06 Apr 2013 No Comments

Aaron Gervais, Composer

I just (re)discovered a terrific composer site – that of Aaron Gervais. It is a wonderful collection of all sorts of stuff, much of it self-promoting (that’s what sites like this are for), but Gervais is also an intelligent and thoughtful writer and he gives us a number of useful short articles on various subjects.

Samples:

Working for Free: Helpful or Harmful?

Working Weekends Makes You a Worse Composer

A Machiavellian Guide to Becoming a Composer

Why Composers Should Drop Out of University (and What They Should Be Learning) – Parts 1 & 2

(“Education begins where academia ends. You make connections with people, you find a community, you decide what really matters, you find time to do what you love, you find a way to earn a living. You might do some of this while in school, but little or none of it is taught at school. So why don’t more composers just skip straight to the career and not bother with degrees?”)

by Jeffrey Agrell in Composers, Composition Web Sites Tags: , , ,

06 Apr 2013 No Comments

Gospel Time by Jeffrey Agrell (video)

I like to think of the notated versions of my compositions as beginnings, not ends. I am always happy when performers inject their own visions and imaginations into my music. Composers don’t know everything. If we make performers partners, we will have a lot more varied and interesting performances. Why should a composition be frozen forever in one single version (recordings tend to make us think that there is only one valid version of a piece). The performance below of my Gospel Time for trombone quartet is good evidence of great imagination. There is no singing in my version – it was delightful to see that they dared to transform the first section into a sort of wordless sung hymn. There were more liberties in the middle – with a spontaneous oom pan section – what fun! They also had fun with the ending – more singing; plus a late coda encore. Good for them. I really enjoyed their performance, and clearly, so did the audience

by Jeffrey Agrell in Compositions, Video Tags: , , ,

03 Mar 2013 No Comments

IJCC: online composition journal

The “International Journal of Contemporary Composition” (IJCC) is an online peer-reviewed open-access journal, dedicated to providing the worldwide musical audience with free access to high-quality works by contemporary music researchers and composers.

“IJCC welcomes submission of unpublished original research articles and modern music composition scores, which are not under review in any other journals.

“IJCC website plays the role of a music producer center. Music producers visit our site in search of contemporary music production.

“IJCC website also allows[listening to] the music online.

“IJCC is published by the International Association for Academic Research”

by Jeffrey Agrell in Composition Web Sites Tags: ,

09 Feb 2013 No Comments

Interval Song (video)

by Jeffrey Agrell in Just for Fun, Video Tags: ,

08 Feb 2013 No Comments

Composition Tip #26: Conduct!

Learn to conduct. At some point you will be called upon to conduct your music. Be ready for that day. For composers, conducting is like playing piano – a very useful skill to have to support what you do as a composer.

A conductor silhouette

You can also hasten the day by writing for groups that might be glad to perform your music and have you conduct it: Bands. Orchestra. Choirs. Brass choirs. Horn choirs.

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by Jeffrey Agrell in Composing Tips Tags: , , , ,

27 Jan 2013 No Comments

Composition Tip #25: Film Music!

John Williams

John Williams

English: Jerry Goldsmith conducting London Sym...

Jerry Goldsmith

David Raksin

David Raksin

Miklós Rózsa

Miklós Rózsa

 

Bernard Herrmann

Bernard Herrmann

Listen to film music. A lot of film music!

A lot of film music is among the most interesting and imaginative of the 20th century – they’re just aren’t any scores (listen and transcribe your own!).

Flexibility is or should be the ultimate goal of every musician and composer, and there is no one more musically flexible than a film composer, who has to be ready to compose a jazz theme one moment, a symphonic score the next, a chase scene the next, a haunting shakuhachi theme after that, and make the timing fit to the tenth of a second. Nobody has to have bigger ears and more composing chops than a film composer.

Read books on the history of film music, learn about Bernard Herrmann, David Raksin, Jerry Goldsmith, Miklos Rozsa, John Williams, and many more.

Resolve to learn film scoring at some point: click tracks, timing sheets, condensed scores and orchestrating, and of course all manner of computer and electronic music sequencing and sound manipulation.

Most of all, listen to a lot of film music. Take notes. Transcribe whatever catches your ear as worthy of emulating, copying, imitating, absorbing. Listen for timbres (colors),  orchestrations (combinations of sounds), voicings, chords, chord progressions, rhythms, ways to convey visual impressions in music (how do the greats score: tragedy? Joy? A sunset? Imminent danger? High energy? A peaceful, bucolic scene? Love? Playfulness? A majestic landscape? A historical era? A foreign location (Paris. London. Rome. Beijing. Rio. North pole. Moscow. Tahiti. Cuba. Nairobi. Cairo. Scotland. Madrid)?

If you’re between commissions, you could well spend the down time sitting down with a soundtrack and seeing how much you can learn from it.

Build that composer’s compost pile with film music!

 

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by Jeffrey Agrell in Composing Tips, Film Music Tags: , , , , , ,

23 Jan 2013 No Comments

David Newcomb’s Gems

vibDave Newcomb is a composer who writes for percussion (and performs a mean vibraphone) and electronic music. I really enjoy his YouTube Channel- the many examples of short compositions. Very inspiring! Thanks, Dave!

by Jeffrey Agrell in Compositions, Recording, Video Tags: , ,

21 Jan 2013 No Comments

Composition Tip #24: Program Notes!

Writing

(Photo credit: jjpacres)

If you have published a work in any form, make sure that the publisher (even if the publisher is you) gets copies of your new work off to as many music reviewers as possible (for instance, just about every instrument has an instrumental society that has a journal that has a section devoted to reviewing newly published works). It’s always been a mystery to me why the vast majority of published compositions seem to have no information on the composer or any words from the composer on the work. Make sure that your publisher includes both.

More

by Jeffrey Agrell in Composing Tips Tags: , ,

14 Jan 2013 No Comments

Composition Tip #23: Systems

regolith graphic score

(Photo credit: g.rohs)

Sometimes ‘systems’ or techniques or styles or rules can make it easier to compose – but be ready to abandon the system for the good of the piece at any moment.

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by Jeffrey Agrell in Composing Tips Tags: , , ,

08 Jan 2013 No Comments

Composition Exercise #1: Motion!

Motion involves change in position, such as in...

Pick an instrument, any instrument. You might start with an instrument that either 1) you play or 2) somebody you know plays – so that you can get feedback on what you come up in this exercise as well as new ideas to solve the problem.

It’s not a problem, really. Just an effect: creating the feeling of motion. Motion, in general, means fast notes. Every instrument has things that it can do easily, i.e. move between notes quickly. Your task, should you decide to accept it is to create some brief motion passages for your instrument of choice. This may mean a bit of research (try it out yourself, have a friend try it, check orchestration books, look through scores). When you find one (shouldn’t be too hard), don’t stop looking. Look for more. If you discover, for example, that you can get a feeling of motion simply by having a violin play 16th notes on one string, that’s a good start. Keep going. What if, then, the player puts down a finger and thus a new pitch for every group of 4? 2 fingers in alternation? Ditto, moving up and down the fingerboard? What about moving the bow between sul ponticello and sul taste? (color effects) Different registers? Add glisses? Add another player on another string? Add lower strings? Ditto, on mostly open strings? Ditto, playing triplets against the duple 16th note feel?

You see how quickly you can, with a little imagination, generate all kinds of ways to create the sense of motion.

Go and go on your chosen instrument. Go for quantity! Come back tomorrow and come up with even more! Ask players, let them inspire you to more, more.

OK. That’s one instrument. Start again with another one.

Continue until you have notes on all instruments that you know about and/or have any access to.

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by Jeffrey Agrell in Composition Exercise Tags: , , ,

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