What Are You Practising / Composing Now?

[Joseph K]

I'm guessing you're sure that your finger problems are due to guitar playing, but there might be other things which are interacting.

I'm not sure you've comprehended what the problem is - it is not due to guitar playing, if anything it's due to a lack of guitar playing, specifically: a lack of practice of finger-picking, since up until mid-February I was using a plectrum, if you recall. It's a question of guitar technique which I would only have discovered through playing the guitar in this way.

[Dave2002]

I'm not sure you've comprehended what the problem is - it is not due to guitar playing, if anything it's due to a lack of guitar playing, specifically: a lack of practice of finger-picking, since up until mid-February I was using a plectrum, if you recall. It's a question of guitar technique which I would only have discovered through playing the guitar in this way.

OK - that makes some sort of sense. It's worth looking at the link I provided in the last post in case you are setting yourself up for other problems - though hopefully you are not. Have you now reverted completely back to fingers/nails versus plectrums?

I probably should keep away from guitars - if I were somewhat younger I'd probably go and buy one, and figure out how to play the things - but maybe now's the time to concentrate on things I can do already.

[Joseph K]

OK - that makes some sort of sense. It's worth looking at the link I provided in the last post in case you are setting yourself up for other problems - though hopefully you are not. Have you now reverted completely back to fingers/nails versus plectrums?

I have indeed reverted completely back to fingers/nails. I practice sensibly - and while I think in hindsight I definitely had elements of RSI when I used a plectrum (mostly around the wrist/forearm area) I am confident that this won't happen now I finger-pick - for one thing, I can tell when it's time to take a break when my picking hand fingers start falling back into old (bad) habits.

[BBMmk2]

I'm also sorry to hear about this, though I don't quite see how it is a blessing in disguise. I guess you didn't have a useful backup which would have enabled you to recover your work and the functionality of the Sibelius program. I don't know Sibelius well enough - but doesn't it have some form of rollback memory? Probably not enough, and if it's gone wrong then you will have to start over. Shame if that's the case.

Good luck with the new versions.

Yes, I was not able to realign the parts. However, there were various points in the score, which needed revising. That’s why I thought it was a blessing in disguise. I have mentioned it to the conductor of the band, whose been very supportive.

[Serial_Apologist]

Yes, I was not able to realign the parts. However, there were various points in the score, which needed revising. That’s why I thought it was a blessing in disguise. I have mentioned it to the conductor of the band, whose been very supportive.

Good luck with it, BBM - let's now hope it all works out fine.

[BBMmk2]

Good luck with it, BBM - let's now hope it all works out fine.

Touch wood! So far, so good. Thankfully I have a very sympathetic conductor.

[Serial_Apologist]

Touch wood! So far, so good. Thankfully I have a very sympathetic conductor.

Some people might be grateful for a lightning conductor in the next week!

[BBMmk2]

Some people might be grateful for a lightning conductor in the next week!

I think we could be getting one!

[Joseph K]

So I've finally come round to the fact that I simply cannot play the top line of the Prelude from BWV 998 simply alternating with I and M fingers throughout (although in one or two places I would use the annular finger). While ostensibly logical and simple, actually I'd say this often is an awkward thing to do and actively encourages focal dystonia in my middle finger since many times it has to reach for a lower string while the index plays a higher one; moreover, this doesn't take cognisance of the comfortable natural position of the picking hand. Probably an advanced player could alternate with I and M throughout, but I know from seeing a video of Julian Bream playing the piece that it is not how he plays it. Alternating I and M makes, however, more sense for the most part in the Allegro.

Well, it's taken a solid few hours, but I've finally finished re-fingering the plucking-hand fingering of the Prelude BWV 998. It's taken a few drafts and re-drafts, but I am fairly confident now that it falls much more comfortably under my right-hand than it did before. My re-fingering makes much greater use of the annular finger and the occasional consecutive use of a finger - which isn't all that difficult anyway and makes sense at times.

It's funny reading back these above posts. Actually, my right-hand fingering of the Prelude BWV 998 continued to evolve after I'd made this post, some of it reverting back to alternating I & M despite it being awkward at particular string crossings, but much of it has stayed. I expect to be able to play this Prelude fairly well by the end of this year.

And I've just now finished writing in a right-hand fingering for the Allegro from the same suite - by and large it alternates I & M, but with some judicious use of the annular finger which hopefully will take the stress off all those awkward string crossings. This & the fugue I expect should take somewhat longer to really get together.

I have come to realise that much of the difficulty of playing Bach on the guitar for the right-hand - while I'd say it's a general technical difficulty in my experience it is encountered most often playing Bach and other pieces not originally for guitar e.g. Scarlatti - is string crossing, and conquering this technique while at the same time using a logical fingering involves some problem-solving which I dare say is quite a personal thing (recently I googled this and found one right-hand fingering for the Allegro from BWV 998 that I would never have thought of using) certainly there is no standardised way of using the right-hand for what are admittedly advanced pieces (this suite is part of the ABRSM Diploma Syllabus). I wonder if this is the case with other instruments...

[Suffolkcoastal]

For some strange reason I completed an Oboe Concerto at the beginning of the week. I'm not sure if the ability to compose music with relative ease is a blessing or a curse, probably the latter.

[Richard Barrett]

For some strange reason I completed an Oboe Concerto at the beginning of the week. I'm not sure if the ability to compose music with relative ease is a blessing or a curse, probably the latter.

Why would you say it's a curse? But, maybe a more fruitful kind of question, since I just took a look at your score: how do you go about writing such a thing? Do you just start at the beginning and see where it takes you. or is there some kind of plan for structure, thematic material, harmonic character and so on? I'm guessing that there isn't much planning involved before you start, but I'm intrigued to know how the various structural landmarks make their appearance, like the oboe/harp duo or the unaccompanied section or the "ominous" moment where the timpani enter and the soloist drops out, and so on, Are those things in your mind before you begin, or do they emerge so to speak spontaneously? How do you decide when and how to end? Pardon my interrogation...

[BBMmk2]

Carrying on with my current project of transcribing the Suite from Der Rosenkavalier, for concert band. Have finally caught up, where I had that glitch, recently. Let’s hope I can now finish it!

[Suffolkcoastal]

Why would you say it's a curse? But, maybe a more fruitful kind of question, since I just took a look at your score: how do you go about writing such a thing? Do you just start at the beginning and see where it takes you. or is there some kind of plan for structure, thematic material, harmonic character and so on? I'm guessing that there isn't much planning involved before you start, but I'm intrigued to know how the various structural landmarks make their appearance, like the oboe/harp duo or the unaccompanied section or the "ominous" moment where the timpani enter and the soloist drops out, and so on, Are those things in your mind before you begin, or do they emerge so to speak spontaneously? How do you decide when and how to end? Pardon my interrogation...

Thanks for taking the trouble to listen to the concerto Richard. I find my composing method rather difficult to describe fully. When composing I have a rough idea of how many movements and sometimes a basic overview. I never seem to have much trouble with the opening it comes to me straightaway. With orchestral music the idea also comes to me fully orchestrated. The initial idea is often the source of a lot of the material. With the Oboe Concerto its those two rising 4ths, I just then see where the material takes me. As I compose a few bars I, more often than not, immediately here the continuation and also other options which I use later in the movement or work. Again for whatever instrument, combination etc, I hear it in my head in the individual colours of the instrument (s)/full orchestrated as I continue. The texture and ideas and how I use them are governed by emotions, memories & the world of my dreams (I dream heavily every night & regularly remember them even several years later).
I also these days tend to compose horizontally, almost in a way like the composers of 16th century I suppose. If either at the piano or on the software playback I'll often listen/play a section over a number of times, leave it then come back, say half an hour later, with the continuation completely in my head. As for endings; as I'm composing something in the material suggests itself as being a way to complete a work/movement and I keep it 'in mind', or it just seems to flow from what I've been composing, instinct I suppose.
I'm not sure how well I've explained it. I've never been taught composition formally, have learnt myself from listening and studying and simply letting my overactive mind loose!

[Pabmusic]

I've mentioned this elsewhere, but...

Here's a musical thing that might seem 'picky' to most people. But it's really not - I think it's quite interesting.

I am currently preparing for publication Sir Hubert Parry's suite from the incidental music to the play Hypatia (1893). There's five movements: I've just finished the fourth.

When you do something like this over several months you become intimate with the style, and this is the sixth Parry work I've transcribed from the autograph. And there's one feature that's struck me this time even more than before.

When Parry returns to a passage that has already appeared once (say, at the beginning, and we're now at the reprise of that) he doesn't repeat it exactly. I don't mean that he subtly alters it to give it new meaning - I mean he writes it more-or-less the same, but with many small grammatical differences. It's as if he hasn't looked back in the manuscript to copy what he's written already, but rather he rewrites the passage from memory, laying out parts slightly differently, re-doing string chords, and the like.

This puts me in mind of a composer who was notorious for doing just this, all the time - Antonín Dvořák. His scores are full of tiny differences of just this type, no doubt caused because he regularly rewrote passages from memory. Some conductors change many of these to conform to the earlier reading, but that seems to me short-sighted. We are, after all, witnessing the creation of musical art through the thought-processes of gifted composers.

[edashtav]

I've mentioned this elsewhere, but...

Here's a musical thing that might seem 'picky' to most people. But it's really not - I think it's quite interesting.

I am currently preparing for publication Sir Hubert Parry's suite from the incidental music to the play Hypatia (1893). There's five movements: I've just finished the fourth.

When you do something like this over several months you become intimate with the style, and this is the sixth Parry work I've transcribed from the autograph. And there's one feature that's struck me this time even more than before.

When Parry returns to a passage that has already appeared once (say, at the beginning, and we're now at the reprise of that) he doesn't repeat it exactly. I don't mean that he subtly alters it to give it new meaning - I mean he writes it more-or-less the same, but with many small grammatical differences. It's as if he hasn't looked back in the manuscript to copy what he's written already, but rather he rewrites the passage from memory, laying out parts slightly differently, re-doing string chords, and the like.

This puts me in mind of a composer who was notorious for doing just this, all the time - Antonín Dvořák. His scores are full of tiny differences of just this type, no doubt caused because he regularly rewrote passages from memory. Some conductors change many of these to conform to the earlier reading, but that seems to me short-sighted. We are, after all, witnessing the creation of musical art through the thought-processes of gifted composers.

A thought provoking post.