Musical Composition

WIP: Notes on Complete Set-Class Cover

by Stephen Soderberg

Stylistic Cohabitation in the First Movement of Bartók’s Fourth String Quartet

by Sergio Cote

ELEMENTARY SOURCES: LATENT COMPONENT ANALYSIS FOR MUSIC COMPOSITION

by Spencer Topel

The Good Composers of the Neo-Tonal Movement

by Herman H. Leptz IV

Altered states of consciousness as an adaptive principle for composing electroacoustic music

by Jon Weinel

PhD Thesis

The aim of this research was to use altered states of consciousness (ASCs) as an adaptive principle for composing... more The aim of this research was to use altered states of consciousness (ASCs) as an adaptive principle for composing electroacoustic music, in which common features of the ASC experience provide a basis for the design of sonic material and inform the structural design of corresponding musical sections. Various cultures throughout history have sought to undergo visionary journeys using hallucinogenic plants and drugs. In many cases these experiences have been used as a basis for the creation of art, literature and music. Informed by a survey of relevant work, this practice-led research develops a compositional process for creating electroacoustic music that is based upon hallucinogenic perceptual states. Though situated within the electroacoustic idiom, the work also draws significantly upon Western psychedelic culture and electronic dance music. The output is a creative portfolio containing a series of musical compositions, software and video. This supporting commentary describes the compositional processes in detail, and it is hoped that it will be of interest to other creative practitioners dedicated to exploring this theme in music and other mediums.

Composition

by Mark Lindley

Published in “The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians” (1980).

This article addressed implicitly the issue of whether the Western musical terms, “compose” and “improvise,” should be applied to folk music and to most traditional kinds of non-Western music. The implicit answer is “no.”

O que se passa quando componho?

by Rodolfo Caesar

Resumo: relato sobre ações, atitudes e reflexões geralmente presentes durante o trabalho de composição, do ponto de vista do compositor.
Palavras-chave: composição, imagem sonora e imagem visual, referencialidade, escuta

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN I COMPOSE?

Abstract: report - from the composer's point of view - on some of the actions,... more WHAT HAPPENS WHEN I COMPOSE?

Abstract: report - from the composer's point of view - on some of the actions, attitudes and reflections generally present while he works through a piece.
Keywords

A ESPECTROMORFOLOGIA COMO DISCURSO: CONSIDERAÇÕES ACERCA DA OBRA TEÓRICA DE DENIS SMALLEY

by Maurício Perez

Este projeto de pesquisa teve como objetivo a compreensão da obra teórica do compositor Denis Smalley, a fim de... more Este projeto de pesquisa teve como objetivo a compreensão da obra teórica do compositor Denis Smalley, a fim de investigar as possibilidades do uso da teoria espectromorfológica como ferramenta de organização discursiva para a Música Eletroacústica de vertente Acusmática. Para tal propósito, este trabalho desenvolveu-se em três etapas. Primeiramente, selecionamos os textos do autor que tratam especificamente sobre a teoria espectromorfológica e os inter-relacionamos, buscando compreender como Smalley concebe o discurso musical em sua poética espectromorfológica. Posteriormente, visando verificar como a teoria de Smalley pode ser aplicada como ferramenta composicional no que tange à organização do discurso, fizemos a análise de uma peça acusmática sob os preceitos do autor e, como última etapa, propomos uma organização discursiva influenciada pelas ideias de Smalley.

The Anti-systematic System. Hans Zender's Third Way between Lachenmann and Ferneyhough

by Håvard Enge

The German composer and conductor Hans Zender (born 1936) has addressed the question of pluralism in increasingly... more The German composer and conductor Hans Zender (born 1936) has addressed the question of pluralism in increasingly pointed ways in both his works and his theoretical essays. In this paper, I will discuss his theory of microtonal harmony, which he developed in the 1990s and refers to as an “anti-systematic system”. I will emphasize how Zender situates his theory as a “third way” between the school-building ideas of Lachenmann and Ferneyhough. As well as offering a middle way between the approaches to harmony in the works of these dominant contemporary modernists, Zender’s “anti-systematic system” suggests ways in which the experience of pluralism might be integrated in a flexible and open-ended, but still essentially modernist way of composition.

Composition

by Mark Lindley

Published in “The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians” (1980).

This article addressed implicitly the issue of whether the Western musical terms, “compose” and “improvise,” should be applied to folk music and to most traditional kinds of non-Western music. The implicit answer is “no.”

Creating Soundscapes

by Luigi Agostini

Mother Lode Issues: Ralph Shapey's worksheet and the late music

by Christian Carey

Published in Perspectives of New Music Vol 47, no. 2

Keywords: Ralph Shapey, Mother Lode worksheet, contemporary composition, post-tonal analysis, twelve-tone row, string... more Keywords: Ralph Shapey, Mother Lode worksheet, contemporary composition, post-tonal analysis, twelve-tone row, string quartet

Abstract: From 1981 until his death in 2002, Ralph Shapey repeatedly employed the Mother Lode, a worksheet which included a twelve-tone collection, together with various pitch and rhythmic relationships that he associated with the row. The Mother Lode worksheet is an omnipresent precompositional tool. Shapey included it at the beginning of some of his published scores.

Patrick Finley and Mary Greitzer have both evaluated works from the 1980s in which Shapey was remarkably faithful to the ordering of linear elements, verticals, and rhythmic gestures found on the Mother Lode worksheet. Although more varied in its deployment, the Mother Lode worksheet still exerted a great degree of influence in Shapey's works from the 90s and 00s. Shapey's single-minded exploration of the potentialities of the worksheet is an essential component to an understanding of his late works.   

Facilitating musical composition as ‘contract' learning in the classroom

by Ornette Clennon

Despite national initiatives in the UK such as Creative Partnerships, an organization formed in 2002 for exploring... more Despite national initiatives in the UK such as Creative Partnerships, an organization formed in 2002 for exploring creative approaches to learning in the classroom, there is still a gap between aspiration and practice. This is especially evident in the teaching of musical composition in primary schools, partly because there seems to be a profound fear of music, especially for many primary school teachers who are not music specialists, and a lack of knowledge of participatory practice. This article describes the development of a resource for facilitating compositional processes using classroom management skills, as adapted from Knowles’s ‘contract learning’. I will also highlight the creative tensions raised by the sometimes conflicting approaches of instruction and facilitation.

Tiny Jungle: Psychedelic Techniques in Audio-Visual Composition

by Jon Weinel

Forthcoming, proceedings of the International Computer Music Conference (ICMC 2011).

Tiny Jungle (duration 7:10) [1] is a psychedelic audio- visual montage, with a soundtrack based upon electroacoustic... more Tiny Jungle (duration 7:10) [1] is a psychedelic audio- visual montage, with a soundtrack based upon electroacoustic music and late 1990s drum and bass. This work forms part of my research regarding ‘Altered states of consciousness (ASCs) as an adaptive principle for composing electroacoustic music’. According to Heinrich Klüver [2] and Timothy Leary [3], ASCs such as those induced by mescaline may commonly result in the perception of visual patterns of hallucination, cryptic symbols, perception of cellular or atomic forms, and strange journeys or narratives. Tiny Jungle uses these ASC features as a basis for the composition of sound and video. Visual material for this piece was created through a montage of animated hand-drawn artwork, 3D graphics and material created using a specially designed Max/MSP/Jitter tool that produces stroboscopic visual material in real-time. The combination of music and moving images is intended to construct a narrative that conveys psychedelic experiences. In this paper I will discuss the development of Tiny Jungle from concept to realisation, with emphasis on the development of visual material and a brief overview of the soundtrack. It is hoped to thereby stimulate thought for audio-visual practitioners on compositional techniques based upon ASCs and audio-visual montage techniques involving hand-produced artwork and real-time methods.

Musical form after the avant-garde revolution: A new approach to composition teaching

by Rafael Junchaya

Musical form after the avant-garde revolution: A new approach to composition teaching

by Rafael Junchaya

"The Status is Not Quo": Gender and Performance in Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog

by Kendra Leonard

This is a pre-print. From Buffy, Ballads, and Bad Guys Who Sing: Music in the Worlds of Joss Whedon, ed. Kendra Preston Leonard, Scarecrow Press, 2010.

“‘The Status is Not Quo’: Gender and Performance in Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog” considers the interplay of music... more “‘The Status is Not Quo’: Gender and Performance in Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog” considers the interplay of music and masculinity in the Rent and Sweeney Todd-influenced online musical. Analysis reveals that the combination of genres and their associated gender norms allow for both the parodying of and a relaxing of conventional markers of masculinity and femininity. The resulting environment could be pure campy fun, but in a final subversion of the musical that ironically conforms to superhero origin stories, it is instead a world whose darkness compares with the legendary Gotham.

The Six Chamber Concertos of Elliott Schwartz

by Stephen Soderberg

Liner notes for the CD Elliott Schwartz: Chamber Concertos Nos. I-VI. Boston Modern Orchestra Project (http://www.worldcat.org/title/chamber-concertos-i-vi/oclc/436031696&referer=brief_results)

CD Booklet reproduced at: http://bmop.org/sites/default/files/bmop_-_1013_-_elliott_schwartz_-_chamber_concertos.pdf

For general audience.

Planimetria em Koellreutter e atratores estranhos como metáfora para a composição musical com improvisação guiada

by Daniel Puig

"Planimetry in Koellreutter and strange atractors as a metaphor for musical composition with guided improvisation"
Publicado nos Anais do 1º Simpósio Brasileiro de Pós-Graduandos em Música - SIMPOM, PPGM/UNIRIO, Rio de Janeiro (RJ, Brasil), novembro de 2010.
Published in the Proceedings of the 1st Brazilian Symposium of Post-Graduates in Music - SIMPOM, PPGM/UNIRIO, Rio de Janeiro (RJ, Brazil), November 2010.

Este artigo procura delinear as possibilidades da utilização do conceito de atrator estranho, provindo da Teoria do... more Este artigo procura delinear as possibilidades da utilização do conceito de atrator estranho, provindo da Teoria do Caos, como metáfora para a composição musical que se utiliza da improvisação guiada. Inicia por expor o conceito de planimetria como entendido por H. J. Koellreutter, em suas relações com: a Psicologia da Gestalt e seus princípios básicos; o serialismo numa visão estruturalista; uma visão dinâmica do silêncio, entendido como plano ou espaço continente das ocorrências musicais. O relacionamento entre esta concepção e ideias provenientes da Teoria do Caos, em especial o funcionamento de sistemas dinâmicos não-lineares, é explorado com relação à composição de Caotrios 1 e de sua execução em dois momentos diferentes: na estreia, em 1995, e nos Cursos Internacionais de Férias para a Nova Música (Internationalen Ferienkurse für Neue Musik), em Darmstadt, Alemanha, em 2010. A partir da exposição do conceito de atrator estranho, isto é, de um conjunto de possibilidades para o qual um determinado sistema dinâmico não-linear tende, cujo comportamento no tempo é imprevisível e cuja estrutura apresenta uma dimensão fractal, faz-se uma relação entre este, a planimetria e a possibilidade de utilizá-lo como metáfora para o pensamento composicional que se utiliza da improvisação guiada, baseando as conclusões nos resultados obtidos com Caotrios 1.

Uma improvisação guiada por uma partitura, como uma mente, segundo os seis critérios do processo mental propostos por Gregory Bateson

by Daniel Puig

"An improvisation guided by a score, as a mind, according to the six criteria of mental process, proposed by Gregory Bateson"
Publicado nos Anais do VII Simpósio Internacional de Cognição e Artes Musicais (7SIMCAM), Brasília (Brasil), maio de 2011.
Published in the Proceedings of the VII International Symposium of Cognition and Musical Arts (7SIMCAM), Brasília (Brazil), May 2011.

A partir dos seis critérios do processo mental, propostos por Gregory Bateson, procuro demonstrar que um grupo de... more A partir dos seis critérios do processo mental, propostos por Gregory Bateson, procuro demonstrar que um grupo de músicos improvisando a partir de uma partitura pode ser considerado como uma mente em si mesmo. Contextualizando as contribuições desse autor, parto para uma análise detalhada dos critérios, procurando sumarizar seus pressupostos ao propor que este tipo de estruturação seja possível. Aplico, então, os critérios a uma situação imaginada, considerando: suas partes, a interação entre elas, o ponto por onde flui energia colateral para o sistema, sua cadeia circular de determinação e as transformações que ocorrem em seu interior, para, por fim, revelar uma hierarquia de tipos lógicos imanente a ela.