tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-71951577605811867242024-02-20T07:17:10.455-08:00David Goudie's Musical BlogBack into the cavern.Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05292773523115324980noreply@blogger.comBlogger22125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7195157760581186724.post-75230788972069330652010-12-05T11:58:00.000-08:002010-12-05T12:22:47.364-08:00The EndIn the time since my last blog I've finished the Overture for trombone quartet. I find it to be sort of a strange piece because I was pulling it in a couple of different directions. What I wanted to do was set a tone for the rest of the piece (which ultimately I plan to write) however I was also trying to use the motives from the later movements in the overture. I think that this was not the best course of action but by the time I realized this it was too close to the deadline to try to fix it so that will be a job for another time.That said, I think that the piece turned out very nicely for what it was.<div><br /></div><div>It was in sonata form but only loosely. I made a couple of changes like making the codetta at the end of the exposition into a sort of altered exposition repeat. Also, the recapitulation is very short and doesn't really give that sense of resolve that comes from closing by return. <div><br /></div><div>I wanted to write this piece in a tonal sort of idiom as I don't have a whole lot of experience writing tonal music. I also wanted to plan the piece out as much as possible ahead of time as I always feel like when I compose I'm just feeling around in the dark and not really being entirely in control of my work and not knowing where I'm going with it until I'm there. I still experienced some of this sensation but not quite as much.</div><div><br /></div><div>I began by writing the four leitmotives that would represent the different aspects of the story, those being the man, the boat, the sea, and the storm. Then I made a rough formal outline which I changed to sonata form shortly after. Then I dove in using a rough harmonic plan that I made up, but that was one of the things that wound up kind of getting tossed out the window.</div></div><div><br /></div><div>This piece uses a lot of chromatic mediant relationships and some doubly chromatic ones, I found that these types of chord changes have a very dramatic and colorful sound which is exactly what I was going for with the piece. There are also some instances of chromatic planing which I found to also serve the colorful sound.</div><div><br /></div><div>I wanted to write a piece that was in the tonal realm, was more or less planned out, and was generally accessible but still striking to the ear. I actually feel like I more or less accomplished this with the Overture. Although I think that what I may do in the future is break it down and use the different sections as material for the other movements of the work and write a new overture that isn't based so heavily on the same material and is more of a mood setter. </div><div><br /></div><div>Anyways, that's all for that piece. I'm very much looking forward to hearing it performed in the new year.</div>Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05292773523115324980noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7195157760581186724.post-64163862746478754482010-11-27T11:50:00.000-08:002010-11-27T12:02:38.517-08:00New post, new piece.A couple of weeks ago I began to write my second piece of the term. It is for trombone quartet and is meant to be an overture to a story that I've come up with about pain and healing. The story is about a man who has a deep love and respect for the ocean who decides to set off one day on a boat and live on the water. After a while, a storm picks up and destroys his boat leaving him clinging to a piece of debris. At this point he has lost his love for the sea and feels deceived and betrayed. Over time though, he comes to peace realizing that it's not the fault of the sea, because it has a life of its own, so to speak. He realizes that nothing is permanent and that when a storm comes along the only way to weather it is to have the right mindset and to accept that there is no changing the past and move on. Upon realizing this, his love and respect for the sea returns and he decides to give himself to it by letting go of the debris and drowning himself in it. <div><br /></div><div>It's a bit of a dark story but I think that there is a lot of beauty and a lot of truth in its darkness. I guess the trick for me is to capture that in music.</div>Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05292773523115324980noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7195157760581186724.post-22856827464283731222010-11-27T11:42:00.000-08:002010-11-27T11:49:52.372-08:00ECM+comp 4100 piece = MC2(squared)On the 17th of November six of the ECM members who were in the city on the Generation 2010 tour were kind enough to read through our pieces for us. It was nothing short of incredible to hear my piece played live by such high calibre musicians. And they were sight-reading! That blew me away. <div><br /></div><div>Overall, I was fairly pleased with how it went. Everything came across the way that I'd hoped it would. The only thing that I would change is the piano part at the very end where the pianist is to sweep the strings inside the piano with their hand. This lacked the punch that I was going for and made the ending fairly anti-climactic. That said I could also make a note in the score asking the pianist to dig into the strings to get a really raucous sound but I'm not sure what exactly I'll do. </div><div><br /></div><div>Despite this one little hitch (which was totally a compositional issue, not a performance one) the reading of my piece went excellently. What a treat!</div>Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05292773523115324980noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7195157760581186724.post-76793589915548888252010-11-14T16:03:00.000-08:002010-11-14T16:27:55.156-08:00Captain's Log November 14th, 2010Well, it's been quite the while since my last post and a lot has happened between then and now. <div><br /></div><div>When I last posted I was just launching into the B section of my piece. This consisted of a pedal G# in the piano and some pseudo-pointillistic flute licks. These were combined with sweeping upward arpeggios in the piano hinting at the windy sort of atmosphere to come which was essentially the goal of my B section. </div><div><br /></div><div>Following this I brought back the A section material in a contrapuntal texture with the flute, viola and horn with the percussion commenting here and there. Though this was a return of the A material, I did my best to vary it even further than before. One of the ways that I did this was I derived a couple of chords from the A section pc set and planed those chords on a newly composed melody. I also played fragments of the A theme creating melodies from the fragments beginning on different pitches. </div><div><br /></div><div>From there I created my C section which was where I created the chaotic, windy atmosphere. I wanted this section to be in very strict time in order to contrast the lack thereof in the rest of the piece. Thus the chaos brings order. This section is composed of steady, quiet bass drum hits underneath a texture of sweeping upward runs beginning in the piano but quickly joined by all of the other instruments one by one. As the chaos and dissonance grows the rhythm falls apart until the various voices drop out one by one leaving just the bass drum signifying the "slow heart".</div><div><br /></div><div>Overall, I'm fairly happy with the piece and am very much looking forward to hearing it in real life and not through the MIDI playback on sibelius.</div>Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05292773523115324980noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7195157760581186724.post-25143867922293196742010-09-27T07:40:00.000-07:002010-09-27T07:49:53.193-07:00Two in oneI've presented my piece twice since my last blog post and have recieved some very good helpful feedback during the two sessions. The presentation before last involved some technical points such as placement of the 8va symbol and the like. Aside from that the comments mostly centered around the use of dynamics and articulations, specifically as a means of varying material. During the following week I added these in and have been quite pleased with the results. I also added more material to the piece that week. I was thinking of this new material as a sort of B section for the piece however, Justin brought up the point that the two sections sound quite similar and that at the end of the "B" section it sounded like a point of transition. I agree with this idea and now plan to build a new, more contrasting B section from here. Also, at the beginning, it was suggested that I play around with the timbre of the repeat of the opening quintuplet figure. I have a couple of ideas concerning this and we will see how that goes.Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05292773523115324980noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7195157760581186724.post-64941537533997126782010-09-19T10:45:00.000-07:002010-09-19T11:00:18.965-07:00An ExperimentI presented my piece to the class on Monday and it was fairly well received; bearing in mind, of course, that it was very much in the infancy stages. I've decided to step outside my comfort zone with this piece and compose it aprogrammatically. Generally, when I compose a piece I have an image in mind that helps me to shape the piece in form and content. This time I've decided to just dive in without an image in mind and it's proving to be very difficult. I feel like it lacks direction. <div><br /></div><div>The comments that I recieved were that I should vary the material sooner using inversions, octave displacement and the like. It was also recommended that I make the opening rhythm easier to read by turning the quintuplet figure into a pickup and to also use the triangle to punctuate the rhythm and show the downbeat. This turned into an idea to use the triangle to play with the downbeat and fool the listener. The idea of using timbre changes as another means of variation was also suggested.</div><div><br /></div><div>I'm trying to base this piece more so on rhythm and color than actual pitch or harmony as another step outside my element. It's hard going but I feel like it's good experience.</div>Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05292773523115324980noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7195157760581186724.post-14854836824311957132010-09-11T08:51:00.000-07:002010-09-11T09:01:02.066-07:00Composition 4100: take twoHaving not been able to attend the second class of the semester I was unable to hear some of the music of my peers. Which is somewhat disappointing as I'm interested to hear how things are going. Hopefully we can come to some kind of agreement on a third session time that works for all.<div><br /></div><div>I have an idea for my first composition of the term which is to compose a 12-tone piece using intervallic themes for the pitch class sets. That's about as developed as my idea is at this point but I hope to have something to present on Monday. I have yet to figure out exactly how to treat such an odd assortment of instruments, but I feel confident that if I can write music that works for this instrumentation then even just by virtue of the oddity of the ensemble, the piece will be unique. It certainly is exciting to write for such a rare group of instruments, and such a prestigious group of players.</div>Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05292773523115324980noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7195157760581186724.post-43356715211402457882010-01-11T12:58:00.000-08:002010-01-11T13:04:03.603-08:00Captain's Log: January 11, 2010The new project before me is to compose a set of three short pieces for piano. Having never done any solo piano writing and very little piano writing in general I'm having a bit of a hard time coming up with ideas. I think if I look to some actual piano scores I could get an idea or two on figures and the like. I've been doing some tinkering and I have a couple of interesting things to play with but I haven't written anything down yet. We'll see what sort of things I can come up with.Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05292773523115324980noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7195157760581186724.post-30338875307307341782009-12-09T15:06:00.000-08:002009-12-09T15:13:01.784-08:00'Bout as lat as one can be.So it's been awhile since the concert but overall I was very pleased with how it all went. I feel like everyone's compositions were far more mature than the mid-term ones. I couldn't have asked for a better performance from my performers. At our first real practice I was a bit sketched out by the middle section as it's certainly the most difficult but that sketchiness dissolved very quickly as we had more practices. I'm a lot more satisfied with this composition than my last. I feel like it's more complete and the last part sounds less cop-out-ish than in the last of my three character pieces. Which is kinda strange because I whipped this piece up much faster than the last. Or maybe that's the reason. Either way, I'm very happy with how it all turned out.Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05292773523115324980noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7195157760581186724.post-1677976353818921042009-11-26T18:17:00.000-08:002009-11-26T18:33:27.011-08:00The Last BitsI'm very pleased with the way my presentation went in class on wednesday. It was a very strange case when I was writing the final section of my piece. It just seemed to pour out of me, which sort of concerned me because I was thinking I'd finish it and then realize it wasn't what I'd wanted at all but ultimately it turned out well. I wasn't really sure what to do to create a sound world for the moon. But after thinking about it for a while I decided to give it a sort of static feeling both rhythmically and harmonically. I chose to do this because personally, when I look at a full moon on a clear night it totally traps my attention and holds it. Kinda spellbinding, actually. In terms of rhythm I put it in 3/4 time but tried to vary it so that there are never more than two or three consecutive bars that feel like 3/4. On the harmonic side of things, the whole section is based on two chords which consist of the notes of the 'c' and 'd' hirajoshi pentatonic scales. This sort of slow, bare-bones harmonic rhythm I feel did give me the static mood that I was going for.<div><br /></div><div>I was also quite pleased with the comments I was given. In particular the one about the ending sounding somewhat unintentional. This comment gave me an idea of how I can still keep the detachment that I wanted but not have it sound like a mistake. Instead of having the pattern stop dead, I've made it so that the last notes are held just for an extra beat then silenced. So it's still detached but it doesn't lose the flow (ironically enough).</div><div><br /></div><div>Just a couple more finishing touches, a rehearsal or two and this ship should be ready to sail!</div>Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05292773523115324980noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7195157760581186724.post-60888578857411749322009-11-16T18:03:00.000-08:002009-11-16T18:20:57.917-08:00It's gettin chilly in here.Tonight I put the finishing touches on the middle section of my piece, the one depicting the stanza about the cold. I kept the phase-shifting idea that I had made a few days ago only I made it slightly less complex. It is still based on the whole-tone scale however, it mutates over time into a more dissonant and climactic end. In the cello I've decided to use artificial harmonics in imitative figures with the voice and also it outlines certain changes in the harmony of the piano, not to mention it adds an element of chill as well. The vocal line isn't consciously based on any particular scale, I decided to let it be a bit more free than in the opening section. Overall I'm fairly happy with it, I'm not quite sure how climactic it is, because ultimately, this is meant to be the most tense part of the piece. I'm just hoping I'm not putting it too far from the end. I think the next stanza of poetry will move faster though. We'll see.Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05292773523115324980noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7195157760581186724.post-77941106800617439852009-11-13T06:10:00.000-08:002009-11-13T06:22:09.829-08:00Creating ColdSo for the past couple of days I've been turning my energies to creating cold sounds. I've come up with a neat idea or two out of it. Initially I was working on a phase shifting figure. It's melodically based on the whole tone scale and consists of four different patterns (it's a piano part). In the right hand the rhythmic pattern is a two-bar figure in 4/4 and the melodic fgure takes up 7 of those eight beats. The left hand part consists of another different two-bar 4/4 figure and the melodic material took six of the eight beats. So it wound up taking 40 or 50 something bars before it repeated. I thought it was kinda cool but it was a little static so I'm trying to see how I can incorporate parts of it in perhaps a more interesting way. I think in this section I'm going to use the cello for more of an atmospheric sort of element, perhaps using some extended techniques. We'll see what happens!Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05292773523115324980noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7195157760581186724.post-50831786269570241162009-11-07T11:27:00.001-08:002009-11-07T11:38:15.963-08:00The Mystery ContinuesI never thought that composition could be so intense. I feel like I'm trying to give birth to a child. My new piece is called "A Musical Journey Through a Moment" for now. The words are:<div><br /></div><div>Wind,</div><div>Whipping through my hair,</div><div>Taking with it the thoughts of Babylon,</div><div>And carrying them back</div><div>to where things now look so small,</div><div>I no longer have the time to come here.</div><div><br /></div><div>Cold,</div><div>Bitter, uninviting,</div><div>Drives the sane ones back to warmer days,</div><div>Leaving only dreamers</div><div>whose dreams have brought them here,</div><div>We chose to stay.</div><div><br /></div><div>Moon,</div><div>With its perfect round face,</div><div>And raven hair that swallows up the sky,</div><div>Giving us its light,</div><div>Asking nothing in return,</div><div>And here I stand,</div><div>With all the time in the world.</div><div><br /></div><div>So each stanza represents an aspect of a moment, which I will paint with the music. Only thing that plagues me is which paints to use. I feel fairly satisfied with how the piano part is going but my melodies aren't at all what I want them to be. They don't really fit, and it's not like the kind that don't fit but it's still cool, they just don't fit, period. I've been using the A locrian mode, perhaps I should explore others. Composition always seems to be a mystery to me.</div>Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05292773523115324980noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7195157760581186724.post-44693565641073798882009-10-27T16:48:00.000-07:002009-10-27T16:51:18.293-07:00A breath.Now we take somewhat of a breath after all the toil of the first project. Overall I thought that my pieces went well in performance, the first two especially. The third one I'm not overly happy with, compositionally. The guitar part still bugs me and I feel as though it's lopsided. I may make a couple of changes to it on down the road after all this madness settles down.<div><br /></div><div>Who knows.</div>Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05292773523115324980noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7195157760581186724.post-85018624357617295722009-10-20T17:22:00.000-07:002009-10-20T17:37:19.315-07:00The Avant-Garde CeilidhI feel like this is an article that I can relate to very easily as I lived in that sort of environment growing up. While there were a few acts that came into town now and then, Goose Bay never often saw big names. After a while there were hardly even any local acts. So my friends and I for years would have ceilidh-like times where we just got together and jammed and everyone contributed. There was a very strong sense of community there.<div><br /></div><div>I totally agree with the author's musings on the excessiveness of show business these days. I feel like live music these days has become very impersonal in many ways both in the way we see live music and the way we listen to music on our own. Most people don't even buy cds anymore. This is one of the things that really interests me about avant-garde music. There is often little choice but to see performances in small, personal settings. Certainly, if our society continues in the destructive way that it's going there will be no choice but to return to the fundamental, communal musical practice of the ceilidh. And I can't say that I wouldn't welcome that.</div>Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05292773523115324980noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7195157760581186724.post-58254706912385490732009-10-18T18:18:00.000-07:002009-10-18T18:35:36.812-07:00Three.So today I finished my third piece. I've shortened the title simply to 'River'. It's meant to represent how the character has reached a place where they are in tune with the timeless clockwork and now takes the things that made life complicated in the first piece (i.e. the tense and jerking interactions between the two instruments) and accepts them and moves with them through this river.<div>I've done a fair bit of simplifying to this piece. I've entirely gotten rid of the 7/8 idea that I originally had and instead have written the guitar part with swelling chords. I've also decided to write the whole first section of the guitar part in harmonics, the timbre mixes much better with the piano now.</div><div><br /></div><div>Down the hatch!</div>Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05292773523115324980noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7195157760581186724.post-87707063816776083922009-09-27T18:58:00.000-07:002009-09-27T20:04:57.742-07:00Riding the colossal wave.After meeting Phil Nimmons and David Braid this week and watching them play I feel possibly more inspired than ever. They have this way about them and you can tell that they are entirely in tune with the soul of the universe. It is the groove, our heartbeat, I believe that everyone's heart beats in sync. There is rubato of course but overall we are all connected by this universal groove. I feel like my next piece should have a sort of free, jazzy feel to it because it's meant to represent the character's existence after they realize the soul of the universe (the timeless clockwork) and how upon this realization they are able to be in the moment and ride that colossal wave, the same way Nimmons and Braid do. It's actually amazingly convenient how they came to town at this time because they sort of unconsciously put the final piece of my puzzle in and now I feel like I can explain what I'm trying to get at now.<div><br /></div><div>The timeless clockwork is another word for the soul of the universe, which is the thing that we are all a part of that connects us all. It's based on consequences, an interconncted web of action and reaction, one thing in the beginning of time caused something else to happen, which caused something else and so on until the world we know was cultivated. The realization of this web helps us to accept things as they happen and be in the moment. This is the realization that the character has over the course of the first two pieces. In the third one he has realized the timeless clockwork, he is in the moment, hence the free jazzy feel. He's in the universal groove that Phil was talking about, and nowhere else. I guess it's sort of like Buddhism from a musician's perspective. Riding that colossal groove.</div><div><br /></div><div>I hope I did an ok job explaining myself.</div>Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05292773523115324980noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7195157760581186724.post-42153371686512394002009-09-24T09:29:00.000-07:002009-09-24T09:37:36.263-07:00tock.Last night I finished my second piece. I use the term 'finished' loosely however; I plan to change some things already even. This piece is entitled 'Timeless Clockwork" and is meant to demonstrate the way that I view the universe. It's a bit deep I know and perhaps I'll write another blog entry explaining my philosophy. For now I'll just explain what my musical intensions were. I tried to create a sense of constancy but also a sense of timelessness at the same time. To do this I wrote the guitar part in steady 8th notes, very repetitive-like. Meanwhile, the piano is very sporatic and hard to pin down metrically. Thus 'Timeless Clockwork'.<div><br /></div><div>tock.</div>Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05292773523115324980noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7195157760581186724.post-59538196589282526532009-09-20T10:41:00.000-07:002009-09-20T10:54:03.755-07:00it flies.Captain's log: Sunday September 20, 2009. 3:13 pm.<div><br /></div><div>So I played my first piece 'Far' (in its inches-from-finished state) for the class on Friday. Overall I think it was well received, the criticism gave me a few very good ideas for this piece and future ones also. One was that I should try making the ending chords thicker in texture to further build the tension that I am trying to create. I totally agree with this. Another suggestion was that I try elaborating on the opening material via transposition. This idea did not occur to me as I was composing but I think it will enhance the atmosphere of the beginning that I am going for. This is also an idea to keep in mind for future pieces.</div><div><br /></div><div>Al fin del día, mi máquina vuela.</div>Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05292773523115324980noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7195157760581186724.post-25222397422305986682009-09-17T19:44:00.000-07:002009-09-17T19:55:34.510-07:00On the Verge!After a four-and-a-half-hour stint in a practice room my composition is on the cusp of completion! All that's left to do is put the finishing touches on the guitar part, and of course print it! I've decided to call it 'Far'. The character I'm attempting to capture in this piece is the feeling of mystery when one glimpses something far off in the distance and can't help but be fascinated by it. To capture this I've used quick inquisitive motifs along with pauses and lots of sustain pedal. It is almost two pages long and lasts about a minute. Now I'm just wondering how it will fly in performance.Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05292773523115324980noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7195157760581186724.post-36225370156001832042009-09-14T12:34:00.000-07:002009-09-14T12:55:32.210-07:00Chord Progression BusinessChord progression has been critiqued. Feedback was that there was something of a plateau from 9-12. I've looked at the chords and listened to them, I like the qualities of some however I largely agree. Perhaps if I play with their textures I could make more of a swell in the tension.<div><br /></div>Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05292773523115324980noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7195157760581186724.post-62658431073283364592009-09-11T04:30:00.000-07:002009-09-11T04:31:17.226-07:00First PostSo this is what it feels like to blog eh? I'd always kinda wondered.Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05292773523115324980noreply@blogger.com1