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!