What Are You Practising / Composing Now?

[Serial_Apologist]

Another attempt at this. Although I'm not practising this tune at the moment, I find the kind of skills I've acquired from practising Giant Steps for three weeks now and improvement made in picking technique mean to me at least I sound a bit better on it. Still however I listen back and hear ideas that get discarded when they could have been turned into a sequence. Hey ho.

Great to see your progress though, Joseph K! As a pianist (of sorts) I too found my technique - and improvising vocabulary - really took off as a consequence of practising over the changes to that tongue-twister of a musical analogy, "Giant Steps": interchanging between different key centres with rapid switches between flats and sharps is wonderful for flexibility and mental/physical co-ordination. Even my everyday thinking processes seem to have loosened up!

[Joseph K]

Thank you, SA.

[Dave2002]

Slightly bored today, so wrote a short piano piece - around 50 seconds. Now I have to see if I like it enough to continue working on it. There are parts I don't like. Also I need to see if it's playable.

For me this is sometimes an exercise in trial and error. Still - keeps me off the streets - and there is snow outside. Perhaps I should write a few more, then scrap them all!

It's moderately therapeutic.

[Joseph K]

Also I need to see if it's playable.

How would you do this? I didn't know you played the piano.

[Dave2002]

How would you do this? I didn't know you played the piano.

Ah - there's a lot you don't know. I don't play well - or at least not pieces I've not played and practised.

Turns out I can't sight read my own music, and also that there are some bars which are either tricky or impossible. Sometimes impossible looking chords turn out to be possible for very good pianists - who have ways of disguising that not all the notes are played - or in the manner of Derek Morecambe - not necessarily in the correct order.

I tried changing some of the chords to make them more playable - but the results weren't quite what I wanted.

I tried changing the piece for different instruments. Harpsichord instead of piano - didn't really work too well. Organ wasn't too bad.
Then I tried string quartet. Pretty dire. Would require quite a lot of effort to make that work.

Finally I tried wind quintet. It would be possible to make something of that version, perhaps. So - something I've noticed before - some pieces work quite well on some instruments and combinations, but not at all well on others - or different combinations.

This piece works best on piano (if it can be played), organ (similarly) and wind quartet or wind quintet - though would have to be modified to give better results.

I suppose I could try some form of guitar ensemble - also - to get a feel for what that might sound like. I hadn't thought of that before now. Previous experiments have also suggested marimbas and xylophones as possible - even harps.

If I get this far I sometimes extend pieces a bit for a preferred instrumental group. I haven't tried going straight in for piano before - without being anywhere near a piano keyboard, so today's effort was a slight surprise for me.

Remember - I'm only doing this to pass the time.....!

[Joseph K]

Some time in June I posted a picture of a composition of mine which wasn't really finished. Well I've finished it now, and while I've also written it down with more specific voicings (in fact that was how it appeared on the original score along with scales given for each chord) for this version, I have chosen -mostly- to forgo writing out voicings, instead just using chord symbols, as is customary in jazz, and the melody. I've also chosen an E major key signature since, although it is full of ambiguous roving harmonies, that is the key centre it at least suggests, to me at any rate. I'd say it's at a medium tempo c.130-150 BPM (not considered medium in classical music, but in jazz where the main unit is the quaver, yes medium) - I'll have to learn it thoroughly to be more specific as regards tempo, but this is quite a tricky tune and it's going to take some time for me to learn it; heretofore I have mostly concentrated on improvising over functional harmony, so it will take some time to sound comfortable and musical over this labyrinth of a piece.

[Serial_Apologist]

Thanks for reproducing that piece, Joseph K. I'm not too sure I understand jazz chord symbols, and my sight-reading "skills" have undoubtedly degenerated in the past couple of decades, but I'll try it out on one of my keyboards as soon as practicable.

[Joseph K]

Thanks for reproducing that piece, Joseph K. I'm not too sure I understand jazz chord symbols, and my sight-reading "skills" have undoubtedly degenerated in the past couple of decades, but I'll try it out on one of my keyboards as soon as practicable.

Thanks, SA. All you need to know is the triangle stands for a triad, a 7 after a letter indicates a dominant chord, a dash like this - indicates a minor chord and a slash means a particular chord over a bass e.g. E flat/E equals E flat with an E natural in the bass.

Those D sharp triads over A ought to be D sharp dominant chords over A.

EDIT: and alt is short for altered https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altered_chord

[Tony Halstead]

I am currently practising the following for a recording project this year based on the music library of Dennis Brain (Centenary 2021):
Peter Racine Fricker: Horn Sonata Op.24; Heinz Schreiter: Horn Sonatine; Alexander Ecklebe: Horn Sonata; Arnold Cooke: Arioso and Scherzo; Rondo in Bb; Emmanuel Chabrier: Larghetto; Alan Bush: 'Trent's Broad Reaches'; 'Autumn Poem'; Paul Vidal: Pièce de concert; Jean-Baptiste Senaillé: Allegro Spiritoso; Camille Saint-Saëns: 'Le cygne'; Marin Marais: 'Le Basque'.

[Tapiola]

Sounds like a wonderful project Tony and i hope it goes well.

I'm looking to buy a zither and teach myself.

[Richard Barrett]

Joseph, I look forward to bashing through that when I have a moment. Tony, that sounds really interesting - a couple of composers there I'd never heard of. Tapiola, I bought a zither in 1998 to help with writing for it and thought I might get somewhere with playing it also, but even for a sometime guitar player like me it was just too hard. Let us know how it goes!

[Tapiola]

Tapiola, I bought a zither in 1998 to help with writing for it and thought I might get somewhere with playing it also, but even for a sometime guitar player like me it was just too hard. Let us know how it goes!

Richard: Thank you, that is very kind of you. I spotted a lovely antique instrument on Ebay, minus a few strings but funds may dictate. It would just be for plucking and picking out tunes from the beloved Trouvere songs I know, but we'll see!

Have you ever written for it?

[Suffolkcoastal]

Completed a series of eight songs over the Christmas, composed a Serenade for Small Orchestra (c17 mins) this month which is very straightforward. Began working on my 3rd Piano Sonata this week, a bit demanding I feel. Still haven't a clue what's compelling me to compose at such a rate these last 2 years, not that anyone will ever perform/record the music.

[Pabmusic]

I have been spending much time making decent 'recordings' of much of my music, particularly quite early stuff. I do have real recordings of most of these pieces, because very little of my music has never been played at all. But most of those recordings are not very good, being made on cassette tape using mediocre machines. I do find that NotePerformer3 gives very good sound, far superior to Sibelius's own.

That said, the reason I'm posting this is to say how chuffed I've been with most of the music. In particular, I've not had to alter much. I'm very willing to tweak things to reflect 20-40 intervening years of experience, but have not had to do much at all. Generally, I've thinned the scoring in places, and I've sometimes changed a single bar from one time to another to give an extra breathing space. But not much more than that.

Here's two recent uploads. The YouTube channel is pabmusic1 (https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=pabmusic1)

Shenandoah, for cello & orchestra (1993):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZUEA1VZTD58

Chibiabos the Musician (1978):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G1QsrfipqaY

[Dave2002]

EDIT: and alt is short for altered https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altered_chord

One question - how do you know which note(s) to alter? As a composer/performer one might know one's own work, but otherwise? Or is that completely up to the performer?

Further than this - is there an assumption that the performer is actually improvising something of his/her own on top of the chords, so it's only really an outline?

I always assumed that with jazz at least there would be some form of melodic outline initially, but then the performer would develop that with later repetitions etc.