Tag: classical guitar

No New Music Tuesday

The Portly Politico3 Comments

Happy Tuesday, dear readers!

No New Music Tuesday today, I’m afraid.  With the school year winding down, several aspects of the job are winding up as we enter into exam review season.  I’m attempting to squeeze in one last mini-unit covering the Renaissance, the Protestant Reformation, and European exploration in the span of three lessons, so my unstructured time has been spent putting together slides for  those quite vast topics.  We’ll see if I can speed run the biggest events of 1300-1600!

The point is not an in-depth analysis of these major movements, but to keep the students a taste before they head into United States History next year.  The first part of United States History examines the political, social, and religious context of late medieval/early modern Europe, as that context is significant in the exploration and colonization of the Americas.  I’d like the students to finish the “story” of World History in such a way that it dovetails with the “story” of United States History.

I’ve tinkered with my latest composition, “Japanese Trapdoor Snails,” slightly, but have hit a bit of a block with it.  As with writer’s block, the solution is simply to write—in this case, music.  To do that, though, I need to have a bit more unstructured time, and what I’ve had has been dedicated to more pressing matters.

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New Music Tuesday XIIa: WIP: “Japanese Trapdoor Snails”

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It’s a quick installment of New Music Tuesday today, friends.  I’m working on a piece called “Japanese Trapdoor Snails”; I’m attempting to capture a quintessentially “Japanese” sound, although I’m not sure if I’m succeeding just yet.

It’s for flute, oboe, classical guitar, and drums (so far).  I’ll likely continue to add instrumentation as needed.

Here’s a thirty-second bit of what I have so far:

Still a bit static, but what do you think of this odd little piece in its current form?  Does it have legs—or one big, fat, muscular belly-foot?

Happy Listening!

—TPP

New Music Tuesday X: “Aquatic Geometry”

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After hearing how “Koi Chorale” turned out last week, I wanted to experiment more with music that, as one of my students put it, “sounds distant.”  Tinkering with music that is bound by a set of semi-rigid internal “rules” has also been top of mind, so I attempted to combine the two into another piece—today’s feature.

The experiment this time was to see where a stepwise melody (moving in seconds) would end up depending on whether the notes moved up or down by seconds.  Most of my composing of late has been some variation on this theme, so it’s nothing new, but that’s where I started.  I also wanted one “hand” or part playing a sustained half note while the opposing “hand” or part moved in a quadruplet of eighth notes.

Having accomplished that, I kept the bottom “hand” consistent across the form.  The top “hand,” however, moved either “down” or “up”:

Then on the third line, I combined the “up” and “down” movements, seeing where they would overlap.

From there, I added another part in Noteflight, which harmonized with the handwritten part.  I added some low brass, too, which just moves in quarter note arpeggios starting on the first and fifth of the chord of each measure.  Pretty straightforward.

I applied heavy pedal markings for all of the instruments, even if (like classical guitar, trombone, and tuba) they don’t have pedals (I think vibraphone, the lead instrument, does have a sustain pedal of sorts, but I could be wrong).  I wanted the notes to “ooze” into each other in a thick, aquatic shimmer, like water washing amorphously into a contained space.

Finally, I plugged everything into Audacity and applied some heavy reverb and other effects, which really lend the piece the distant, melancholy, slightly creepy feeling of an odd dream.

As my former neighbor summarized the piece:

“It’s like a dream, slightly… creepy, but you don’t know WHY…. [it’s m]usic played in the background of your subconscious, which is hazy, fuzzy, and blips in and out, as a porcelain doll named ‘Polly’ requests that you play with her….”

Well put, my friend.  And that is “Aquatic Geometry”:

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Open Mic Adventures CXXXVI: “Seesaw”

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Well, here it is:  the last piece from Leftovers IV that needs to be featured on this humble blog.  I’m going to have to start writing new music again—or actually go back to open mic night!

After a massive output last year and earlier this year, I’ve been relaxing a bit.  Part of it is that the inspirado hasn’t been hitting as frequently, but I also tend to slow down when summertime hits.  My workflow is such that, when I have a ton of stuff to do, I actually get more creative work done, because I’m pretty revved up and running all the time.  I work like a diesel engine:  I can run a long time if I just keep running, but once I shut off, it takes me awhile to get back to peak efficiency.

I do have a couple of collections of older work waiting in the wings, I’m just tinkering with when and how I want to release them.  When I say “older,” I mean really old—stuff that dates back to 2004 and earlier.  Some of the pieces probably go back to the last century, even if they were only recorded years later.  I also have several new pieces that need videos, a release, etc.  Again, I’m contemplating how and when I want to compile those pieces.

But I digress. Here is the last track from that short EP, Leftovers IV.  It’s weird piece and, quite honestly, I’m not entirely pleased with the results.

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