What Are You Practising / Composing Now?

[Richard Barrett]

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?

I'm not sure we're talking about the same instrument... mine is a Viennese zither as featured in Tales from the Vienna Woods and The Third Man, which has a set of fretted strings for the melody and a much larger set of open strings for the accompaniment. I did write for it in 1998 in a chamber opera entitled Unter Wasser which used a text by the Austrian writer Margret Kreidl. Earlier in the 1990s I'd been concerning myself with various non-Western plucked-string instruments not often found in contemporary composition, like the sitar and koto, so working with the zither was an extension of that general idea. It was quite a miscalculation, though, because I assumed that the intended player, who is a guitar and mandolin player, would be able to grasp zither technique without much trouble, which wasn't the case. He did play both of his "usual" instruments elsewhere in the piece so it wasn't too embarrassing! - but if this work is ever given again it will need a specialist player.

[Dave2002]

Re msg 666 (number of the beast) - bars 17-20 seem to have a different number of beats to the rest. Looks like 9/8 if I try counting.

[Richard Barrett]

Re msg 666 (number of the beast) - bars 17-20 seem to have a different number of beats to the rest. Looks like 9/8 if I try counting.

Perhaps what is confusing you is that these bars go into two parts. They don't have a different number of beats from the others.

[Dave2002]

Perhaps what is confusing you is that these bars go into two parts. They don't have a different number of beats from the others.

Ah - so JK has (perhaps - I think) written out the chord specified above. Is the intention that the chord should fill the whole bar, or just the first half. Looks like a dotted whole note (crotchet) to me.

Is this style of notation common?

[Joseph K]

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.

1) Yes, it is deliberately left up to the performer.

2) Yes that's the idea of chord symbols, to be interpreted by an improvisor as something to improvise over.

3) There is a melodic outline.

Ah - so JK has (perhaps - I think) written out the chord specified above. Is the intention that the chord should fill the whole bar, or just the first half. Looks like a dotted whole note (crotchet) to me.

Is this style of notation common?

You're talking about bars 17-20? Those chords appear on the second half of the bar, they're dotted crotchets (quarter notes). It's common to have two parts sharing the same stave, yes, and my intention - so I thought - was made clear by the use of a dotted crotchet rest before the chord, beneath the upper part.

[Dave2002]

You're talking about bars 17-20? Those chords appear on the second half of the bar, they're dotted crotchets (quarter notes). It's common to have two parts sharing the same stave, yes, and my intention - so I thought - was made clear by the use of a dotted crotchet rest before the chord, beneath the upper part.

Maybe this is correct now? Sorry, I didn't notice the rests under the 3 symbols for the triplets. Took a while to set that, but I think I almost cracked it in the end. I apologise in advance if I've got other bits wrong. I had to put a 3/4 time signature in explicitly to force the program to set it with three crotchets per bar. I also decided to specify the instrument - here as acoustic guitar, but the text could be edited for any appropriate instrument.

[Joseph K]

Thanks Dave, that's mostly correct, just a few mistakes here and there.

[Dave2002]

Thanks Dave, that's mostly correct, just a few mistakes here and there.

I can correct those, or send you the file - though I think you have said you have too many other things to do rather than mess with music notation.

You won't be able to send me any PMs for a while - as my inbox and send box need attention - again. I'll try to get those fixed by the end of the week.

It was quite an interesting exercise - and threw up and highlighted a few problems with notation entry, which hopefully I'll fix, and be aware of for the future.

[Richard Barrett]

That was nice of you, Dave.

Speaking of guitars: what I'm doing at the moment is this. Some of you will have come across a couple of "electronic" compositions I made last year based on recordings of more or less improvised materials from various instrumentalists and a singer. I decided last November or so to extend this idea in the form of an album consisting of six "duo" pieces, each based on a specially recorded contribution by a different instrumentalist. I chose people I'd worked with at various times but probably none of whom had ever worked together: Australian lap steel guitarist Daryl Buckley, American flautist Anne La Berge, Canadian clarinettist Lori Freedman, Serbian cellist Ivana Grahovac, French percussionist Lê Quan Ninh, and English guitarist John Russell, who sadly didn't live long enough to record his contribution. I gave no instructions to the players apart from that they should each record for 10-20 minutes, either in one stretch or several shorter ones, with close miking in a dry space, and that they shouldn't necessarily think about the kind of music they would expect me to make from what they do. I'm now working on the lap steel piece, in which there's already quite some effects-pedal action so Daryl's material sounds quite "electronic" to begin with. The composition involves not only editing and multitracking but also various degrees of processing, as well as electronic sounds of my own. I've had so much academic business to concentrate on in the last few weeks that it's been going very slowly, until today which has been a "no reading of emails" day (I'm on a coffee break now) which had the desired effect of allowing the work to develop very nicely, well I think so anyway.

[Joseph K]

Sounds interesting, Richard.

[Joseph K]

I can correct those, or send you the file - though I think you have said you have too many other things to do rather than mess with music notation.

You won't be able to send me any PMs for a while - as my inbox and send box need attention - again. I'll try to get those fixed by the end of the week.

It was quite an interesting exercise - and threw up and highlighted a few problems with notation entry, which hopefully I'll fix, and be aware of for the future.

It's ok, Dave. I don't need that - for now, at any rate. Thanks again.

[Serial_Apologist]

That was nice of you, Dave.

Speaking of guitars: what I'm doing at the moment is this. Some of you will have come across a couple of "electronic" compositions I made last year based on recordings of more or less improvised materials from various instrumentalists and a singer. I decided last November or so to extend this idea in the form of an album consisting of six "duo" pieces, each based on a specially recorded contribution by a different instrumentalist. I chose people I'd worked with at various times but probably none of whom had ever worked together: Australian lap steel guitarist Daryl Buckley, American flautist Anne La Berge, Canadian clarinettist Lori Freedman, Serbian cellist Ivana Grahovac, French percussionist Lê Quan Ninh, and English guitarist John Russell, who sadly didn't live long enough to record his contribution. I gave no instructions to the players apart from that they should each record for 10-20 minutes, either in one stretch or several shorter ones, with close miking in a dry space, and that they shouldn't necessarily think about the kind of music they would expect me to make from what they do. I'm now working on the lap steel piece, in which there's already quite some effects-pedal action so Daryl's material sounds quite "electronic" to begin with. The composition involves not only editing and multitracking but also various degrees of processing, as well as electronic sounds of my own. I've had so much academic business to concentrate on in the last few weeks that it's been going very slowly, until today which has been a "no reading of emails" day (I'm on a coffee break now) which had the desired effect of allowing the work to develop very nicely, well I think so anyway.

It really is appreciated that you've taken what time you do have to keep in touch, Richard. Oh, and thanks too to Joseph K for elucidating the harmony issues I raised in an early post. I still haven't managed to find time to have a go at it, but I will!

[Dave2002]

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

Another view of altered chords - https://music.stackexchange.com/ques...-altered-chord

Often several of the notes in an altered chord seem to be very close together, so more like a tone cluster. Perhaps the intended effect is also somewhat indeterminate, or merely percussively discordant - at least in piano music.
I suppose if a composer or arranger really wanted a more specific effect they'd write that down more explictly.

[Joseph K]

Often several of the notes in an altered chord seem to be very close together, so more like a tone cluster. Perhaps the intended effect is also somewhat indeterminate, or merely percussively discordant - at least in piano music.

Yes, it all depends on how the guitarist/pianist/other instrument capable of playing chords voices it. If smooth voice-leading is desired, it won't sound like a cluster - which in any case is generally not possible on the guitar.

[Serial_Apologist]

Another view of altered chords - https://music.stackexchange.com/ques...-altered-chord

Often several of the notes in an altered chord seem to be very close together, so more like a tone cluster. Perhaps the intended effect is also somewhat indeterminate, or merely percussively discordant - at least in piano music.
I suppose if a composer or arranger really wanted a more specific effect they'd write that down more explictly.

Not necessarily - think of Debussy's almost psychedelic whole-tone clusters in many of his Impressionistic piano pieces and Jeux; of Dutilleux's too, and the Spectralists' in their wake, taking matter further with even subtler-coloured blendings and microtonal displacements - though Bartok did of course use clusters percussively, following Cowell's example in the latter's "Banshee" - requiring lengths of wood, literal fistfulls of notes and elbows on the keyboard (subverting that rule about elbows on tables only being allowed for uncles!) - and many composers in that Stravinsky/Bartok 200th century "tradition" of un-Chopinesque piano writing: Jolivet, Messiaen, Boulez, Stockhausen.