music news, well, theres no real music news. I work occasionally on the third movement of Suburban Scene, i know it could be done in a few days if i actually put energy into it. I just don't have it. I lack a personal drive to finish it up quickly. Maybe things cook better when they're cooked slow? Maybe not. The first and second movements both took me all of two weeks to write, and they enjoyable to write, which is something kinda rare. I work on things piecemeal anyway, a half hour here and there, day to day it piles it up into some 5 minutes of music. Kinda satisfying.

Troy- thank you so much for your conversions of the midi files. I have dozens of these of my dozens of pieces, I'm not going to shove them all your way, don't worry. But I really do need to thank you. They sound beautiful. I'll (re?) post them soon. :)

Midis for My Music

*Edit* fixed the link for mov. 2 so now it actually linking to the second movement!


So here are some basic, mechanical midi files of the two movements of Music for a Suburban Scene finished so far. The third may be on its way soon. Do not hesitate to tell me what you think. I depend on it.... so comment please. Thanks.


Suburban Scene Mov. 1

Suburban Scene Mov. 2

Two Little Pieces from 2006

So Sibelius has been an EXCELLENT program for me, and has given me the opportunity to write up in classy fashion some old pieces from 2006. Its amazing to me how much things change in 2 years, i would never write music like this anymore, but these two i've hung on to because i really like them a lot.

This Berceuse written back around 2006 and is one of my favorite pieces i've written. Its extremely simple, but if played correctly, very delicate. This is a midi version of the piece, which i have from the Sibelius, and it aint playing it with any delicacy, but thats ok, you get the idea.

Midi Version: http://www.zshare.net/audio/13795384e1fb620e/

Another super easy little piece (one of those few that i really enjoyed both writing and playing) is this untitled piece, written a little earlier. Any ideas for a nice little title for it? I'd name it after you if it sounds right... Personally, though i like the piece, its too retro for me, sounds too much like Ravel- but thats ok, I tried. And at least its pretty. Anyway, it is also pretty delicate and simple, and all the same i have a crude midi version here to go along with the sheet music

http://www.zshare.net/audio/137961439b5d1ca3/



Anyway, like i said. I wouldnt write music like sounds like this now adays, not because of some change in attitude, but because i know how now. But I'll have to prove that another day.

The radiohead concert is sold out :( on the first day tickets go on sale, they're gone. Hows that even possible? People are nuts... Either way, i was planning on going with a friend this august, but i guess thats not gonna happen :(

I've been working on Sibelius-ing (as in the program, not the awesome dude) my great Anti-masterpiece Junk Folder, which i mentioned (and even scanned a page of the score) a long time ago, like 2 summers ago, when i wrote most of it. Its so fun to be able to hear my piece, even if its on these shitty midi voices, it still is cool. Easier to conceptualize, i guess. Who knows if i'll ever get anyone to play it.

i'll probably post some of the score on here one of these days. Ive layed out the first 2 of 5 songs. (the 5th was never finished) so i have some work to do. The whole thing wont be ready before summer, im sure of that. Anyway, its been fun to work on between homeworks...

2 more

these are the longer ones. haha. Its wierd to think that a 1 Minute 20 some second piece could be long, but its all relative. doing these short pieces each second feels significant. I write some 4 bars that last 15 seconds and i sit back and cant help but think how much music i made in 4 bars. haha.
These are by far the most technically demanding pieces in the set. In fact, im thinking they almost go beyond the range of what i was initially trying to do, which was really write tiny un-intimidating works that any one could play. But aside from the repetition which simplifies things the demands in number 12 ^ above are beyond the abilities of the person i wrote for in (say) number 7 below. I'm happy to keep em though.

hey, do any of you want to play this?

The radiohead laser show last night was sweet. They did a good job with "pyramid song" in particular

Um, i said i'd "publish" the fruits of my winter vacation, so here are 5 samples of some 12 pieces i've written up. The title of the set is "music for begining" the idea here is that they're incredibly easy pieces that would serve as music for a novice pianist, or music thats good for warmups good for sight-reading etc. So they are sort of functional-music type things. I havent written any performance indications, but i've been kinda lazy. Anyway, i know how they're supposed to be played, it should be obvious from the way they sound and are written, but hey, who knows. Do any of you 3/4 guys who see this site want to play my music? they're super easy! hahaa

Anyway, heres the first few:

Probably my last post of the year

And i really just dont have that much to say. Vacation is nice, but it makes me lazy. Ive written a number of tiny little piano pieces specifically tailored for beginners. Its the only kind of composition i can really tolerate right now. I think I've written about 8 of these little things. They're nice, maybe i'll post them sometime.

um. What else. Ive continued to browse youtube on occasion, i stumbled upon a good performance of Shoenberg's gorgeous Verklarte Nacht. ( I found that after listening to Blondie... hahaha.) And realized that the wierd and unpleasant world of blindingly ignorant youtube trolls makes its way to shoenberg videos too. Bizarre and stupid comments litter this video of six nice musicians just doing their job... (and doing a great job that would make Schoenberg proud) I cant really say much in the face of so much stifling idiocy (its more a problem of "where to start tearing down this monolithic tangle of crap?") So i just generally ignore what people post on youtube.

Probably the best for my sanity.
____

So thats the last post for the year of 2007. Onto 2008.

When did my perception of the passage of time become so warped? I swear time seemed to pass slower when i was little. The years just seem to speed up as they go.

un chat compositeur

Et Voila.

Il a l'air d'etre un grand musician.

kinda like those cat playing piano videos Alex Ross posted, but this one is my favorite.

Images, book 1

Metropolitan is the name of both this building and my piece. I had mentioned earlier that i was thinking about writing music in paraline form, well, this is in (somewhat warped) perspective. If anyone tries to tell me that my music is non-musical because it fulfills a notational standard (an image on paper) first and the actual musical substance second, bullshit i say. Mine is no less musical than seralism- because serialism's values are the same- the notational demands are there first and the music is fitted into the frame. Image precedes experience.

anyway, the most common question has been "is it actually playable? does it sound good?" Well, depends on your notion of "good"... and yes, its playable, hence the A's and B's and the Part 1,2,3,4. There are only two bars but they can be played in any order the performers want and in any combination that the performers like. There is no prescribed instrumentation, its just whatever instruments can play the notes.

Most importantly, its also a gift for a non-musical friend. Its her favorite building in New York.

I've decided im going to write a piece, or series of pieces that relate to the paraline drawing technique. Im not exactly sure how to go about this, my main idea is to write music that will itself be in paraline form- i've also toyed with the idea of writing music that will create an architectural image, rather than just some abstract space-drawing. I think the second of these is a better idea, maybe both though, who knows. its a project i have for the summer.

Now i have no problem with this, but i thought of possible objections that musicians might have- that its music thats relies so heavily on the visual aspect of notation and isnt that a preoccupation with creating images rather than creating music? isnt it non-musical?

my response:

Well, no more non-musical than serialism. A drawing is just giving you the perimeters for the notes to go, just as a tone row does- they both rely on some sort of notational structure first and then musical (aural) attributes secondly- not to say serialism doesn’t deal with musical attributes, of course it does, but it is just as pre-occupied with the visual as i would be if i drew, say, the spire of the Chrysler building in musical notes.

so why didnt a school of visual-musical artists who draw in notes not develop along side serialism? The value structure is the same for both- fulfilling the notational criteria is primary, everything else is secondary- so im really not sure why composers didnt adopt this idea. Probably because the extra-musical value here is too explicit, it could seem banal or trivializing to music (as if it doesnt with the serialist meathod!)ah well.

For Kicks.

This needs some explanation. Recently Alex Ross made a post about George Bush's infamous statements about Trent Lott's porch and a little bit about his posing with a guitar. George apparently wanted to pose with a G chord, but messed it up, and instead he was positioned on the notes G, G#, A, B, C, and D ( Thank you JD Considine!).

Now this produces a wonderfully ugly chord, which, no doubt, our dear leader intended. I thought it fitting today, after reading this post, and reflecting on the powerful leadership of dear leader, to make a little ditty out of this (though not my usual fare), so this afternoon i did just that. The rest is on the back of this page, and i wont trouble you with that.

A word about the piece. I imagine a warm summer Mississippi day with Dubya on the guitar- on... you guessed it, Trent Lott's porch.

As always, feel free to comment. Im not easily offended.