Category Archives: Composing

Articulation, and what it does to a dance

As I’ve said previously, it’s been intimidating to write a second movement to my string quartet. I wasn’t sure if I loved what I had so far, and I was kind of second guessing myself.

Today’s workplace happened to be outside a classroom where they were learning ballroom dance. I have my headphones on, but they do not cancel the noise outside, and I find myself in the waltz mode a little more easily because of the ambient music.

I look at the piece I’m working on, and realize that what I need is some more clear articulations to help the string players play the right kind of lightness. A waltz cannot be played heavily. It just doesn’t work right. You want it to kind of float. So despite all the more or less dissonant melodic material, harmonized into what I think sounds right, but maybe isn’t the typical Johann Strauss Jr kind of harmony, if you know what I mean, I am really attempting to write a “light” atonal waltz. It’s a fun challenge, and after adding in the articulation, I find that the viola part isn’t hard to write at all. (I had left off the piece with gaps in the middle parts, so next will be some work on a second violin part).

However, the dance class switched and they are playing something Latin inspired, and the rhythm doesn’t work at all with what I’m doing now. I have a hard time finding flow, and I hope to get back to writing later today.

The process of working with a performer

Last week I had the privilege of meeting with my friend Michelle Flowers, who is a doctor of trombone performance, and has been teaching in Texas for several years, but happened to be visiting in Utah. She had asked me to write a piece for solo tenor trombone, which I did a couple of months ago. We finally had a chance to get together for a live read, which is one of my favorite things to have happen as a composer. I learn so much every time I get to talk to a musician trying to understand my ideas I’ve put down on paper for them. It’s also immensely satisfying to hear the interpretation of a great performer playing the ideas I have only imagined.

After catching up (we were undergraduate music students at the same time) on what’s going on, she played through the piece, and we addressed a few things in it. One was that where the music kind of demanded a low D, but I thought that it was “out of range” and therefore had given her an F#, but we changed it, since with the trigger, it worked just fine for that note.

We also clarified what note each trill was supposed to go to. I actually wrote this piece in key signatures, unlike what I usually do in my compositions. So I told her to trill to the half or whole-step above it, in the key signature, and it sounds idiomatic that way, in my opinion. That meant a variety of techniques to make it happen, but they all work. Sometimes a trigger, sometimes a lip, sometimes a slide trill. They all do the job, in slightly different ways.

When writing for the tenor trombone, it is generally better to not stay in the really low register for a long time. It speaks better a bit higher, anyway. But on occasion, it’s valuable to know that many trombone players can get an occasional low D, despite the orchestration books telling you that E is safer. In an orchestra setting, I would probably just give a low D to the bass trombone, but this is a solo piece.

There was also this place in the piece which I call “SPECTACULAR,” after the crux of the poem that I had written to support the music. Michelle suggested that I add in a little bit more lyrical phrasing right there. So when I sat down to process that, I wrote in another phrase, and landing on a fairly high G#, before launching into the “cadenza” of the piece.

Writing for a particular performer is one of the loveliest things to do, and it is especially fun when I’m writing a piece that is supposed to really showcase what the instrument can do. Michelle could tell that I’m inspired by Webern by how the lines are written. It’s impossible to hide. It just pops up again and again. Once upon a time, I had it in my mind to do doctorate research on the performance practice of Webern’s vocal music. It hasn’t happened yet, but maybe one day I’ll go and research that topic more.

Today I revisited the piece, and I’m still pretty happy with the flow of the song. Looking forward to a live performance of it before too long, hopefully!

Writing parts – also known as harmonizing

It’s actually really interesting to me that so much of the harmony is implied in the initial melody. If the melody follows a tonal pattern, then it begs for harmony that reinforces that – and conversely, if my melody is more atonal, toying with twelve-tone patterns, the harmony is demanding to be more like that too. If I should try to insert lots of regular trichords (think major or minor chords, mainly) to an atonal line, I think it would feel misplaced – unless, of course, it isn’t trying to follow exactly a regular bass-line or chord progression from the tonal tradition.

So while I feel like it’s not hard to write in the harmony, I’m questioning my choices yesterday. Do I like what I hear? I think I will continue to work on this thread – meaning the melody I wrote yesterday, with its accompanying harmonies I’m continuing on today – a bit longer and see if it redeems itself before scrapping it.

What makes music compelling? Why do you want to continue listening? The counterpoint certainly helps, but if the melody doesn’t want to stay in your head after listening, maybe it is just another piece you’re going to forget as soon as you heard it. So I’m second guessing my choices but don’t want to give up yet. I’ll let you know what I decide to do as I look at it again with – hopefully fresh eyes – next time.

Getting on with the next movement

I’ve really struggled to figure out what’s next. I have focused on trying to play more consistently, like pull out my instrument and practice like I did when I was in lessons. I figured it would be a good idea to play through all the pieces we’re playing in our concert on Friday and Saturday (Timpanogos Symphony Orchestra, at Orem High school) – Tchaikovsky’s violin concerto, Hindemith’s Metamorphoses, and Wagner’s Die Meistersinger overture. So a total of eight movements, and I thought two movements per day was pretty good, not overwhelming. It’s getting easier. I’m playing the hard parts at a slower tempo, which makes them more doable. It’s not like I’m going to play them slow at the concert. It is really important to stay with the beat, and it is even more important to stay with the beat than to play all the notes, or even the right notes. Playing the right notes at the wrong time is much worse than the wrong note at the right time in an orchestra setting, especially if the texture of the orchestra is very full at the time. At the same time, being able to play them slowly means that I am telling my brain what the melodic and rhythmic pattern is, so that it’s easier to recreate in the section in the middle of the piece.

As I’m tuning in to an old radio program from 2013 where Donald Maurice, Claudine Bigelow, and Scott Holden play various inspiring music featuring the viola and piano, I find my old love for Bartók’s music rekindled, and for some reason, a melody starts to take shape. I write it down as quickly as I can, and I wonder if the first 17 measures will be like the theme of the movement.

Last time I sat down to create music on my score, all I had come up with was the setting of the string quartet, the tempo, and the meter. But today, it’s obvious that it’s kind of like a waltz. It’s hard to imagine the harmonies I’m going to feature at the same time I’m listening to other music though. When I listen through what I wrote, I love the melody, but it’s too slow, and I decide to change the tempo to being defined by the dotted half note instead of the quarter note.

When I pick it up next, I’ll be sure to focus on harmony and counterpoint, and developing the theme further. It should be fun to have a waltz, it’s been a while since I wrote one. If you’re curious, listen to Vals från Rundvik! (You have to scroll to the bottom of the page, it’s the last recording on the page).

End of the first movement SQ1

Sometimes, a piece of music has a very imaginative title. Other times, it is more abstract, and I just call it “String quartet #1”, like so many before me. Maybe some day, I’ll have an idea that demands a change, but for now, that is what I call my work.

I filled in the last few measures of music for the first movement. I added in some more articulation where I thought it was needed, and some dynamics markings. The piece is at least a completed draft. As I was going through the parts I wrote today, I noticed several times I had had all of the parts moving in the same direction. Generally, that is frowned upon. So I changed a few pitches, letting the second violin go down as the other three go up, and letting the cello later stay on the same pitch when the other three go up. Last instances, I just let the viola go higher than the second violin, because the chord was pretty tight. Now the second violin goes down when everyone goes up, and the viola gets to go down when all the others go up on the next instance.

I think it can work to have all move in the same direction, but it really sticks out in a piece otherwise adhering to counterpoint rules as best as I can, which is why I try to eliminate most of my rule-breaking voice leading.

I’m a little nervous about giving out the parts to my friends, but also very excited to hear a better rendition than my software does. Live musicians breathe their own life into my ideas, and it is such a lovely feeling when you hear your ideas with their fantastic sound.

Surprising move, or not

I’m picking up the string quartet this morning again. I write some notes for the first violin, and then I work on the second violin. I find that this time the second is leading, and it’s a fun change. I had the viola part extending the longest from last session, and it just seemed like the line should be repeated (nearly) but with an octave higher, and the second violin naturally took that line. It seems that next, I should develop the line in the first violin, and let that instrument take the lead.

But instead, I catch the vision that the cello and second violin play contrary motion to make for an expansive section.

Small essay –

Contrary motion is when you have two lines, and whenever one line is getting a pitch that is higher than the previous one, the other line is getting a pitch that is lower than the previous one. If I have one line that is consistently climbing upwards, the other line climbs downwards on the staff (and in this case, you would expand the span of the interval between the notes, little by little – which is why I call it an expansive section). If I have lots of up and down alternating, they would be alternating opposite. It makes for more interesting lines, more independence of lines, and I like the way that harmony works out that way too. –

End of small essay.

When I get back in the evening to put some more notes on the page, I on impulse add in a few notes where previously there had been a rest for a couple of the instruments. I add in an accent for the violins to match the viola in one place where it looked like I had just forgotten to do it.

And then the line flows out of first violin at the place where I’d left off this morning. I have the three lower parts in what amounts to the viola playing a melody with the others accompanying for a few measures, and the first violin adds more harmony to the accompaniment, and then moves over with quarter notes accompanying the second violin. When the second violin part ends, it seems very natural to keep going with melody for the first. All I had was a cello bass line to relate to, and I try to remember to use contrary motion a lot, because I like the way it sounds. Sometimes a line gets to repeat the same pitch, but I’m thinking about the melody like a line you have to hold on to for dear life, or you might drown. The first violin is kind of holding on to a hope that she or he has to keep going up, or they will go under water. So I keep going up, sometimes repeating pitches so the harmonic span doesn’t get too wide too quickly. Once I land on the high A, which I know is kind of high for the violin because my software marks it red (I have confirmed that the violinists I work with have played this pitch and higher in concert, so I’m not worried). But I decide to leave that idea there, and move on to playing a kind of counterpoint with the cello line. Until that ends, and then I just improvise, and write the ideas I had that came while I was listening through the entire piece.

I often start my composing sessions by listening to the piece I’ve been working on. That way, the improvisation that is part of composition seems to flow more easily. I have this section with rhythmic unison (all the instruments on the same rhythm) that comes to give the listener a break from all the busy counterpoint, and I feel like it is very needed now. I just need to hear those accents again, all the four instruments together. As many times as my ear requires a rest, and then I can start on counterpoint again.

When I’m getting to the viola part again, I have to write lots of sixteenth notes again to make the counterpoint right. I have been listening to Cristina Cordero’s rendition of Weber’s Andante e Rondo ungarese today, and I was following along with the music. She has really beautiful tone, and I’m inspired that there are musicians like her that can play so many notes so sonorously on this instrument. She was only 18 when she made that recording, and I actually listened to several others of her videos today, and I try to keep this lovely sound in my head, and trust that the viola can play the notes I’m putting down, even though I know it will be a challenge.

It can be helpful to imagine someone better than yourself playing the music you’re writing. I’m imagining I’ll be better after working on this piece as a performer, and I’m ok with that prospect.

I’m getting tired of working on this piece. I think it’s getting close to ending though, so that is a good thing. I just need to wrap up this movement, and then I think I should probably write three more. But they will be contrasting enough that it shouldn’t feel like I’m working on the same piece.

So I write a few measures for the second violin, imagining the general environment that the other instruments will play against that line, and I decide to make an ending. It’s nearly seven minutes, and I think I can be pleased with that length. I’ll end for tonight and look at it again tomorrow.

The middle part of the first movement

Continuing work on the string quartet today. I add in the remainder of the cello part that was missing from last time, and I decide to pick up the tempo a little bit for the next part. I’m feeling like another five measures of mostly unison rhythm is enough, and I decide to start on the repeat of the beginning part. The question that lingers is – how exact of a repeat am I wanting to include, and where does it diverge to something that’s different?

I decide to go for six of the opening measures to start the fast section, and then it just starts flowing. There’s a first violin part stretching out four and a half measures, and I decide to move on to the second violin. I have found that it’s usually easier to work from the top part and then down, as each part contributes to the spread of the chord and the sound. There are exceptions, especially in a piece as contrapuntal as this.

The second violin part flows four measures past the end of the first violin part now. As I work on the viola part, I kind of dread having to learn all the fast notes! It stretches two and a half measures longer than the second violin’s line, and I move on to the cello part. The last two measures of the viola part I have written, thinking of another rhythmic unison part, and I write the cello part up until the end of the viola part.

But when I go back to the piece, I hear the viola part inside my head stretching forward into the next little bit, and I write down what I imagine real quick. I just have to quit now for today anyway because I have something else I have to work on. Until next time!

Getting back into writing notes

I got so sick a couple of weeks ago, that at first I was just lying around sleeping with a fever. As I started to recover, I had very few thoughts on writing music, it being Christmas and I had some other responsibilities associated with that (a little for the music program at church, and trying to make it a meaningful time for the family by cooking some special dishes for our dinner, trying to figure out decorations and gifts).

There had been a difficulty for the choir at one of the key changes for Angels we have heard on high, and I added some notes for the clarinet and the alto saxophone to clarify the key change. It was simple and worked.

But today I feel the itch of writing more. I remembered exactly what I had been thinking last time, probably in part because I kept a record here on this blog. I just listened through what I had so far, and then I wrote a part for the first violin, and then one for the second violin. They are rhythmically unison which makes it easy, in some ways. I know that if I keep the same interval between them, they cease to be independent, so I try to vary the distance a little bit, and add in a little bit of contrary motion. But the idea here is high and kind of ethereal, and I don’t want any quick moves.

I add in a viola part, and I start working on a cello part but the library is closing so I’ll have to pick it up later.

Last minute changes

Last week I wrote about rejection, and it was when I found out that my second competition piece hadn’t won, that I found out about another call for scores. It had been my intention to submit a movement to that competition this week. Well deadline was tonight, and I got really sick on Wednesday. I was lying pretty useless on the couch for a couple of days, and then today I got to hold my feverish child most of the day.

Thankfully, there wasn’t a lot I still needed to do to submit the piece, and this evening, with less than two hours to spare, I got on my computer and handed off kid-duty to my awesome husband and gave kids hand signals to leave me alone while I focused on the last minute things I still had to do to send it in.

There was one thing that stood out to me, and it was towards the end of the movement. For some reason, I had the second clarinet cut out in the middle of the building up to the end, and it just looked funny to me. So I decided to write a part for that instrument by doubling the second flute, and it just looked better, and I’m sure will feel more satisfying for the person playing that part.

I added a cover page, added a couple of notes that make it easier to read for the conductor, and fixed some funny looking slurs that were artifacts of going back and forth between transposing score and score in C.

I wrote some program notes, which I am seeing most competitions like to receive these days, and realized how much this piece actually means to me, and this time, I really hope it goes better than the last two competitions.

Transition from fast to calm

Today when I get back to the computer to what I imagine is finishing up the loose ends from yesterday, I find that what sounds like an ending can just as well be the transition to a calmer middle part. The piece is full of contrapuntal movement, and I have finally reached a resting point for all the four instruments. That is why it feels so final. But I decide that I can start a new part here, and make the piece more of an ABA form. I’m at the end of the first “A,” and I can start on “B.”

Here are a few things that I deliberately do to change the feel of the music, to make it a contrasting section. 1) I slow down the tempo from 120 to 84 beats per minute, 2) I don’t write any sixteenth notes – the fastest note so far is an eighth note, 3) I give it a pianissimo marking, the first in the piece, 4) I make the counterpoint less busy, so I only have two different rhythm shapes, and they are only a little bit different from each other, and 5) I use a lot of sequence and try to make the section predictable.

Last Saturday I had the fantastic experience of listening to the Utah Symphony playing live at Abravanel Hall in Salt Lake City. They played Prokofiev’s 2nd piano concerto and Shostakovich’s 1st symphony. Their opening piece was by John Adams, The Chairman Dances: Foxtrot for Orchestra. As I listened to the orchestra, I was thinking a lot about repetition, and how much repetition is desirable. It clearly is a delicate balance! You want the audience to feel like they have some kind of idea of what the musical theme is, and how you are developing it. You can only know the theme if there are enough iterations of it, because otherwise it comes across as introduction or variation.

So as I’m writing the beginning part of “B” in the first movement of my first string quartet, I’m trying to introduce the theme enough times that a listener can feel like the music makes sense. I’m pairing the two violins rhythmically, and I’m also pairing the viola and cello. Then I switch rhythms between the two groups, so that the leading voice is in the lower register. I’m thinking a lot about two-part harmony, which does best when the intervals are a pleasing interval, rather than doublings (doublings kind of undo the idea of harmony).

In two-part harmony, a pretty safe bet in traditional arrangements is the third or the sixth. However, I love variety, and therefore I will mix my thirds and sixths up with seconds, diminished fifths, and the occasional fourth or seventh. I try to aim for a mix of countermotion and the parts moving together (with countermotion being favored). That is how I find a two-part harmony the most interesting.

Well, I finish up my first eight measures of that section, and I know that it needs something a little different next. I’ve just ended on a pretty high chord for all the strings, which lends itself fairly well for introducing the climax. I remember learning that when you’re looking for a climax in a piece, it generally means the highest point. Playing Prokofiev’s third piano concerto (observe that this recording is not my orchestra playing it) last spring, I definitely felt it was a high point when the entire viola section was maxing out by playing the highest notes we are usually ever asked to play in concert, towards the end of the last movement (listen at about 24-26 minutes for that part where the high strings are really high and lyrical, right before the peppy contrasting part by woodwinds, piano, and strings playing in a very different style).

So when I get back to writing either later today or tomorrow, I will try and make that high section fly.