Coming together

We meet again, Mr. Blog!

haha

ohhhh I crack myself up sometimes

So once again I am sitting at my computer desk working on my composition and it coming along quite smoothly now. I would just like to thank everyone in the class again for the great input yesterday and for clark for making me present. I was in quite a writer's rut and it really helped to get feedback and clear minds to help me out. t'awwww! How sweet!

I think I've incorporated every suggestion so far that was brought up yesterday into what I have now:

-Clark's approach on creating just a couple ideas and sticking with them is a great way to keep on course with writing a composition. From writing this piece from scratch over and over again I've accumulated quite a few ideas that I am just dying to dig into but, but it was overwhelming to say the least. Taking less ideas allows them to grow and develop through the piece and should me more than enough if done right. Right now I have four different ideas which is more than enough for an audience to digest during a roughly five minute piece. 

-Both Mike and Melissa suggested for me to get away from my piano! How rude, right? haha It was quite helpful though. I found it helped me map out the structure of piece without having to worry about minor detail, which I can fix once I had the structure set in stone. Once I had that out of the way, the writing process moved a lot faster.

- I've addressed this many times, but I just want to bring up how I'm writing everything for my compositions on piano. I have no idea how to play the violin and I think I might have touched Saird's cello with my elbow one time, but it was only for a second. The problem with this is that I'm writing entire piano pieces before I even think of adding another melody line to it. So to compose a composition for 3 instruments it usually ends up becoming a piano piece with violin and cello accompaniment. To fix this problem, it was suggested (I know that Dylan for one did) that I make the piano less greedy and either trade off or just straight up give sections to the other two instruments. That way, since I am more comfortable with writing on a piano, I can structure another piano part around a certain melody line as oppose to trying to think in the ways of a cellist or violinist. 

I know this approach seems quite simple, but I was completely ignorant to the idea at first. Since it was already written on piano, which I had played over and over again constantly, it just felt right to keep it on that instrument. But actually moving motifs to another instrument gave me a fresh approach on certain sections as if I was working with something new.

If I never said your name, I still thank you for helping me! I think everyone voiced an opinion when I was up to plate and it was much appreciated.

I hope that these suggestions help anyone out at least a bit who might be struggling with their composition now. Although I'm pretty sure everyone is doing quite fine by the sounds of it! Hopefully future composition 3100 bloggers can benefit from it somehow.

Dear composition 3100 class of the future,

Blog every day.

Present as much as you can even when you think you have nothing.

Don't overload your composition with too many ideas.

Time to get back to sebelius

Yours truly,

-Robbie b

ps: new drinking game - have a drink every time you see the world 'compose' or any form of it in my blog entries. Whoa baby.

Edit:

I'm having a problem with sebelius 5 that I was wondering if someone could help me with it.

There is a passage in my piece that plays 'g, a and b' in three octaves jumping from one octave to the next upwards. But I need to notate it showing that it is to be played 'right hand, left hand, right hand'. Does anyone know how I can change the direction of the stems to easily make this clear for the performer?

thanks!

presentation day

So today I presented in class

....

aaaahahahahaha

That's funny!

But really though, I am quite glad I did go today. It definitely made me more motivated and gave me some insight on what to do ext with my composition. Now who would have thought that?

I find that a big problem of mine is that I've got to ease off on all of the ideas. Not to sounds conceited by saying it, but I could definitely get up to the piano and play and play and get a load of ideas for these pieces, or most pieces actually. What I find most difficult is to dig into the ideas once I come up with them and to only settle on a couple. I'm the kind of person that wants to record an entire album when I'm not even finished the first song. Thinking far too ahead of myself.

I'm sitting here now with my eyes glued to the computer screen and refraining from touching a single instrument in my room. Tonight I'm just going to spend working with the two ideas I presented in class today, plus one more idea, and see what comes out of it. Hopefully a masterpiece!

Man, blogs are fun! I should have been doing these a lot more this semester!

bye bye

-Robbie b

Ugh!

so

umm

it's currently 1:20 am

I have just made a HUGE change in my piece

and I can't go back

because once I think of something to change I can't settle for anything else

wonderful!

people can't die from lack of sleep can they?

we'll see!

-robbie b

writing diligently

Hey there!

I am still working away at my composition trying to get it finished, or at least relatively finished, for tomorrow's class. As I've been going along, I've tried to figure out ways to both speed up my composing as well as using sebelius the best I can.

I've played through the ideas I've collected numerous times on the piano with, of course, it changing slightly each time and I'm not certain if some parts should repeat or where different parts should go in the composition. Instead of just playing it over and over until I'm satisfied with the form, I just opened up another composition file and have been writing excerpts on it to cut and paste later. That way I can at least hear all the parts together and just sit back and listen to it. 

One thing about sebelius is, I find it so ridiculous to listen to the instruments play back what you write. The piano sounds alright when you are writing out rhythmic passages, but it is so hard to grasp something that is to be played a lot more free and with expression. I also find the cello and violin, the other two instruments I am using for my piece, to sound even less like the instruments when I hear them being played back and then I try to think whether or not it will sound foolish in reality. I think for christmas I'm going to ask for a professional multi-talented musician so I can have him live in my closet and play what I write. Sounds reasonable.

I think my main question for tomorrow's class after my piece gets played, hopefully in it's entirety, is to ask how effective the cliche is according to the position I have placed it in my piece. I used to have it at the beginning, then I moved to to the end, and now I'm not sure if I should have it at both the beginning and the end, if I should go back to it throughout or if I should just keep it as is. That is my main concern, along with some feedback from the string players on the violin and cello parts.

But back to my piece I go! It's sad when your break consist of writing about what you're taking a break from! Let's hear it for indecisive writing!

okay bye!

-Robbie b

Finally some progress!

Okay!

So I am sitting at my computer at 12:30 on a Friday night after spending the night tinkering away on my piano and relaxing in my room (yeah I'm cool like that, so what?) And I think I have FINALLY settled on a musical cliche that I am content with. It has been a long time in the coming I know! I've tried many cliches such as romantic music, chromaticism, 5-1 progressions, a waltz, to name a few, and none of them really seemed to settle with the other ideas I had for the piece. I didn't really think that I could grow from it and change naturally enough. With my new idea I think I can achieve that. 

The good thing about this extra lengthy process is that I have come across a few ideas that I can use in other compositions or just finish up with what they have and, voila, no wastage of ideas! It's great to add to my portfolio to submit for theory/comp at the end of the semester. 

I must sign off now though. I want to get some sleep and work on my composition all day tomorrow as well as sunday and hopefully have it completely ready for monday's class. 

I'll leave you in suspense until then though!

Good night folks!

-Robbie b

Facebook Group

Now isn't it about time we had a facebook group made up for this class?

I just made one up tonight so we can promote our concert. Also, once we get our recordings back, anyone who wants to can have theirs put up for others to listen to. Just another way to keep in touch!

Comp Group

Event 

I'll make anyone in the class an administrator so you can send invitations to whoever you want. And also for if you want to put anything up or take anything down!

Composition progress blog coming up soon.

-robbie b

stressed!

ah!

so we have less than two weeks until the performance for these pieces and I must say I am quite stressed. It is currently 11 pm on sunday night, my presentation day is tomorrow and I have nothing concrete written up on sibelius yet. I have a lot of material that I can write out no problem but I have yet to think of a good cliche to use, which is the most crucial part. I think I need to stop thinking of the ideas I have now and just think of a cliche to work with. I'm trying to write a composition and sticking a cliche in it as oppose to thinking of a cliche and writing a song around it and it's just not working out. 

I think I am just afraid of not being able to work with the ideas I have now if I pick a cliche that won't fit into it. I don't really want to scrap the ideas I have now but the concert is creeping up so it's crunch time baby!

We'll see where I am in 14 hours!

wish me luck!

-Robbie b

starting composition 2... again and again

howdy!

I'm finding this composition to be quite a fair bit more time consuming than the previous assignment, but not from lack of ideas. I find that every time I sit down at the piano I come up with more and more sections to a composition and I end up scraping old ones or changing them around. Right now I am sitting at my computer desk with various pieces of manuscript paper that contain different sections, but I have no idea which ones to use or how to link them together. I also have interchangeably three different cliches that work with what I'm doing, but I'm not sure which one to go with!

My best option right now is to gather up some ideas to perform tomorrow in class so I can get some feedback on what I have so far. Then I can construct a blog dealing with the overall layout of my composition!

ah! The stress of being a composer!

later folks

- robbie

moving along

Hello it's me!

Currently I am just finishing up the remainder of the first set of compositions as we speak. I found my first piece to be quite a nuisance to notate using sibelius due to its use of free time, but with the aid of the great Clark Ross I shouldn't be losing too much more sleep over it.

I'm not entirely decided on if I am going to play the piano for my piece or not. I find I get enough performance anxiety playing my rep as it is, let alone something that is written by me. That's more judging! ah yikes! Maybe I guess I'll just have to man up, but we'll see.

If anyone is interested in any new music I have a few links for you!

>As of lately, one of my bands, Ben Trovato, just released a 6 song ep. (Also consisting of currently guitar major steve cowan and former cello major and current rock star romesh thavanathan) 5 dollars for a cd if you want one and we're planning on having a show mid december to release it.

>Another one of my bands, Floods, is also releasing an ep sometime next month. All music is instrumental post-rock. 

>Fellow classmate Justin Guzzwell also has a dandy myspace page with some great originals on it that I enjoy.  Listening to it, in my opinion, gives you a greater appreciation of the compositions that he has performed so far in class!

>The new theory/aural skills prof, Scott Godin, has some really cool compositions that I recommend anyone to listen to if they want any inspiration for a tranquil and timeless composition. I find his music quite soothing.

>Last but not least, if you haven't stumbled across it already is Clark's very own myspace page. If you want a place to listen to his works that he played in class last week, then here is somewhere you can do that. I really enjoy the piece 'dream dance' in particular. Great job Clark!

I encourage anyone to post music of any sort up on their blogs for everyone to listen to. Listening to music is definitely inspirational and gets the creative gears going if you've got a case of the writer's block. 

As for the cliché composition, I am excited to get that started. I'm enjoying the fact that it can be atonal or tonal, which gives us a lot more options. It was great to start off with atonality because I would never have considered writing in it. everything I have written previous to this past assignment has been completely tonal and melodic so it was quite a step for me. With that being said though, I would like to once again point out the difficulties of trying to write a completely atonal piece on the piano when I'm used to playing tonal chords all the time. Once I came up with any idea, I would improvise with it for a bit to see what would come out of it. This lead to occasionally making things turn tonal because my hands would just shift to chords or melodies found within a key. Then I would have to sit back and tweak an idea to make it atonal, which make things a little difficult and more forced. But now that I've completed these first three compositions, I think it helped immensely with my writing. with the next composition's guidelines I can now write tonal chords in an atonal piece wherever I see fit, but also I can use some atonal chords is a tonal piece as well, which is something I have never considered.

I have a few cliché ideas that I would like to work on over the next few days. The first that stuck out would be to put a twist on a typical romantic piece found in a musical. I would absolutely love to write either an entire musical or add some music to one some day so I think that would be fun. but two problems with that is is that for one, I am not much of a lyricist and I think that might call for a vocalist to sing. And also, if we're only allowed three performers, I'm not entirely sure if I would want one to be a voice. I think I would rather work with a trio of instruments for the time being. maybe I can make it into a musical excerpt of the soon to be world famous robbie brett musical of greatness! maybe.

I've also considered using the cliché of the .....hmmmm I'm not quite sure of the technical term. But if you had a 1-3-5 chord, and you played the the 1 on the first beat of the measure and the 3 and 5 together on the other three beats a la beethoven. I think that Would be pretty interesting to work with. We will see how it goes the week!

Okay

yet another long entry!

whoops!

bye bye

- roberto concerto

edit: I was just working on a latin/salsa type idea that I really dig. Has a lot of potential for growth there!  I'm considering having a part in my piece where all three performers play a melody on the piano together, if that's allowed, because I just recorded three ideas that fit together really well when layered. Just making a note.

Two down, one to go

The past two wednesdays in class I've played two out of three of my character pieces.

The first piece I showed to the class I would consider to be the second of the three pieces. It concentrated on constant rhythmic patterns and showed little to no change in dynamics. I originally intended for it to be a piano and violin piece, but since we are sticking to one instrument with the piano I've decided to transcribe it for cello. This works out to be alright since I had it mainly in the lower range of the violin to begin with, so there shouldn't be too much messing around. 

The piece I performed today with Saird was more free of tempo and contrasted in dynamics. It was colored with atmospheric sustaining chords, trills and very minimal fast moving passages. I big difference to the previous piece. My approach for this piece was to portray someone being restless. The chords that are held in the beginning symbolizes that feeling of just lying in bed staring at the ceiling while trying to sleep. Each little section after that, beginning with a louder dynamic, symbolizes shifting into different positions and trying to get to sleep while the measure with the descending chromatic scale suggests the point where you are kicking your sheets and throwing around your pillows. The ending two chords that are repeated back and forth with varying changes in tempo changes from a fast beating heart in distress to eventually conclude into the character falling asleep, which brings you to the beginning of the above composition. My intention for this piece was to display a horrible nightmare that you can't wake up from. It is relatively distraught and agitated. So for my third piece I am trying to consider the possibility of using little to no chords and less dynamics to contrast the other two compositions and create a different character to complement the other two. I think in order to achieve this I am going to have to consider having a main melody line which is lacking in my other two pieces. I'm still trying to grasp the concept of writing a singable melody in atonality, which I find is very prominent in Saird's compositions in particular. Good job there, boy!

As far as criticism goes, I am perfect!

...but not really

Kate mentioned to add some more pizzicato in the piece I performed today which I thought would be a great idea. I by no means trained in anything that uses a bow, so I would definitely need to sit down and take some time going over my pieces with someone who is. 

My notation was a little off from what I had played in class so I am going to have to back track and make some corrections there. I'm definitely going to just record me playing the piano part live and writing out what I have recorded, because I think the whole 'play a few chords here and notate them there' approach threw me off a bit in the overall perception of the piece.

My first piece was, for one, played on my phone and obviously not a good representation of it whatsoever and also was played during the last couple minutes of class so I never got as much criticism on that as I wanted, which is why I'm glad I never had to go last today. I'm making a few drastic changes with it this week and I'm hoping to play it in class next week along with mine from this week or potentially my third composition.

whoa!

that's a lot of writing!

maybe I should call it a night now and see what people have to say!

bye bye

-robbie b is good to me

Oh hello nighttime

A composer never sleeps.

Especially one that doesn't know how to use sibelius...

hmmm

So I'm currently halfway finished all three of my pieces.

My goal is to try and finished at least one before my head hits the pillow tonight.

Just one!

please?

okay bye!

-robbie b the busy bee

late night composition writing

Wow! 

It is currently quarter to 1.

So in about 6 hours I will be getting up for school. 

Hmmmmm

Getting the recommended 8 hours of sleep seems very unlikely tonight then...

I can't help it though! I find I'm in my composing prime when my house is completely quiet besides me banging away on my midi controller. I like the eerie atmosphere of the night because all of this atonal business is half spooky!

So yesterday evening I spent trying to get sibelius working. It was quite tedious because I tried taking the poor musician's way out and 'borrowing' it from the internet. I'll buy it some day I swear! Anyway, after much frustration of getting it working, I realized that I have no means of printing it off. aka, no printer. So it looks like I'll be spending more money after all some time this week! That's karma, baby.

I also played squash for the first time last night. It was intense! 

I almost finished up my first piece today but once I entered it in sibelius I never really liked the flow of it. It lacked a middle section to tie two of my ideas together. I was also arranging it for violin, but I'm thinking of changing it to cello. I'm pretty sure I'm getting way too intense with the first project when I can just let things slide. But once I get something written and I'm not satisfied with it, I can't even listen to it again until it's changed. Once I get this piece finished though it shouldn't be too bad. I already have the second variation mapped out in my head. I'm just hoping to get this one shaped up for tomorrow!

Anyhow, back to work I go!

I think I'll get a coffee in the morning.

-robbie bobbie b

This is a blog

Well I think it's about time that I jump on this whole blogging band wagon before I get too far into the semester!

Last week we compiled 12-16 chord progressions varying in harmonic tension, played them in class and received feedback. I was quite pleased with my progression, consisting of 14 chords. There were some chords that puzzled different people that I found quite interesting. It was great to get different reactions and views. Chords 3 and 12 both seemed to be up for questioning of whether or not they fell precisely in place tension-wise. My climax, however, was recognized at 9 as I had planned. My first chord was probably my favorite, which was described as having a sense of inequality. 

As for this week, we were sent to work on our first character piece. Initially I began cramming too many ideas into my piece at once, because I would think of an idea and add it to the composition. But after playing it numerous times and getting some feedback from people, I've decided to break it down and concentrate on a couple of key ideas for the first one.

So far my first character piece consists of ambience contrasting with very noted excerpts. It's probably the most free time piece I will be composing out of the three. I have yet to decide on the difference in dynamics or if I will just leave it pretty soft and eerie. I don't want to describe too much more of it here though until I play it in class in order for everyone to get their own perception on it. 

I think the hardest part for me in writing atonal music is I find it so easy to get trapped into writing in a key signature. I'll start to write atonally but end up improvising and writing a completely tonal section. It's interesting to say the least, but I'm getting the hang out it. 

I'm hoping to be finished the piece by some time tonight, however with with my sibelius temporally not working I think I will be aiming for a monday performance.

But back to work I go!

Bye for now!

-robbie b

This is a test!