Today I assisted a student during my TA office hours for 302! Hooray! However, that means I did not practice my German.
I read some LaRue, but didn't get far.
We studied Haydn's Symphony 45 (the Farewell Symphony) in 604 and we listened to compositions in 20th-Century Counterpoint. Dr. Asplund described my piece, Boomerang, as "violent."
I also read a little bit of LaRue. But not much.
Today was definitely below par.
Thursday, January 29, 2015
Wednesday, January 28, 2015
Music In Practice: "Boomerang" and my Journey through Pointillism
So if you keep up with my Daily Log posts (odds are you don't; they're quite boring) (no joke, they are), you'll know that my first composition that I wrote for my 20th-Century Counterpoint class ended up crashing and burning. Not because the concept wasn't excellent (Dr. Asplund said it was great), but because I didn't have firm understanding of the Webern inversion canon and did not successfully follow all of the directions of the prompt.
Fortunately, the next piece we were required to write was much more open-ended. We simply had to write a pointillistic piece. Pointillism, as we had defined it, meant that there could be no audible melody or counterpoint. The texture had to be thin and spread between several different instrumental timbres (in the case of this assignment, there had to be at least five instruments) in small two-to-three-note "points" of sound. Dynamics and articulation also had to be heavily regulated as well.
It was implied that we could create a rule or serial sequence if we desired, but our procedure could also be intuitive, without much pattern or organizational concept. While I was thankful that there was no arbitrary rule I had to follow, I found myself a little confused as to how to go about writing a purely intuitive piece that would have no melody, no harmony, and no counterpoint. I can't hear any of it in my head before I write it down. The only thing I could be very sure about was which timbres I wanted at certain times.
So I began writing my piece simply by throwing dots onto empty staff paper. I didn't think about clefs, instrumentation, or even rhythm. I just focused on pitch groups that seemed to "go" together visually on the page. I then stuck those notes into a notation document on my computer and started playing around with different rhythms. I hoped that the piece would turn out a bit disjoint, like you couldn't hear where the downbeats were, so I included triplets, sixteenth notes, and various durations to keep the listener guessing and free it from any sense of pattern.
One pattern, however, does arise. The piece is almost entirely palindromic. The first nine measures are played backwards (with some edits for articulation and attack) in the following nine measures. However, while interval relationships and rhythm remain an exact retrograde version of what was played initially, the pitches in the second half of the piece are raised by two semitones. Thus, when a G was originally played, now an A is played instead. The only instance in which the palindrome is not exact is at the very end of the piece, which includes a bar of rest followed by two chords, one fff and one pp. This acts as a coda to the piece, existing outside of the rest of the piece's formal structure.
As I put the piece together, I considered some of the conceptual implications to such a design. Immediately, I realized that this sporadic, pointillistic, palindromic piece seemed to mimic the movements of a boomerang. If you don't know much about the physics of the device, throwing a boomerang seems like a pretty miraculous feat. It travels in a somewhat skiwampus arch, made up of spinning circles that seem disjoint, but it still ends up returning to the point from whence it came. Thus, in this piece, I begin by throwing the boomerang, which sails in its unpredictable trajectory for nine measures, and then returns. It is then "caught" in the last two measures, with a satisfying fff catch followed by a quick breath of relief (ppp).
The raising of pitches by whole step invites a deeper layer of conceptual thinking, this time touching on the inevitability of change. Other things in our lives return to us like boomerangs, but something we come to realize as we gain experience is that while things do return, they most likely never return exactly as you first left them. While the trajectory of the boomerang in the second half of its journey is generally in the same direction, its return path is surely not identical to its initial course.
Fortunately, the next piece we were required to write was much more open-ended. We simply had to write a pointillistic piece. Pointillism, as we had defined it, meant that there could be no audible melody or counterpoint. The texture had to be thin and spread between several different instrumental timbres (in the case of this assignment, there had to be at least five instruments) in small two-to-three-note "points" of sound. Dynamics and articulation also had to be heavily regulated as well.
It was implied that we could create a rule or serial sequence if we desired, but our procedure could also be intuitive, without much pattern or organizational concept. While I was thankful that there was no arbitrary rule I had to follow, I found myself a little confused as to how to go about writing a purely intuitive piece that would have no melody, no harmony, and no counterpoint. I can't hear any of it in my head before I write it down. The only thing I could be very sure about was which timbres I wanted at certain times.
So I began writing my piece simply by throwing dots onto empty staff paper. I didn't think about clefs, instrumentation, or even rhythm. I just focused on pitch groups that seemed to "go" together visually on the page. I then stuck those notes into a notation document on my computer and started playing around with different rhythms. I hoped that the piece would turn out a bit disjoint, like you couldn't hear where the downbeats were, so I included triplets, sixteenth notes, and various durations to keep the listener guessing and free it from any sense of pattern.
One pattern, however, does arise. The piece is almost entirely palindromic. The first nine measures are played backwards (with some edits for articulation and attack) in the following nine measures. However, while interval relationships and rhythm remain an exact retrograde version of what was played initially, the pitches in the second half of the piece are raised by two semitones. Thus, when a G was originally played, now an A is played instead. The only instance in which the palindrome is not exact is at the very end of the piece, which includes a bar of rest followed by two chords, one fff and one pp. This acts as a coda to the piece, existing outside of the rest of the piece's formal structure.
As I put the piece together, I considered some of the conceptual implications to such a design. Immediately, I realized that this sporadic, pointillistic, palindromic piece seemed to mimic the movements of a boomerang. If you don't know much about the physics of the device, throwing a boomerang seems like a pretty miraculous feat. It travels in a somewhat skiwampus arch, made up of spinning circles that seem disjoint, but it still ends up returning to the point from whence it came. Thus, in this piece, I begin by throwing the boomerang, which sails in its unpredictable trajectory for nine measures, and then returns. It is then "caught" in the last two measures, with a satisfying fff catch followed by a quick breath of relief (ppp).
The raising of pitches by whole step invites a deeper layer of conceptual thinking, this time touching on the inevitability of change. Other things in our lives return to us like boomerangs, but something we come to realize as we gain experience is that while things do return, they most likely never return exactly as you first left them. While the trajectory of the boomerang in the second half of its journey is generally in the same direction, its return path is surely not identical to its initial course.
Daily Log: January 27, 2015
Much of today was spent writing a pointillistic piece, which is due tomorrow in 20th-Century Counterpoint.
I finished one hour of German translation of Goethe poetry.
I also found some time to study Pauline Oliveros's book Deep Listening. We performed on of her meditation exercises in GEM yesterday, and it was actually quite stirring.
We discussed Mozart's piano sonata and versatile style in 302 yesterday, as well.
I am tutoring a friend of mine to help her prepare for the Graduate Entrance Exam. I spent an hour with her on score identification today.
I finished one hour of German translation of Goethe poetry.
I also found some time to study Pauline Oliveros's book Deep Listening. We performed on of her meditation exercises in GEM yesterday, and it was actually quite stirring.
We discussed Mozart's piano sonata and versatile style in 302 yesterday, as well.
I am tutoring a friend of mine to help her prepare for the Graduate Entrance Exam. I spent an hour with her on score identification today.
Monday, January 26, 2015
Daily Log: January 26, 2015
Marginal success today. I completed my Haydn paper bibliography over the weekend, as well as read up on early symphony (Sammartini, Stamitz, CPE Bach, etc.) over the weekend. We discussed those in 604 today.
I also read an excellent article from Perspectives of New Music about John Cage's Concerto for Prepared Piano and Chamber Orchestra. (Pritchett, James. "From Choice to Change: John Cage's Concerto for Prepared Piano." Perspectives of New Music 26 (Winter, 1988): 50-81.) I listened to two works by Feldman as well as Cage's concerto. We discussed those works in class today.
Further reading was done in Von Gunden's book. I'm now considering writing a short paper for 20th-century Counterpoint on Oliveros's early works. But perhaps new textural habits will come to be seen as I continue in the book.
Translated German for 1 hour. Goethe poetry.
Read part of the chapter on the Growth Process in LaRue's Guidelines.
Finally, I spent some time composing a piece I'm going to call Boomerang. It's just a pointillistic piece. Not serial at all, but it will have some symmetry in it if I can get the patterns down the way I want them to sound. Writing "melodies" in this kind of music is pretty much impossible (as was discussed in class today), so I need to sort of come to conclusions by trial and error. I'll probably write a post about the experience once it's finished.
I also read an excellent article from Perspectives of New Music about John Cage's Concerto for Prepared Piano and Chamber Orchestra. (Pritchett, James. "From Choice to Change: John Cage's Concerto for Prepared Piano." Perspectives of New Music 26 (Winter, 1988): 50-81.) I listened to two works by Feldman as well as Cage's concerto. We discussed those works in class today.
Further reading was done in Von Gunden's book. I'm now considering writing a short paper for 20th-century Counterpoint on Oliveros's early works. But perhaps new textural habits will come to be seen as I continue in the book.
Translated German for 1 hour. Goethe poetry.
Read part of the chapter on the Growth Process in LaRue's Guidelines.
Finally, I spent some time composing a piece I'm going to call Boomerang. It's just a pointillistic piece. Not serial at all, but it will have some symmetry in it if I can get the patterns down the way I want them to sound. Writing "melodies" in this kind of music is pretty much impossible (as was discussed in class today), so I need to sort of come to conclusions by trial and error. I'll probably write a post about the experience once it's finished.
Friday, January 23, 2015
Daily Log: January 23, 2015
It's funny how the days you feel most like a failure end up also being the days when you get the most stuff done? I accomplished pretty much everything on my list of things to do today, and I think part of the reason why was because I ended up getting some pretty negative feedback on my Webern piece (not that it was a bad piece; I just didn't follow directions accurately, which is just embarrassing).
I read some stuff written by Stockhausen this morning. There were some assigned readings from the book Stockhausen on Music: Lectures and Interviews (London: Boyars, 1991). We also had to listen to Kreuzspiel and Kontra-Punkte, as well as Messaien's Modes de Valeurs et d'intensities. It would take a very, very long time to take these pieces apart; I probably shouldn't spend my time on them just now, since there are other pressing matters, but it's definitely something to look into.
I've been assigned to simply write a pointillistic piece, no need for serialism. Hopefully I can at least do that successfully.
We discussed Piccini and Gluck today in 604. I felt underprepared for this discussion as well, although I know plenty about Gluck's Orfeo. I guess I was supposed to read more of the Oxford History on the subject than I actually did.
So yeah, it was a pretty pathetic morning, but as I said, my failures caused me to throw myself into my work this afternoon. I spent most of it up in Dr. Johnson's office. I translated three Goethe poems (including Heidenröslein, which would end up in one of Schubert's most famous lieder) and studied Pauline Oliveros's Variations for Sextet. This was one of her earlier pieces, but it was the first that really epitomized some of her core compositional values.
I was informed today that I get the opportunity to write yet ANOTHER paper this semester, this one on the textural/contrapuntal style of any 20th-century composer. I'm thinking I might do Oliveros. It would make for great preparation for my thesis. As long as Dr. Asplund will let me.
Finally, I acquired several great sources for my Haydn paper. Our bibliographies (which, as Dr. Harker stated, are very much a work in progress until the end of the paper-writing process) are due on Monday, and we need at least 20 sources. Today I broke ten official ones; I think I'm closer to fifteen. But before I went home I went and checked out a bunch of other books about Haydn, Masonic music, and Mozart's The Magic Flute that I think would be helpful. I'm sure I'll be fine for Monday. 20 pages is a breeze compared to the 60/100 sources I needed to acquire last semester.
Here's to the freaking weekend.
I read some stuff written by Stockhausen this morning. There were some assigned readings from the book Stockhausen on Music: Lectures and Interviews (London: Boyars, 1991). We also had to listen to Kreuzspiel and Kontra-Punkte, as well as Messaien's Modes de Valeurs et d'intensities. It would take a very, very long time to take these pieces apart; I probably shouldn't spend my time on them just now, since there are other pressing matters, but it's definitely something to look into.
I've been assigned to simply write a pointillistic piece, no need for serialism. Hopefully I can at least do that successfully.
We discussed Piccini and Gluck today in 604. I felt underprepared for this discussion as well, although I know plenty about Gluck's Orfeo. I guess I was supposed to read more of the Oxford History on the subject than I actually did.
So yeah, it was a pretty pathetic morning, but as I said, my failures caused me to throw myself into my work this afternoon. I spent most of it up in Dr. Johnson's office. I translated three Goethe poems (including Heidenröslein, which would end up in one of Schubert's most famous lieder) and studied Pauline Oliveros's Variations for Sextet. This was one of her earlier pieces, but it was the first that really epitomized some of her core compositional values.
I was informed today that I get the opportunity to write yet ANOTHER paper this semester, this one on the textural/contrapuntal style of any 20th-century composer. I'm thinking I might do Oliveros. It would make for great preparation for my thesis. As long as Dr. Asplund will let me.
Finally, I acquired several great sources for my Haydn paper. Our bibliographies (which, as Dr. Harker stated, are very much a work in progress until the end of the paper-writing process) are due on Monday, and we need at least 20 sources. Today I broke ten official ones; I think I'm closer to fifteen. But before I went home I went and checked out a bunch of other books about Haydn, Masonic music, and Mozart's The Magic Flute that I think would be helpful. I'm sure I'll be fine for Monday. 20 pages is a breeze compared to the 60/100 sources I needed to acquire last semester.
Here's to the freaking weekend.
Thursday, January 22, 2015
Daily Log: January 22, 2015
Today I read LaRue's chapter on Rhythm in Guidelines for Style Analysis. He begins the chapter by stating how complicated rhythm is; obviously he was right, because I hardly understood anything he said from then on. I did understand one thing that I thought was pretty useful. It had to do with the terminology we use in describing emphasis we give to certain notes in a rhythmic passage.
LaRue suggests that the following terms be used only in these contexts:
Stress -- describes large-scale rhythmic emphasis (as in meter)
Emphasis -- describes middle-scale emphasis
Accent -- describes small-scale emphasis
I translated Goethe's poems for an hour today. Some of the lines I translated read exactly as Appelbaum says they should be translated. That makes me happy.
No sources today. I know I'll get enough to turn in a bibliography by Monday, but I worry that they won't be the BEST sources. I have some work to do over the weekend if I want my bibliography to be the best it can be.
Studied Haydn's 88th Symphony today, first, third, and fourth movements. The second was too formally complicated, so Dr. Johnson skipped it.
I also read a bit about Picinni and the development of more relaxed opera seria styles in Taruskin's Oxford History.
I also finished my Webern piece -- both score and recording -- for good today. I feel very confident about sharing it tomorrow.
I also took a stab at a phrase/text analysis of a song written by a friend of mine. We had discussed how to write "good" melodies earlier that day, and I figured why not see how his process worked?
Here's my initial "chicken-scratch" analysis. The colors in the text correspond with the lines that appear in the phrase arcs. Beside the arcs are primary vowels that are used within the rhyme schemes of that specific stanza. I prefer phonic symbols over IPA, probably because it's less to memorize. This would be a good place to present my findings once I've finished analyzing and "cleaned up" my visuals.
Here's a link to the bandcamp site for my friend's band Quiet House. The song is called "Rolling Waters." I really like looking deeply at music written by people I know. Knowing the stories and people behind a song always makes you appreciate it a little more.
I also picked up a very important book pertaining to my thesis:
Oliveros, Pauline. Deep Listening: A Composer's Sound Practice. Lincoln, Nebraska: Deep Listening Publications, 2005.
In GEM today, we explored opposites and then performed a short "opera" based off of a poem by Sun Ra. It was slightly terrifying to put all of my trust into the man I was vocalizing with (he was the only one with access to the text), but I feel like the outcome was pleasant.
I was also challenged today to write poetry. Hmmmm....
Tomorrow I pledge to find and cite at least 10 more sources for my bibliography.
LaRue suggests that the following terms be used only in these contexts:
Stress -- describes large-scale rhythmic emphasis (as in meter)
Emphasis -- describes middle-scale emphasis
Accent -- describes small-scale emphasis
I translated Goethe's poems for an hour today. Some of the lines I translated read exactly as Appelbaum says they should be translated. That makes me happy.
No sources today. I know I'll get enough to turn in a bibliography by Monday, but I worry that they won't be the BEST sources. I have some work to do over the weekend if I want my bibliography to be the best it can be.
Studied Haydn's 88th Symphony today, first, third, and fourth movements. The second was too formally complicated, so Dr. Johnson skipped it.
I also read a bit about Picinni and the development of more relaxed opera seria styles in Taruskin's Oxford History.
I also finished my Webern piece -- both score and recording -- for good today. I feel very confident about sharing it tomorrow.
I also took a stab at a phrase/text analysis of a song written by a friend of mine. We had discussed how to write "good" melodies earlier that day, and I figured why not see how his process worked?
Here's my initial "chicken-scratch" analysis. The colors in the text correspond with the lines that appear in the phrase arcs. Beside the arcs are primary vowels that are used within the rhyme schemes of that specific stanza. I prefer phonic symbols over IPA, probably because it's less to memorize. This would be a good place to present my findings once I've finished analyzing and "cleaned up" my visuals.
Here's a link to the bandcamp site for my friend's band Quiet House. The song is called "Rolling Waters." I really like looking deeply at music written by people I know. Knowing the stories and people behind a song always makes you appreciate it a little more.
I also picked up a very important book pertaining to my thesis:
Oliveros, Pauline. Deep Listening: A Composer's Sound Practice. Lincoln, Nebraska: Deep Listening Publications, 2005.
In GEM today, we explored opposites and then performed a short "opera" based off of a poem by Sun Ra. It was slightly terrifying to put all of my trust into the man I was vocalizing with (he was the only one with access to the text), but I feel like the outcome was pleasant.
I was also challenged today to write poetry. Hmmmm....
Tomorrow I pledge to find and cite at least 10 more sources for my bibliography.
Daily Log: January 20 and 21, 2015
After a three-day weekend, it's hard to jump back into the swing of things. Thus, a delayed post. I didn't do much during the actual weekend, although I had some great conversations with friends and I've been inspired to do more creative work as well as written work during my time here as a Graduate Student.
I gotta tell you, these are the best years of my life.
Tuesday was spent primarily doing some writing and recording work for my Webern piece. I have a whole post about it.
It should have been presented on Wednesday morning, but we ran out of time, so it will be shown first thing on Friday. This gives me a little time to re-record some of my vocals.
We also discussed Haydn's "Joke" String Quartet in 302.
Wednesday was a lot more productive; I found around 10 sources for my Haydn paper (I need at least 20) and translated some poems by Goethe. I will admit, the poetry is a bit easier to translate than Faust.
In 604 we discussed Pergolesi and the intermezzo (deja vu... we discussed the same thing in 302 last week).
I also acquired Pauline Oliveros's Three Songs, the earliest work she ever got published. I'm excited to explore those in more detail... possibly even perform them?
I gotta tell you, these are the best years of my life.
Tuesday was spent primarily doing some writing and recording work for my Webern piece. I have a whole post about it.
It should have been presented on Wednesday morning, but we ran out of time, so it will be shown first thing on Friday. This gives me a little time to re-record some of my vocals.
We also discussed Haydn's "Joke" String Quartet in 302.
Wednesday was a lot more productive; I found around 10 sources for my Haydn paper (I need at least 20) and translated some poems by Goethe. I will admit, the poetry is a bit easier to translate than Faust.
In 604 we discussed Pergolesi and the intermezzo (deja vu... we discussed the same thing in 302 last week).
I also acquired Pauline Oliveros's Three Songs, the earliest work she ever got published. I'm excited to explore those in more detail... possibly even perform them?
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