Assignment 5

(Extracts from my diary while writing this piece)

I’ve been working with several ideas and listening to some popular songs that used a variety of chords. So what did I start with?

1. I went back to two pieces I’ve always liked. “Bridge over troubled water” by Paul Simon, in which there is a minimum of perfect cadences – and yes, the final one is also a perfect one. Another piece is “Soy Rebelde” (I’m a rebel), sung by the French singer Jeanette, one of my favorites since childhood.

2. I wrote on a paper three times A-D-E and then A-D-E-A for a possibility of something written in A major, in order not to forget that the Cyclic chord progression at least four times (in this shape or other)

3. I I overheard an interesting rhythmical structure in a children’s street concert, I wrote it down and I worked with its components, combining them in different ways. However, they didn’t match anything I’d like to say.

And here came the main problem. What did I want to say? I write music more from feelings than from ideas. So what is there that I need to say?

I wanted to write something somewhat deceiving, joyful and playful. The result was my unfinished work from 15/4/2013 (future post coming, hopefully), which is everything but joyful or playful. It’s sad depressing and, well, it seems I’m not feeling joyful.

The idea:

There came April 29^th. Family day at work. […] Fear from the audience. Social phobia. Let’s go.

Phobos will be hidden in the rhythm. “Asocial” can be encrypted somewhere as Ab-0-B + inverted A chord. As you may recall, in German, Ab is called “As”; in Spanish, B is called Si and A is called La (so the inverted chord would be AL). With a rest for the O, I’d have As-O-Si-Al, which would be read exactly like “asocial” by most native speakers of Spanish. Maybe not the best idea, but I need to pull that out of me.

Instruments:

What instruments can help me reflect this idea? Instruments that are appropriate for “solo” work? Aren’t they pretty much all?

Out of the woodwind, the recorder is sad enough. Without modulations, it could work. I can’t think of the mischievous clarinet or the nasal oboe for this. Saxophone has too much energy. The flute is colder than the recorder (which may be more suitable for this piece, due to that). A bassoon, with its low notes, may offer a different insight to the problem.

The piano seems to be a must. Left hand accompanying, right hand main melody (solo here and there)?

So it seems a combination of piano-flute-bassoon could make it.

In the end, there will be an Almglocke (reminds me of villages in Northern Spain, where I grew up, and can have both a melancholic and party sound) and timpani (at least some should be with pedal, to have a variety of notes)

Structure:

A happy dancing intro may be needed. The 6:8 can be used as a dancing in A maj, and then the “phobos” entrance happens in part B.

section	lasting	bars	character / instrumentation	key sign. / scales	time signature
A	45”	12 (4+8)	festive piano, flute	A min	6·8
B	30”	8	almost solo, with the chords from the party seen in minor and played piano piano, bassoon
A’	30”	8	continuation of A – further development piano, flute		6·8
B’	45”	12	see B flute, bassoon
A’	30”	8	conclusion of A presence of B bass drum – rhythm of Phobos bassoon playing a sad melody that sounds like happy on the whole, everybody is happy (but not really)	Bitonal? A min – A maj	6·8
	3’00”	48

According to this plan, the time signature should be 32 dotted crotchets per minute. That is extremely slow for the dancing part. I tried to slow it down and, almost unbearably slow, I got 50. A time signature far much closer to my idea would be 63, which is doubling the speed!

There were many changes to this original plan, so I stop the summary for structure here.

Key signature: the original A major doesn’t seem very appropriate for such a stressful topic. A minor may be a boring key signature for many, but it seems the easiest option if I want to include the sequence Ab-0-B-A.

Melody: my first attempts have moved mostly quite fast, harmonically. I think the idea of the Assignment, though, is right the opposite, i. e. moving harmony slowly. Also, I observed in the songs I’ve worked with (see above) that, if the cadence is perfect but the melodic voice is moving away from the tonic, the tonic chord sounds transitional instead of final. This may be useful later on.

Working on it:

The Almglocke, in richer harmonies, sounds quite dissonant if it is not in the main note of the chord. This is something important that needs to be taken into account.

At certain points, I’ve found very useful to sing along when I’m writing the slurs for the woodwinds. I tended to do it just to check that it was breathable, but then, at some points, I’ve realized I wanted shorter slurs that I thought at first sight.

There’s an A flat in bar 98. It’s not a mistake. I needed an A flat to encrypt the message, so it came handy that it is enharmonic with the G sharp on the piano.

Some notes on the division of beats: there are some bars in which three crotchets in a row appear (e. g. 19, 24, 27, 33, 35, 39). I could not find in Eric Taylor’s “The AB guide to music theory” a way to solve the division, other than “avoid ties were possible”. It’s true that it could be confused with a 3:4 bar, which is why in other cases I’ve opted for the tie (bars 8, 12, 14, 38, 42-43).

I’m not a fortissimo person, really. At least digitally, I enjoyed the piece much more with milder dynamic changes. However, I take that it would probably sound considerably better on stage by real musicians. And the ideas I wanted to transmit didn’t fit in a mp-mf range.

The final piece:

As usual, I didn’t fully respect the original plan. In the end, the structure and the story could be presented as follows:

• Intro (bars 1-8): presentation of the village

• Section A (9-24): the party

• Section B (25-36): the sad person

• Section C (37-51): an event at the party, one realizes about the sad one, they make contact

• Section B’ (52-63): the sad one repeats his story, the other one tries to keep happy and bring the sad one to the party

• Section C’ (64-73): the sad one joins the party, though not really enjoying

• Section D (74-82): they have a short dialogue, in which comes out that the sad one is not really comfortable, no matter how much he tries

• Section A’ (83-95): the sad one joins the final fanfare with an encrypted “sol-O” (alone), and it seems that towards the end is better adapted. But maybe (s)he is just learnt to pretending more successfully.

I’m not enclosing the score, because it is 10 pages long. However, it can be listened to by clicking here.

The Cyclic chord progression

In the score, I reflected the chords with Roman numerals to make easier to follow the cadences. Some of them were the chords I was thinking off when I wrote the voice(s) for the woodwind(s) alone. I used the Cyclic chord progression in long passages, but changing chords relatively often. The piano starts with the tonic in bar 9, moves to IV-V, then back to IV-V and ends with the plagal cadence IV-I in bar 17. Another cycle starts in that same bar, moving to IV-V and then closes with a weak perfect cadence in bar 24 (the bass note is the third note of the scale), also changing the tonality into a minor one.

Not counting the I-V-I parts, there is a section of woodwinds (bars 29-37), as mentioned above, where the accompaniment, had there been one, would have been defined by I-tonic, IV-II-IV-III (pre-V group), V-IV-I (again plagal cadence). Out of this, the sequence III-V-IV-I is already accompanied by the piano, with which the harmony is already defined.

In bar 37 starts another cycle with the sequence I-IV-VII-III-V, where IV-VII-III works as pre-V group, and from V moves to an interrupted cadence in II (bar 42).

In the following bars, the cyclic chord progression is less clear. Further on (bars 47-52), the harmony moves from VII to V , where it stays for four bars before moving again to chord I.

This duo is a bit harder to follow harmonically. The bassoon part kept mostly unaltered, using the minor scale of A most of the time. However, the flute stubbornly tries to keep on the major scale. This was an attempt to represent the two different moods of the characters in the party (just a note: I’m aware that a minor scale is not always sad or a major scale always happy and that it depends on many factors).

In bars 61-74, I used the Cyclic chord progression in a quiet inverted order: IV-I-V-IV-I-IV and again I-V-IV-I. It stays for some bars in I. I thought this might be a mistake, since it could produce the impression that the sounding chord was the dominant; however, I think that the modulation in bars 80-82 resolved that tension.

Back into section A, the progression goes now I-IV-V-I and finishes with I-V-I – this time, yes, a strong perfect cadence, with the highest note of the melody moving from the leading note to the tonic, and the bass notes moving from the dominant to the tonic.

My own judgement

There are several occasions in which the Cyclic chord progression has been used (more than the four required). Other aspects to consider are the following:

• Technical presentation

Like in previous Assignments, the software does most of the work, and only minor amendments are needed from my side. The score is at least “well presented”, plus the use of the software is more and more fluid. The grade could be at least a B.

• Compositional skills

I haven’t been cautious in terms of performance. I’m aware that some intervals on the piano are quite demanding, yet still possible (like some tenths – at least, I can play them). The structural design, though modified lately, is at least fairly clear (range of A). It may be that I am missing something, but I reckon it is at least a B.

• Creativity

I felt really confident experimenting with the two modes playing simultaneously (I’ve played with that in the past). There is some more complex thematic structure in this piece than in previous works of mine. Considering I am in the first year, this could be an A.

• Stylistic awareness

I have improved this part since the last time. I have been visiting concerts maybe just as often as before, but I have put more evidence of it into my listening blog (and still more to come), and, mainly, I was trying to recognize the different cadences and cadenzas while listening. Even though I was not always succesful in this recognition,  I reckon the listening itself can be perceived in the cadenza-inspired sections where the woodwinds have a bigger importance. As for the listening itself, this could be therefore a B; as for the evidence in the blog, it is still somewhere at C, maybe (hopefully not less).