About the project

Photo: Kerstin Schomburg

I'm a composer and lecturer at the University of Leeds, UK. As part of our undergraduate composition teaching we introduce various flexible generative techniques, and an expectation that students write a commentary that outlines their compositional process. To give the students another example of how this can be done, I've decided to compose a piece [jump to final piece] for the student new-music ensemble that explores several of these techniques; to augment existing examples, and give a more first-person account of using them. This blog follows my process as I compose using some techniques that I've taught often but wouldn't normally used myself: see here for examples of what I do usually.

[Impatient? go straight to the finished score, or watch the video]

Here's what I begin with:

the ensemble is unusual to say the least, but I like a challenge!

3 fl, 2 cl, sax, tpt, cornet, euphonium, perc, piano, guitar, cello

Rehearsals begin in February 2018 with performance in April.
Techniques I'll use include:

Peter Maxwell Davies' magic squares
Xenakis' 3D hypercube rotations; and other permutation approaches such as isorhythm
canonic imitation
random-number mapping
non-standard instrumental techniques
open-form and non-metric notations

Because the student commentaries are only 1000wds, they need to ensure that the commentary only 'comments' on the process, and use appendices for any lengthy descriptions of techniques etc. My posts are often longer than 1000wds in themselves so I'll try to finish with a recap of the key commentary points.

Comments

Opening Section + Magic Squares

This section has no solos, it's a simple contrast of two strata: (1) descending rapid scales, and (2) sustained chords swelling and receding. Listen to the opening page (score below) here: If you cannot see the audio controls, your browser does not support the audio element Ex.1: score p.1 The pitches for both are derived from the magic square. The chords are most straightforward, they simply read the horizontals of the square as 6-note chords. The piece starts with the uppermost vertical (the main material + high G), and works its way down. E G# D F# A# G B F A C# A# D G# C E C# F B D# G F A D# G B G# C F# A# D B D# A C# F A# Ex.2: magic square, showing different transposed 5-note sequences (alternating red and blue) Here are the voicings; which I just worked on the piano intuitively by starting with the horizontal as written, then moving notes around to form triads where possible. Note also that I opted for a smoother orchestration across the t...

Sax & cymbals duet

The second section (bars 34–71 of the finished score v1) of the piece is an improvised duet for tenor saxophone and bowed cymbals. I've already referred to the ensemble part for this section, see here for an explanation of the system used to generate the asynchronous ensemble part from the magic square. The duet uses exclusively multiphonics on both instruments. "Multiphonics" are not chords (collections of single notes played simultaneously on different vibrating objects), rather they are multiple-sounds, metastable vibrations where more than one pitch is vibrating simultaneously on the same object so they interfere with each other to form complex timbres of difference tones. Playing multiphonics requires practicing a specific skill to learning to balance the multiple-pitches. For saxophone, the tonal flexibility of the usual monophonic (single pitch) technique is sacrificed because the multiphonic will only stay balanced with a very specific mix of embouchure-pos...

cello solo v2 - orchestration

Re-working the generated part: Before I get to orchestrating the cello solo, I decided I need to re-work the generated line. The previous line (ex.1 below) wasn't too practical, and didn't give the cellist enough leeway to work with the prepared-string to bring out the desired sounds: the whole point here is that the preparations allow for different harmonics and multiphonics to emerge, and that the tablature-style notation constrains the player's actions to limit what specific sounds emerge. Ex.1: cello solo v1 (notation explained below) In the notation (as explained in earlier post ) there's a 6-line stave to indicate not pitches but bow positions, between the preparation (bottom) and bridge (top); essentially sul-tasto to sul-pont . The part mostly only uses the right hand for playing, with the left hand occasionally used for timbre variation through interference (see b.143–145). To generate the part, I allowed the isorhythm (ex.2) to run for nine iterat...

teaching-composition

Search This Blog