Category: Composition & Orchestration

Score and Parts Preparation

Post author By
Post date

Scores must include:

A cover page with title, composer’s name, and year of composition.
An inside page with list of required instruments, duration, and a program note.
The full name of each instrument to the left of the staff on the first page; subsequent pages should use abbreviated instrument names.
Bar numbers on the left side of each system, above the top staff and above string staves of orchestral music. Rehearsal letters need not be used in conjunction with bar numbers except in multi-movement works, in which bar numbers restart in each movement but rehearsal letters continue without restarting for the composition’s duration.

Scores must be:

Legible and prepared to professional standards, with no overlapping or unclear elements. Type-size should be large enough to be read easily by a conductor.
Printed on letter-sized paper (small-ensemble music) or legal (8.5” x 14”) or tabloid (11” x 17”) paper (orchestral or band music). Set margins so staves are centered on the page and not unreasonably spread out.
Proofread by a qualified individual other than the composer, who should provide feedback on the music, on instrumental characteristics (balance, ranges and transpositions) and appearance of the score. The same is essential for parts.
Printed double-sided and bound (spiral or folded/stapled). Music submitted as part of an application (for a competition, graduate school, consideration for performance by an ensemble, etc.) must ALWAYS be professionally bound.

Parts must include:

Title, composer’s name; instrument name in the top left-hand corner of the first page; instrument name at the top center of all subsequent pages.
Adequate rests at all page-turns.
Eight to twelve staves per page, depending on the density of the music.
Rehearsal letters and/or bar-numbers that match the score. Bar-numbers should appear at the beginning of each staff-system (NOT every five bars, etc.).
“H-bar” signs for multiple-bar rests, followed by logical cues to guide performers who rest for several bars. Cues should be musically relevant, audible to the performer being cued, and in the key of the part in which it appears. Cues should appear in small notes above whole-bar rests, and should include the name of the instrument that is performing the passage. It is also convenient to include a bar-number range for the multi-bar rest. For example:

The addition of such cues has been made very easy when using Sibelius software, which includes a “Paste as cue” command.

A special note on cues: cues must appear whenever an instrument rests for more than eight bars. They must appear in parts, but never in the score! Be sure that cue-bars appear with small-note music in the part and bar rests in the score.

Parts must be:

Legible from the distance of a performer to his or her music stand. The most readable staff size for all instruments is 8.5 mm from bottom staff-line to top.
Not on loose pages: parts may be tape-bound, or printed booklet-style on 11”x 17” paper that is folded in half to form a letter-sized booklet.
Duplicated according to the required instrumental forces.
On letter-sized paper* in portrait-format, double-sided. If parts span only two pages, they should be printed next to each other on one side of a portrait-oriented tabloid sheet so that both sides can be read without turning the page. Fold such a part with music facing outward, so the piece can be easily identified in a performer’s folder. Examples (l-r: 1 page, 2 page, and 3+ page parts).

* Professional orchestra and band parts should really be on 10”x 13” paper, but exceptions are made in most situations.

Common Typesetting Mistakes

Tempo markings, rehearsal letters and bar numbers should…

appear only over the top staff of a score (except in an orchestra, when they also are printed over the violin I staff; they should never appear over each staff.
appear in each instrumental part.

Dynamic markings should…

be placed, at minimum, under each instrument’s first note and under the first note of each new phrase that follows a rest of more than a singe bar.
appear above vocal staves (so not to collide with lyrics)
reflect the character desired for that instrument’s performance. Only in rare circumstances should dynamics be used to differentiate foreground and accompanimental lines.
never appear under rests or otherwise empty bars.

Instrument names should…

not appear the same on two staves. Ex.: when two trumpets have individual lines, the first should be “Trumpet 1 in B♭” and the second should be “Trumpet 2 in B♭” (both should not be “Trumpet in B♭”).
be abbreviated on subsequent pages for all ensembles larger than quartets (for small ensembles or solos, the names should be omitted).

Staff-systems should…

be relatively full of music from side to side. If a final system has just one bar, adjust the music to fit it on the previous page or drag the final bar line to narrow the individual bar.
not just fill the top half of a page:
- For ensembles with five or fewer staves, fit multiple systems in portrait-orientation.
- For ensembles with 5-10 staves, use landscape-orientation and size staves to fill the page from top to bottom. You also may wish to adjust top & bottom margins to center the music on the page.
- For ensembles with more staves, you may wish to use legal-sized paper.

Tempo, technique and expression markings should have appropriate typeface, italicization and capitalization. Common markings in common formats include:

Principal tempo indications are in bold face, with “sentence capitalization”:
- Adagio, Moderato, Allegro ma non troppo, Tempo I, Fast, etc. Tempo changes are not capitalized:, accel., a tempo, rit., più mosso, etc.
Some foreign terms are not italicized, while others commonly are (check published scores when in doubt). Less-common terms generally are italicized.
- arco | pizz. | div. | unis. | semplice | dolce | espr. | semplice | crescendo or cresc. (not Crescendo or Cresc. or cres.) | sim.
Dynamic markings should be printed in bold-faced italics: mp (not mp). On Sibelius, enter these notes as “expression text” (⌘-E), then select from the pull-down menu (control-click) or hold the ⌘ key while typing appropriate letters.
Don’t capitalize instrumental effects:
- mute on | st. mute | open | sul pont.

Ties and slurs are not the same. In Sibelius, a tie is created on the keypad and a slur is created with the shortcut “S”.

Pick-up bars must have rests of appropriate duration for all instruments that do not play (whole-rests must not be used).

Blog Posts Composition & Orchestration Composition II supplements Harmony Teaching Materials

Composition II – Pitch Sets

Post author By
Post date

The study of set theory is one that is deep and often covered in music theory courses devoted to the analysis of 20th century music. A “nutshell” description of it is here. The typical approach to pitch set analysis involves considering pitches numerically (0=C, 1=C#, etc.), understanding the different pitch-class sets that are possible (there are 208!) considering three-note collections (trichords), four-note (tetrachords), five-note (pentachords), and so forth, with each set representing both the notes in “proper” order and under both ansposition and inversion, as is the common practice.

Why use set theory as a composer?

One point of set theory is to create a “language” for understanding music that is not based on triads as a fundamental feature of melody and harmony. Indeed, pitch sets are used like notes of a chord — they can be a framework for melodies, stacked as chords, embellished, and so forth. The order of pitches isn’t what is important (as it is with twelve-tone music).

For instance, music could be composed that features the pitch-class set 0,1,4 (it’s called “3-3,” since it is listed third on the standard table of pitch-class sets), transpositions of that set, and inversions of it:

3-3 is, in fact, a main feature of the second movement of Bartok’s String Quartet No. 2. We can most easily see this by looking at the intervals between notes of the piece; when motives are framed by a major third that is divided by a half-step on one side or the other, it is “3-3,” like in this music at rehearsal 1:

This passage also has a couple of extra notes – the G# in bar 19 helps expand 3-3 into more of a scale, as does the C# in bar 23. The C# in bar 23 also helps make another version of 3-3 (0,1,4 transposed up by a half step).

Another way that Bartók used this trichord is as main notes of the melody in rehearsal 4:

At rehearsal 7, this trichord is found alongside 3-4 (0,1,5 – imagine a perfect fourth with a half step-in the middle, like C-C#-F or C-E-F).

At bar 166, there is a very strong chord that combines 3-3 and 3-4 into a single unit.

As the music continues from this point, the cello performs a melody that also blends 3-3 and 3-4.

…and forth it continues.

Blog Posts Composition & Orchestration Composition II supplements Rhythm Teaching Materials

Composition II – Rhythm and Meter

Post author By
Post date

Plenty of contemporary art music has ordinary rhythm. There are other approaches, however, that can be used to provide different sorts of rhythmic interest.

Music that seems to be free or only loosely coordinated

One example of this music is the first movement of Olivier Messaien’s Quartet for the End of Time, entitled Liturgy of Crystal. Listen to this music while following the score, noting how each instrument seems to move at its own pace. What aspects coordinate this music? Do instruments seem to align with the meter? Or to each other? Where do you perceive downbeats?

Some music provides extreme freedom in its interpretation, giving little information about how it is to be rhythmically interpreted. For instance, the beginning of Aleksandra Vrebalov’s My Desert, My Rose has performers coordinate by reading from the score (it’s here) until rehearsal letter T [here], at which point the music (more or less) settles into a consistent 7/8 meter.

Music with a propulsive beat

Much music of the 20th and 21st century has a strongly propulsive beat, not unlike some classical music of the past and certainly similar to much rock and jazz. Complex rhythmic patterns can be especially clear when they are accompanied by a persistent groove. The second movement of Béla Bartók’s String Quartet No. 2 is a great example of how small bars (in this case, 2/4) can be combined to make phrases of different lengths with a constant flow of 8th notes providing a rhythmic underpinning.

Music in unbalanced meters

While traditional music tends to be either in simple or compound time, music can also combine aspects of each (for instance in 5/8 meter, in which each bar has one simple beat and one compound, not necessarily in that order) or can shift from one to the other. Returning to Messaien’s Quartet for the End of Time, this approach can be seen in the sixth movement, called Dance of the Furies, for the Seven Trumpets. A tour-de-force entirely in octaves and unisons, notice how bars combine aspects of simple and compound meters (and more complicated rhythms, like beats with five 16th notes), and how Messaien did not even notate meter.

Music can also sound fresh and unpredictable in a consistent meter with an uncommon time signature (like Steve Reich’s Eight Lines in 5/4), or free and flexible in meters that change constantly (like Reich’s Proverb), or this part of Igor Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring. Another terrific example is #140 (“Free Variations”) from Bartók’s Mikrokosmos.

Tempo fluctuation

Some composers, most notably Elliott Carter (1908-2012), explored the use of metric modulation to move from one tempo to another. Here’s a charming video of a drummer demonstrating the concept. Carter’s music is particularly complicated in this regard because the metric modulations are combined with an existing complexity of rhythm. For instance, in his solo guitar work Shard, a metric modulation in bar 5 uses one sixteenth note of the previous tempo as a single triplet unit in the next. In bar 17, the duration of five 16th notes becomes used as the new quarter note pulse. This continues…

One fantastic online resource is the Metric Modulation Calculator. It helps calculate tempi based on meter changes.

Additive rhythm is a name given to the technique of using flexible lengths for musical fragments, constantly changing the lengths of a particular gesture. This can be reflected in changes of time signatures, or with a consistent time signature (as in Jacob her Veldhuis’ Caterpillar – here is one page of the score).

Polyrhythms

The use of two simultaneous rhythmic “paces” (“polyrhythm“) can provide great rhythmic interest. This can happen through the use of tuplets, like in this segment of the second movement of Charles Ives’ Trio (layering triplets in the cello and the pianists’ right hand against sextuplets and septuplets in the other parts). It can also occur in the layering of different-length patterns that share a beat-division, such as Adam Silverman’s Pounding Fists; notice in this score, starting in bar 5, how a raucous texture is created with repeated ostinati of different lengths (the triangle pattern repeats every two beat, the bell tree every four; the glockenspiel ostinato lasts five eighth-notes; the two vibraphones loop every three eighth-notes; the two marimbas every five sixteenth-notes).

Blog Posts Composition & Orchestration Composition II supplements Teaching Materials

Composition II – Minimalism

Post author By
Post date

What is minimalist music?

Reduced from https://courses.lumenlearning.com/musicapp-medieval-modern/chapter/minimalist-music/

Minimal music is an aesthetic, a style, or a technique of music that originated in the New York Downtown scene of the 1960s and represents a new approach to the activity of listening to music by focusing on the internal processes of the music, which lack goals or motion toward those goals. Prominent features of the technique include consonant harmony, steady pulse (if not immobile drones), stasis or gradual transformation, and often reiteration of musical phrases or smaller units such as figures, motifs, and cells. It may include features such as additive process and phase shifting which leads to what has been termed phase music. Minimal compositions that rely heavily on process techniques that follow strict rules are usually described using the term process music.

Composer and music critic Tom Johnson wrote “The idea of minimalism is much larger than many people realize. It includes, by definition, any music that works with limited or minimal materials: pieces that use only a few notes, pieces that use only a few words of text, or pieces written for very limited instruments, such as antique cymbals, bicycle wheels, or whiskey glasses. It includes pieces that sustain one basic electronic rumble for a long time. It includes pieces made exclusively from recordings of rivers and streams. It includes pieces that move in endless circles. It includes pieces that set up an unmoving wall of saxophone sound. It includes pieces that take a very long time to move gradually from one kind of music to another kind. It includes pieces that permit all possible pitches, as long as they fall between C and D. It includes pieces that slow the tempo down to two or three notes per minute.”

What techniques are associated with minimalist music?

Some minimalist music features the sound of a drone (or pulsing drone), such as La Monte Young’s “The Well-Tuned Piano.” Music may gradually “evolve” by repeating notes or fragments for spans of time, as in Julius Eastman’s “Gay Guerrilla” [score | audio].”
Minimalist music tends to have a rhythmic characteristic of stillness or slowness (such as in David Lang’s “The Passing Measures“) or else it is motoric and incessant (like in John Adams’ Shaker Loops).
Ostinato and repetition of a melodic cell (a few pitches, either steady or rhythmic) is often found in place of a melody, such as in Philip Glass’ Two Pages.
- Terry Riley’s seminal piece In C (the score is here) features a drone note “C” and an indefinite number of players improvising by moving from one small cell to another at an intuitive pace.
- These cells often “evolve” through the use of a conceptual technique, like additive or subtractive process – this may be at the beginning or end of a melody (as in Rzewski’s Coming Together – here’s an analysis that explains it) or by filling in gaps of a pattern until it is complete (as in Reich’s Drumming – notice [in this score fragment] how each repeated bar of music adds one note at a time until the pattern is full).
- Sometimes one or more bars are repeated for definite or indefinite numbers of times before progressing to a new cell (like in Two Pages, or in Steve Reich’s Nagoya Marimbas.
- Permutation is the changing of a pattern through methodical changes, such as in David Lang’s Cheating, Lying, Stealing, which achieves rhythmic variety by repeating a pattern while inserting tiny pauses between each note of the pattern [read about it here].
- Classic counterpoint techniques are also sometimes used. In Arvo Pärt’s Fratres, an additive process is used to create an eight-chord melody (it builds from the outside-in, performing chords 1-2–7-8, then 1-2-3-6-7-8, then 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8). This pattern is then repeated in inversion. Those two patterns are then repeated in transposition again and again until the piece is complete.
Layering is an important compositional element in minimalism, both in how layers may be added or subtracted abruptly (as in Michael Gordon’s Trance) or through fading in and out (as in Reich’s Music for 18 Musicians).
- One special technique of minimalism is the use of extremely close canon, such as in Reich’s Clapping Music (notice how the same pattern is performed by both groups of clappers, but one layer is shifted by an eighth note bit-by-bit) or in Louis Andriessen’s Hout, in which four players perform the same quick line, one behind the other at a distance of one note.
- When two identical lines move in a canon that has no discrete steps (one layer “floats” away from the other, either by being at a slightly different speed, or by the temporary speeding or slowing of one part, a technique called phasing occurs, as in Steve Reich’s Piano Phase.
Harmony can be chromatic, but it is usually triadic or pan-diatonic (using all the notes of a key as the basic harmony), such as in Arvo Pärt’s Cantus in Memoriam Benjamin Britten. This piece also uses the medieval process of mensuration canon, in which each melodic layer moves at half the rate of the line above it. A composer’s use of harmony is often one of the characteristics that makes them distinctive, such as Glass’ use of triads or Reich’s use of extended jazz chords.
- One interesting process can be the repetition of a pattern while periodically changing its key signature, such as in Michael Torke’s The Yellow Pages (read here) or Robert Maggio’s A Ring That Has No End from Riddle.
Dynamics in minimalist music are typically steady (loud throughout, or quiet throughout), or in a single trend (quiet to loud over the entire span of time, or the opposite).
Instrumentation of minimalist music varies from one composition to another, but certain trends have emerged. Early minimalist music tended to be written for their composer-led ensembles, so Steve Reich’s works often were written for percussion and pianos; Philip Glass’ ensemble blended keyboards, voices and saxophones. Ambient music like Brian Eno’s Music for Airportsis often associated with electronic media. One common feature in much minimalist music is homogeneity of timbre, resulting in single-family ensembles like Reich’s New York Counterpoint (for multi-tracked clarinets) or Different Trains (for four string quartets with pre-recorded sounds)

The History of Minimalism

Early/conceptual minimalism
A simple process is allowed to progress with little intervention from the composer. There is often little more than one or two musical layers in combination, or a single layer in (often haphazard) counterpoint with a copy of itself.

Progressive minimalism
Characteristics of early-period minimalism are employed in combination with more intuitive approaches to composition or mutiple techniques in combination. Static or expansive textures and vivid colors are favored over process-based conceptualization.

More listening

Steve Reich “Music for 18 Musicians” (1974-76) [video]
Philip Glass “Einstein on the Beach” (1976) [YouTube audio playlist]
John Adams “Shaker Loops” (1983) [video]
Pauline Oliveros “A Woman Sees How The World Goes With No Eyes” (1989) [YouTube audio]
Michael Torke “Four Proverbs” (1993) [YouTube audio playlist]
David Lang “Cheating, Lying, Stealing (1993) [video] [analysis]
Michael Gordon “Trance” (1995) [YouTube audio playlist]
Anna Thorvaldsdottir “Aeriality” (2011) [video]
Nico Muhly “Drones” (2012) [audio]

How Does One Create a Minimalist Composition?

Choose amazing timbres
- Great instruments
- Effects
- Long-tones
- Flurried sounds
- Interlocking patterns
- Amplification & effects
- Similar timbres (8 guitars, 6 voices, etc.) or contrasting (rock band, orchestra, etc.)
- Spoken word (choral spoken word?)
- Overwhelming sonic combinations, or spare sounds?
- Fading in/out (of chords, tones, layers, etc.)
Choose a stylistic approach or process(es)
- Audible process
  - Additive/subtractive linear process
    - Notes/chords/sections/phrases before/between/after melody notes
  - Additive/subtractive textural process
  - Additive/subtractive harmonic process (notes expanding registrally from a small core, etc.)
  - Phasing; canon (unison? at expanding/contracting intervals?)
  - Key “rotation” through repetitions that change one note at a time
- Steady-state
  - Polyrhythmic layers
  - Other types of unpredictable variety
Choose a rhythmic approach
- Are lengths of phrases consistent, or do they vary with the process?
- Are repetitive patterns symmetrical, or in meters such as 5/4 or 7/8? Or expanding and contracting?
- Is the music pulse-oriented or free?
Choose a notational approach that suits the concept or procedure
- fully/strictly notated
- strict notation with loose repetitions
- musical “cells” with repetitions or improvisations
- set of instructions
Choose a duration and adapt musical process to accommodate it
- Infinite music (cyclical)
- Finite music
  - Indivisible: completes one cycle of a process
  - Sectional: different processes occur successively, or same process is repeated with new material
  - Rounded: opening material returns after digression

Blog Posts Composition & Orchestration

How To Prepare a Composition Recital

Post author By
Post date

First steps

Compose all the music and prepare sheet music for performance.
Schedule a date and venue… this may be done in collaboration with key collaborating performers who you know will be involved.
Ask all performers to commit to performing on the recital. Let them know that they will need to commit to a full level of preparation! In an ideal world, this would include all of the steps listed below (learning the music before the first rehearsal, attending three rehearsals, a recorded “dress” rehearsal and the concert)
One month before the recital, your program book is due to Matt Miller. Your professor will need to fill out a venue management form with any special requests (risers, extra piano, harpsichord, etc.)
Percussion must be organized by the percussion performer on your recital. They will need permission from faculty to check out instruments for rehearsals and the concert.

Preparing the Music

INDIVIDUAL PREPARATION

Establish a rehearsal schedule = 2 months BTR (before the recital)
Distribute the score & a part to each player = 1 month BTR
Check in with each performer about “difficulties”; this gives you a chance to iron out any bugs in the music, but also to let them know they should be looking at the music by this point. = 3 weeks BTR
Re-confirm rehearsal schedule = 3 weeks BTR

REHEARSAL #1 – 2 weeks BTR

You may not want to attend this one. Ask a trusted friend in the ensemble to take notes with questions for you that you can answer about the music, and be accessible by phone during the rehearsal in case they need you urgently.

REHEARSAL #2 – 1.5 weeks BTR

REHEARSAL #3 – 3-4 days BTR

FULL RUN-THROUGH OF EACH PIECE

Close to recital – the day before or the same day

Record it!

Before the Concert

Have the ensemble dress appropriately according to your wishes. Concert-black is classic. It’s a semi-formal occasion, so no suits are needed, but sharp concert dress is important. Be sure they know the concert order and how they should enter (Will they be introduced? will they be “clapped on”? Will they be onstage during speaking portions of the show?) Get the Best wireless earbuds to deeply listen to your favorite artists and songs.

Publicize the event! Tell your friends, your family… everyone. It feels better to have friendly faces in the audience, and plenty of them.

Prepare some remarks to make from the stage. You should be sure to thank relevant people (especially those who gave of their time and talent to perform your compositions, but also your teachers, parents, friends, supporters). Keep your words concise and casual.

Make sure the recording is rolling.

Ask people to silence their phones. It’s your recital.

At the Concert

Try to relax! Enjoy the performance! Don’t wince if there are wrong notes. If anyone gets terribly lost, don’t be afraid to stop the music and help them get back together. It’s not Carnegie Hall, after all.

Afterward, when people tell you how great the concert was, thank them. They are being nice, and hopefully sincere. Don’t tell people that it was awful… this is not the time to be humble… just accept the compliment.

Thank each performer individually. It is very nice to give them a thank-you note or small gift. Remember that they were preparing your music when they could have been studying for their music history exam.

Blog Posts Composition & Orchestration Pedagogy Teaching Materials

Better Feedback on Creative Projects

Post author By
Post date

A post by David MacDonald that is worth re-posting; I intend to direct my composition and orchestration students to this in the future.

Better Feedback on Creative Projects

Blog Posts Composition & Orchestration Teaching Materials

Orchestration Challenges

Post author By
Post date

ALL ABOUT challenges

? = strings only • ? = woodwinds only • ? = brass only • △ = percussion only

Compose a short piece of music (1-2 minutes) that is all about…

Blog Posts Composition & Orchestration Teaching Materials

Preparing for a Composition Department Concert

Post author By
Post date

The End-Of-Semester Concert

For the end-of-semester composition department concert, you will need the following:

Blog Posts Composition & Orchestration Teaching Materials

Pursuing Graduate Study in Music Composition

Post author By
Post date

Continue reading “Pursuing Graduate Study in Music Composition”

Blog Posts Composition & Orchestration

Composition Challenges

Post author By
Post date

Successful completion of these challenges involves approaching each task directly and thoroughly, avoiding extraneous musical details that do not contribute to the requested sonic effect.

Challenges that must be composed for acoustic instruments with no electronic accompaniment or sonic modification are indicated with a ☀ symbol. Challenges designed for electroacoustic music are labeled ⚡. Challenges designed for piano or piano-plus-one are labeled ?.

Blog Posts Composition & Orchestration Teaching Materials

Scoring Ideas

Post author By
Post date

Various textures to use as possible springboards for orchestration projects. Note that thick textures made from voicing large chords under a plain melody are absent here! Click images to enlarge.;

Blog Posts Composition & Orchestration Pedagogy Teaching Materials

Journaling for Composition Lessons

Post author By
Post date

Ten out of ten composition lessons that I teach end with me jotting down a short list of repertoire for the student to study over the coming week. Most often, these pieces are chosen because their instrumentation or compositional approach is similar to that being used by the student. They also tend to have the secondary goal of broadening the student’s experience and leading them toward more adventurous and distinctive writing.

As far as I can tell, my students almost never follow through. To the professor (that’s me, but I think most composition professors do this), it is one of the essential parts of the lesson. To the student, it seems like extra work when all they really want to do is sit down and make stuff up.

With this in mind, I decided to create this page and direct students to it. What follows is a list of questions that must be answered for each piece of music assigned as listening. Some of them are “due diligence” to make sure that a score and recording were, in fact, located and perused. Others are designed to help guide the student’s study of the score and suggest practical ways that hearing new music can help a musician progress as a learner and gain new tools for composition.

Blog Posts Composition & Orchestration Teaching Materials

Studying Art Song

Post author By
Post date

Preparing to teach a unit on Copland’s Twelve Poems Of Emily Dickinson to a class of composers who will, in turn, compose the “thirteenth song” as a style-study exercise. Thanks to Robert Maggio for the genesis of this unit and for most of these ideas!

And, for a quick link, here are the complete poems of Emily Dickinson.

When studying these songs, be sure to consider…

Blog Posts Composition & Orchestration Teaching Materials

Some Things Composers Think About

Post author By
Post date

Style: Relationship between any given piece and a musical genre

Technique: Difficulty of a composition • Amount of time it may take (or is allotted) to prepare for its performance

Harmony: Use of traditional vs. non-traditional harmonies • Use of tense/harsh/brash/complex harmonies vs. serene/pretty/simple harmonies • Stylistic connotations of harmonic types • Types of harmonic progression • Rate/naturalness/shock of harmonic change

Blog Posts Composition & Orchestration Rhythm The Museum of Rhythmic Oddities!

Take a few pitches; shake, strain

Post author By
Post date

A rare photograph of Irving Berlin and David Lang taken ca. 1935 and 2005.

It’s may seem like a huge stretch to find parallels between the music of Tin Pan Alley songsmith Irving Berlin and avant-garde postminimalist David Lang, but here’s a great meeting point in two pieces of music separated by more than 60 years: the use of systematic rhythmic permutation.

Cheating, Lying, Stealing

[Listen to the music and see the first page of the score]

Cheating, Lying, Stealing (1993) was David Lang’s breakthrough piece, putting him on the map as a hugely influential composer. I remember hearing it for the first time back then and being dumbstruck by its visceral energy and rhythmic unpredictability. I became so exhilarated after listening it that I got on one of my favorite websites on the internet, and got a couple of the best turntables from their website to listen to this track on repeat. There’s something about its clangorous instrumentation — especially in its “rhythm section” of kick drum and brake drums — that I feel establishes a perfect balance of metric “orientation” and “disorientation.” I’m especially thinking about its first third (up to 3’50” on the Bang on a Can All-Stars recording) and its last minute (starting at 9’36”). For years, I never attempted to figure out if a pattern guided his process — I just marveled at the clanky rhythms.

There is a pattern under it all, of course, and it’s fun to figure out. SPOILER ALERT: I’m going to tell you what it is, so if you want to give it a shot first, here’s a tip. Skip the first two bars (the intro) and take the music in dictation, all in 4/4 meter, separating the treble and bass lines to consider separately. See if you can find what’s going on.

Blog Posts Composition & Orchestration

Orchestration project peeves

Post author By
Post date

…a.k.a. “Has this student ever seen a page of printed music?” These things should (but do not) result in immediate failure and/or being made to sit in the corner.

Because a student isn’t thinking with their ears

When there is no tempo marked
When there are no dynamic markings at all. Or a tempo indication. Or articulations and slurs…
When an effect only lasts for one note