V.S. Computer Playback

Here is a completely untweaked computer playback of A Louisiana Sashay, a.k.a. Vermont Song, as it now stands. There's some kind of glitch at one point where it briefly sounds as though there are two flutes, and the final chord for the harp isn't arpeggiated as it is in the score. Real people will probably play it a bit slower, with pauses and/or ritards here and there.

This playback, though, is good enough to get an idea of the piece, and it seems to work. I finished the writing of it Sunday morning and have listened to it a number of times since, and nothing calls attention to itself as needing fixing. I'm very pleased with a number of things that happen in the piece and look forward to seeing how it will come off in actual performance.

I've sent PDF scores and parts to my friends up in Vermont for whom it was written, asking if there are any awkward or unplayable bits, especially in the case of the harp. If it passes that test, I think it's nearly done.

The only problem in writing the piece (other than trying to keep straight what the harp can and can't do) was finding the time to spend with it and then having the patience to keep working at it to get something that sounded "right", measure by measure. That Thomas Edison quote about invention being 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration is very apt in my case. There were any number of places where nothing seemed to work and it took an hour or more to find something that did work for just a measure or two. Somewhere along the line I thought of using a stopwatch to see just how many hours it took me to get less than five minutes worth of music, but decided not to, being afraid that seeing an actual number might make me slower in taking up the writing of the next piece. 

V.S. Odds and Ends

I've gotten a minute's worth of music that, as of last night, seems to work. This post just to mention a few ancillary things.

Finale - I love it because it allows for my various non-standard ways of doing music notation, but that very complexity can be a problem when I can't remember how to do something, either because the latest update changes something, or because I simply forgot due to not doing that task for a year or so. Case in point is the time signature. When I was going back over Timepiece to make parts for a local quintet to read through (they liked it), noticed that I'd figured out how to have something like 3+3+2+2 all over a single 8 below back in 1996 and just had to look to see how I'd done it.

Resolution - Visually it's how many pixels per square inch. In audio it's something about how many bits per something. On tv when they pixel-ate something to obscure it, we notice the boundary of the high and low resolution. In writing music I try not to have any boundaries like that in the rhythm (no bursts of 32nd notes in a stately half note/ quarter note melody) or harmony (no sudden shifts out of key/mode. I think it also applies to other ways I judge the music I write that are tougher to write about, like gesture.

Writing for particular players/instruments - Listening to the local group read through Timepiece reminded me that I'm always thinking of what the individual players are doing, and whether or not it's interesting. Dr. Andy told me once that in the Bach B Minor Mass, in one section the cellos have the same repeated quarter note for measures on end. When I'm writing for ensembles, in my mind it's however many soloists coming together for the piece, and everyone gets some time high in the mix. In this piece it's trying to keep the harpist interested and to see just how many ways the harp (for which I've never written before) can make music.

Computer Playback - Besides not being able to write music without a keyboard, having the computer play back what I've done is essential. I don't have theory mind and simply cannot manifest the music in my head by reading a score. I've always thought the computer playback is sort of like an X-ray that clearly shows the interior structure of the piece, but that the true nature of the piece is revealed only by performance. That's part of the reason my hearing first performances of things I've written is such an amazing experience.

Attention - One of my complaints about the concert band repertoire is that most of it seems an early incarnation of the MTV gimmick of constantly shifting the image to hold the attention of an audience. I keep thinking the arrangers decide on what transitions of speed and tonality and articulation they what to teach the kids and then forage about for bits of music to put between them ;-) But I've come to realize I do the same thing, just without the shifts of speed/meter and tonality. Once I write something that seems to work for a few bars I'll often try to extend it for longer than it wants, not catching at first that it's becoming boring. Many of my deletions of the last several measures and starting over are due to this. The other deletions are, of course, trying where to go instead. It really is like some sort of glass bead game, and when it works there's a wonderful feeling being connected to something outside myself.

V.S. Various Items

Each of these could be a post in itself, but if I do that, the piece will never be written, or at least, not anytime soon.

Instrument specific music:

I've always written with specific instruments in mind, so the downside is that it's often not easily adapted to other instrumentation. To me, one of the hallmarks of Bach is that his music can sound great, no matter the instrumentation. The upside, though, is letting the way an instrument is played, and it's range and tone, be the very suggestive starting point in writing the music. 

The harp:

 I can't think of another instrument where the physical gestures of making music so closely map the music itself. I've been playing a lot of "air harp" to get some sort of feel of what it must be like to play one. The major discovery is that the little fingers of both hands play lower notes than the thumb, whereas I'm used to piano where the right thumb plays lower notes than the right little finger.

Harmony:

It keeps shifting, but right now thinking of a two flat key signature with F as the tonic. That makes the I chord a flatted seventh and the V chord minor. Also have thought to mention that I like to start out using octaves with the fourth and/or the fifth played in the middle. This is neither major nor minor, and besides having that ambiguity, it hearkens back to when thirds were thought dissonant, which they are when compared to octaves, fourths and fifths. If you use thirds from start to finish you're limiting your tonal palette to secondary colors.

Expectations:

One of the things the neuroscience is telling us is that what pleases us is a combination of the expected and the unexpected. Using modal harmonies and odd key signatures, neither of which are drastically different than the norms, makes it easier to do fresh sounding things without going too far over into the unexpected. As I write measure by measure, there's always the judgement as to whether what's written is somewhere between the expected and the unexpected in a balance I find appealing. There must be some consistency in these judgments, and everything else I'm doing, as several people have commented that I have a recognizable "style" or "sound". 

Not repeating compositions:

Every time I write something I try to push a little beyond whatever has worked before. Looking back on some of the old discarded pieces, a lot of them were abandoned because they were too much like things I'd already done, and somehow, trying to make that sound fresh is harder than setting out in a little different direction.

A real title:

If I can write something to go with it, may call the piece A Louisiana Sashay. Sometime back I wrote a piece for Susan and gave "at a moderate sashay" as a tempo indication. She liked that and played the piece that way. She and Carol both have strong Louisiana connections. Lou -si an -a  sa - shay fits the 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 1 2 rhythm if I go back and change the four grouping to two twos. Having lived in New Orleans for two years back in the early 70's, there are a lot of images and associations I can draw on. 

V.S. Key Signature

The next step is choosing a key signature (pitch set) to work with. Since the harp likes flats, since I'm contemplating an alto flute part (which adds a flat in transposition), and since strings might be involved (I think of them as having a slight preference for sharps), that narrows it down to one or two flats, three at the most (on the alto, four is my practical limit).

One flat would yield F major, which from the F above middle C to the one above that nicely covers the ambit of flute pitches in that mid range I want to really dig into having Susan's tone freshly in mind. The two octaves of D minor above middle C would probably incorporate the full gamut of pitches to use to avoid overpowering the harp.

Adding the other flat would yield G minor, which is a nice one step up from F major, and having just played around a little with it on the keyboard*, those two keys are where I'm going to start, as I think moving from one to the other can make for a pleasing and fresh sounding shift.

There are, of course, possible modal uses of those key signatures as well, and "modal" is a comment I sometimes hear about my music, so I must be doing something along those lines some of the time.

* Should say I simply can't imagine composing music without access to a keyboard. I took piano lessons as a child but never "got" what classical music was about until I heard Susan and a flute friend playing the Bach Two Part Inventions at a garden party out in the Virginia countryside early on during our time at Shenandoah. What did happen during all those years of lessons, though, was that the physical arrangement of the keyboard became the way I thought and still think about music and music theory. I do not have "theory mind", but with a keyboard and plenty of time, I can fake it.

V.S. Players and Instruments

The first thing I settle on in writing a new piece is who's going to play it on what instruments. In this case it's my flute playing friend Susan and her harp playing friend Carol. On my recent trip to Vermont, they played Mosaic for me. I wrote it in 1994 for Susan on flute and me on piano and they had worked it up as a flute and harp piece. It really works that way, but I kept thinking a piece written expressly for the two of them would better exploit that wonderful pairing of instruments.

I've known Susan since the '70's when we were at Shenandoah Conservatory together. I've never known anyone to more fully inhabit the music she makes and I've never heard better tone on the flute. She's a pro level player, so the only concerns about the instrument are those inherent in it. Her low number Hanes has a B foot, but I never write that note as other flutes might not have it. The E above high C on flutes is the hardest note and worth avoiding if possible. Being a product of the music education system Susan. tongues. every. single. note. un.less. o.ther.wise. no.ted. It was for Susan I first wrote music for small ensembles (Dr. Andy on cello and me on alto flute or piano) and she loves the new and unusual, so besides writing things for her I think suit her personality, there are no limits on what I can try.

I've just met Carol on this recent trip. She plays the harp very well, and like Susan, has a wonderful Louisiana laugh. She's also pro level, so instrument considerations are of a general type. I've never written for harp before and only know what I read up on and what Carol showed me in a brief clinic after she and Susan played Mosaic. The main things seem to be the harp prefers flat keys, too many accidentals or key changes mean a lot of messing with pedals, and she said an octave and a third was a good limit on chord fingerings. She also made the point that when a harp plays high notes, it's good to have low notes with them so they won't sound tinny. 

One thing I want to go for is having Susan in her low and mid ranges more than the high. Playing softly in the high range of the flute can be done, but it's tough. There was a blend of tones when Susan was in her mid range where the harp and flute sounds really melded. The high flute range can be used, but it will tend to overpower the harp. The other thing for me to keep in mind is that the harp strings are plucked by fingers, not struck by levered hammers as on a piano, so that loud percussive side to the piano is not something the harp can do.

Once things get going, I may add a third part for alto flute or violin or viola. When I was in Vermont and making music with Susan I mostly played an electric keyboard I'd taken, but we did try one duet I'd done years back for flute and alto flute. I didn't play that well, being very rusty on the alto, but the combo of those two flutes creating difference tones on close harmonies is an amazing sound, and one the harp would frame nicely. The alto's range is exactly that of a violin (starting down at the G below middle C) and the upper three strings of a viola and Susan has family members who play them, so the alto part could be covered by one of them when I'm not in Vermont. If written, that part would be easy enough for me to play and there would absolutely not be any E's above high C (concert B as the alto is in the key of G) and low D (concert A) would be as low as I'd want to go.

photo - yard violets, which some consider flowers and not weeds.