>>65837882 old thread
An experiment in a pen-and-paper composing general, made for all the theory autists
This differs from /prod/ in that it is more focused on art music and music theory. That is not to say /prod/'s electronic music is unwelcome, by all means, post here! But follow in the footsteps of the classical composers of the 20th century who experimented in electronic music. But remember, this is NOT /classical/. Any art music, such as jazz, is acceptable
Post clyps and accompanying notation so we can accurately critique your composing from a theory perspective
>Theory
http://tobyrush.com/theorypages/index.html
>tl;dr
https://gumroad.com/l/tldrmusic#
>Basic composing
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWbH1bhQZSw
http://composer.rowy.net/
>Score Reference Library
http://imslp.org/wiki/Main_Page
>Fux's Counterpoint
http://www.opus28.co.uk/Fux_Gradus.pdf
>Foundation Studies in Fugue
http://www.mediafire.com/download/f1zbff56mxufhce/Norden_Hugo_Foundation_studies_in_Fugue.pdf
>Free Notation Software
https://musescore.org/
>Score Preparation Guide
musiciandevelopment.com/2016/05/16/how-to-prepare-a-professional-score/
>Orchestral Preparation Guideline
http://mola-inc.org/article/Music-Preparation-Guidelines-for-Orchestral-Music.pdf
>Orchestration (Rimsky-Korsakov)
http://www.northernsounds.com/forum/forumdisplay.php/77-Principles-of-Orchestration
>Sam Adler's Study of Orchestration, 3rd Ed.
http://www52.zippyshare.com/v/w473HFOA/file.html
>Orchestration Online Blog
http://orchestrationonline.com/
>Takadimi: A Beat - Oriented System of Rhythm Pedagogy
http://www.takadimi.net/documents/TakadimiArticle.pdf
>Teoria - Music Theory General Guides/Articles
https://www.teoria.com/index.php
>Musictheory.net - General music theory with accompanying exercises and tests. Great for practice.
https://www.musictheory.net/
>Succint theory up to contemporary techniques such as serialism et al.
http://learnmusictheory.net/
And feel free to expand!
Also, re-posting challenge from last thread:
THE _NEW_ /comp/ COMPOSITION CHALLENGE #1 MODULATION. I want to open this up to more people since not many people seem to be doing it.
Compose a song that is no more than 60 seconds long. You are free to choose tempo, time signatures and other characteristics yourself, but here's the catch:
1. If you've never written a piece that modulates, now your time to start. Modulate to a different key somewhere in the middle of your piece, and then modulate back to the original key for the end. Keys that are commonly modulated to are relative minor or major and the dominant. These are good places to start. If you have modulated before, but only to closely related keys, try writing a piece that modulates to a distant key, 3 or 4 sharps/flats away.
2. If you're already comfortable with modulating _you MUST modulate within 4 bars of the last modulation__
That means that when the piece start, you must modulate to another key by the end of bar 4. You can also modulate in bar 3, 2 and 1, but when you modulate, the "counter" resets, and you have a limit of 4 new bars before the next modulation.
No more, but possibly less, than 4 bars between each modulation... OKAY?
Example: *piece starts in c minor*, bar 3: c major, bar 7: a major, bar 8: e minor etc.
Good luck.
>>65909521
Make sure to link the new thread in the previous one so people know next time
>>65909565
I guess I'll repost my reply to the challenge of the last thread.
The 60 second limit is the most limiting factor here for me to be honest.
What are some examples of complete pieces or movements less than a minute long? Classical music preferred but open to any examples. Even just very close to a minute long is fine.
>>65908879
>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SMQ2gujHP_M
This is nice.
>>65910138
Might be an opportunity to take some ideas from a different genre. This piece is really only 10 bars long. Of course, they improvise, and repeat, but they could probably end it at the 50 second mark
>>65910197
I assumed, yes
Was there anything that sounded upset in my comment?
>>65909565
A WIP I guess?
>>65910138
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WQcaQozGjH4
Not written a minute long, but played a minute long
>>65910802
fucking kek at all the annotations he had to put up for people who didn't get the joke.
>>65910138
On the opposite side of the equation, a slow piece less than a minute long, the Japanese national anthem
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MOMJxKWVSWM
>>65911043
This too, I guess
>>65909521
why are like 50% of these threads not fucking titled
>>65911666
newfag redditfags tumblrinas i don't know who to blame
Writing (for the challenge) a homophonic thing for cello and piano.
How much of a fig should I give about the sort of parallel motion produced between the cello's melody and the broken chord figuration here? I mean I'm not exactly following traditional rules anyways, like in the fourth measure for example, and parallel octaves aren't really noticeable compared to parallel fifths, but
>>65913499
BUT WHAT??
>>65913926
I still give a slight fig.
>>65913499
I think at that particular spot it's bad, mainly because the melody is coming to rest, and it's not quite the same rhythmically as the piano part. I think if the cello and piano part were exactly the same, you could let it slide, but since the rhythms are different yet similar, it sounds a little "off" for there to be parallelism there. I'd change the F to a C above the A, which helps link it with the next phrase too
>>65915050
Oh yeah, that sounds better, thanks
bump for doing the challenge
>>65910138
Here's a beautiful piece by Edvard Grieg.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fjizcRHqzQE
>>65920085
bost WIPs
>>65920850
Yessir.
continued from >>65913499
>>65922452
the last bump tonight from me.
The weekends just aren't a good time.
>>65923761
I lied.
I hate the 4-bar beat. What do you think about 1/3/5/7/9 bar beats? Do they even exist in any music other than experimental trash akin to micro-tonal guitarists? Do the 4 bars only feel right because of their ubiquity?
t. dilettante who doesn't even theory
>>65909565
https://clyp.it/2iywbm15
here is my little abomination
this is like the third score I ever wrote and I just learned what "modulation" means yesterday lmao
>>65925186
lots of eastern european music uses asymmetric meters. Bulgarian and Romanian peasant dances for example.
Traditional african music often uses complex rhythms, as well as Gamelan and many other traditional musics.
Bartok did some cool piano pieces based on iregualr rhythms. Irregular rhythm was one of his obsessions, often influenced by local peasant dances
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KeUTzCvoBEQ&list=PL67029315D7AE713D&index=2
>>65926101
Thanks!
>>65925186
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eUj0djKbWuU
7/8 Turkish folk song (pic related)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmDDOFXSgAs
5/4 jazz tune (meme example)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fi8rsCncwF8
Very slow 11/4 pop tune.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lbORjWw_6No
Lots of 5/4 in this Uematsu tune.
It can work if done right
Is MuseScore the best free music notation software?
>>65926695
yes
>>65926573
I don't think Hey Ya is in 11/4 senpai
>>65925957
You modulations are fairly well handled, I think you've almost got the concept down. Here's some tips if you'd like them. In your 4th bar you've analyzed the Aminor chord as the V of D, which is almost correct. If you changed it a A major chord, it would make your D chord feel more like a modulation. Right now, it kind of works but it's a little sudden. You melody note also goes from F to F#, and the F# is one of the new notes introduced by your modulation, so it might be good to avoid the F directly before it. I'd make your melody in bar 4 E then G, so you get a FA -> MI resolution too, which will help solidify your modulation more. In bar 8, your VI7 chord doesn't really work for me. I think the modulation is almost successful by virtue of your melody leading well to C. You of course know that V leads back to chords well, so G7 would be a good option there, but I'm guessing you wanted something a little different. You could try using an F or F7 chord, which nulifies the F# and gets you ready for C in a kind of plagal cadence (melody would need to be changed), if you're looking for more non-diatonic options, you could try Bb (a bit poppy) or Db7 or B diminished.
Your last modulation is unclear just because you go between B and Bb. You have a G chord in your 14th bar, which should be minor if you want to be in F. I'd recommend going back to bar 11 and changing that to G minor. You can change Bar 12 to C7 if you want, which will really clarify the modulation, and then keep bar 14 in Gminor.
Overall, good work.
>>65925186
1 bar beats are kind of pointless. I can't think of anything in 1 off the top of my head, usually stuff that would suit being in 1 is written in 2, because that usually suits it better. Bars of 1 pop up a lot as irregularities in scores that change time signatures a lot.
3/4 is very common, probably the second most common time signature historically. Here's a song i found recently in 3 which works really well https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a3smI7oIHtI You don't see it too much contemporarily now outside of jazz (someday my prince will come, waltz for debby, blue daniel [which has a great non standard form]) but what's really common is 6/8. You can think of it as two groups of 3s, or a group of 2 subdivided into 3 (probably the best way of thinking of it). A huge amount of R&B is 6/8, especially going back a bit. If you want a good example of a time signature change that is devastating, check out this. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vWlYk4fGpek The whole song is amazing (and relevant to this weeks challenge, amazing modulations) but towards the end he breaks away into 6/8 and it's so beautiful.
5 is of course not that common. Very common in modern jazz though.
This song is in 4/4, but each beat is subdivided into a very fast 5 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YUODf-fZynY (although this may fall into your definition of experimental trash)
Here is an okay pop song in 5 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4O82FHyDeaE
Modern Man by Arcade Fire is interesting. It's a bar of 4/4 and a bar of 5/4 (sensible). This is one of the few tunes I can think of that uses an odd meter for diegetic purpose.
A lot of film music is in 5. The obvious example is mission impossible, but just a huge amount of it is in 5. There's an action sequence in pixar's Up that's in 5. It's just a signature that really drives motion forward by virtue of being asymmetrical, so film scorers love it i guess
>>65925186
>>65928817
7 is cool. Again very common in jazz https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UiVMAqqEIFM (original song is 4/4, glasper makes it 7/8)
This is a beautiful song in 7, I love BSS https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dnvWgklv9mQ
One of /mu/'s favourite memes is also in 7 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KSgOVfvauhY although I don't think they handled the odd time signature very well. I think it's mainly the drum groove that sours it for me, the guitar riff works great in the signature. If you want to count it, it's a long 7, so you might want to count it as 14, 4+4+3+3. In general, a lot of that math rock/emo shit is in odd times, although a lot of them do not handle it that gracefully. I think it's because some of them just want to be in an odd time for the heck of it.
Odd times are hard, I've been experimenting with them a lot. I wrote a song in 31/16 (basically 4/4 plus another bar of 4/4 missing a 16th note). In the B section and chorus it goes to 15/16 straight up. I think I succeeded by keeping the beat something that you can understand easily https://soundcloud.com/benbartlett/mixed-feelings
I also am working on a song that is simultaneously in 5/2 and 5/4. It starts in 5/4 and then the drums add in a half time underneath it. https://clyp.it/qkvwjkzc I think the idea I had here is good but it didn’t work out great. I’m still trying to figure it out
>>65926573
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tAt89Lbb7Jg
7/8 into 5/4 into 4/4 Just in the first minute and a half
>>65928827
I'm digging your tune
weekend bump cause im eating pizza instead of composing
>>65929925
thanks
quick post nice chord voicings
>>65926695
lilypond is better than musescore, but it takes a lot more knowledge to use. musescore is pretty basic but still very good.
![MTMwNjgzODIwNTg3MzYyOTQ3[1].jpg](https://i.imgur.com/4NjRTwn.jpg "MTMwNjgzODIwNTg3MzYyOTQ3[1].jpg")
how did he do it bros?
>>65932351
who
>>65933546
brian wilson
>>65926101
I don't know if they always do, but all (both) of the Bartok piano pieces I've heard kind of peter out at the end exactly like that.
>>65925186
Personally I envy 4/4, anything I improvise in 4/4 either sucks or was secretly 12/8 all along. This is probably because I'm consciously thinking "don't play in 3, don't play in 3" throughout it, but seriously, whenever I don't think about it it's always in 3.
Here's a very famous example of 5/4, though: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L0bcRCCg01I
Felt fucking incredible to play in the orchestra
>>65925957
>those nondominant diminished chord cadences
Why can I not find anything online about this type of chord? I remember hearing about it in high school theory II once, and then never again.
If it's a question of terminology, it occurs at 0:39 and 1:10, when a diminished chord of (I presume this is the spelling) Eb F# A resolves to Eb G Bb.
>>65935461
did you quote the wrong post
>>65935512
Yep.
>>65935461
meant to quote >>65918546
>>65935461
>>65935537
As a jazz pianist I call those auxiliary diminished chords. First two chords in this song https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8fsScp3HTS8
>>65935512
will actually give my thoughts on this now.
>>65925957
What the other anon said for the most part. I'll also add that dominant chords are for the most part not the ideal places to pivot from or to.
I half agree with what other anon said about measure 8, but at the same time I really like the BDom7, it's the chords around it I'd change. The chord before it in measure 7 doesn't quite lead to it at all, perhaps you could separate that into two separate chords - first AMaj, then A#dim7. But mostly it's the progression from BDom7 to CMaj that I'd want to keep. It makes it feel as though it's in e minor (BDom7 = V of e, CMaj = VI). If measures 9 through 12 stayed in e minor or only modulated back at the end, while the melody was only altered slightly with its contour remaining the same, it could make for a really interesting contrast with the first four measures.
>>65927969
I'm not to sure about it either. If you count around 74bpm it works. Probably just two measures of 4/4 and one of 3/4 though
>>65935733
>auxiliary diminished chord
Ah, thanks. I've found it (in figure 2 c ii)
http://www.harmony.org.uk/book/functional_harmony_auxiliary_chords.htm
>>65936768
it's in 4. there are occasionally bars of 2
if anyone happens to be composing for cello, I'd be happy to record the part
no guarantees on quality however.
b minor desu
>>65933890
420
So how low are violins physically capable of playing? I thought it was a low G but I've seen a Haydn symphony where he has them tune their strings different to play a low F, a whole tone below.
>>65941899
"scordatura" is a semi-common thing used for a bunch of reasons. I've heard of it from Bartok and Stravinsky, i wasn't familiar with the Haydn piece but the wikipedia article says it's joke. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scordatura
>>65941899
The extremes of scordatura can be heard here (IIRC all strings tuned down an octave), along with many other, uh, extended techniques: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9o36gpa6qXc
Here's the other example of scordatura I know of off the top of my head, the cello C string (the lowest) is tuned down to B: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O0_gw2Lillg
>>65943374
pmub
just stopping by to bump and say that these threads are the cream of /mu/'s crop and I love reading them and participating. i might post something for this challenge tomorrow unless the challenge changes by then
>>65945146
agreed.
bump
>>65942403
>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O0_gw2Lillg
How did anyone write this? Jesus.
>that funeral march in the coda of the first movement of the ninth symphony
Shit doesn't get more intense than that
>>65948208
Which composer? Mahler?
The funeral march of Beethoven 3, II movement is pretty good.
>>65948312
No Beethoven 9
>>65933915
He seems to like charming endings that dissolve into nothing. Certainly not a composer to end with a V - I major cadence! Uncompromising to the end
So I'm thinking of composing something which starts on these voicings:
Gm7 - voiced G, Bb, D, F
C7 with a 9 - voiced C, G, Bb, D, E
(I'm not sure how you're supposed to write the 9 into the voicing)
I want to modulate from this but I'm not sure how, any ideas? Should I make the voicings more interesting (less standard)?
>>65948692
Its hard to comment on the voicings without context, but generally, I find that when the melody is going up, its nice to move from closed voicings to open voicings, and when going down, from open to closed. This often makes a contrary motion with the bass which sounds nice.
With regards to your progression, it seems to want to go to an F major of some type, but you can maybe force it to something weird like D major.
Again, its hard to say without context, so just try stuff out and post it :)
>>65948848
Yeah ok thanks a bunch. I'll be writing for the next little while, but I'll post the results eventually.
Bb ump
>>65950604
i love the possibilities of diminished chords but I just hate how the sound.
>>65951140
Just stagger them out, not playing all the notes at once and they sound ok.
Also playing half-whole scales (tone-semitone-tone-semitone- etc) over them is cool as fuck. There are only 2 options so one of the 2 half-whole scales will work with whichever diminished chord you're playing over.
>>65951226
see that's kind of what I don't like about them. they sound very forced, especially with symmetrical scales (unless i'm writing a whole piece around symmetrical scales, then they feel in place. Awesome tune based on symmetrical scales: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j0U-k_SvklQ ). It's good for effect but I rarely want that effect. The only time I really like diminished chords is when they're harmonizing a non chord tone, like a major 77th or a 4th, since that grounds it in something more natural.
>>65951294
I think in jazz its somewhat common to use the 5th mode of the harmonic minor scale on top of it. It turns out to be enharmonic to a rootless 7b9 voicing, so it sort of works, but it sounds weird as well and not something you can just throw around, but the point is you don't have to use a symmetric scale all the time on top of it.
>>65952081
but then you don't get the dim7
>>65952155
Sort of, but it's a useful option to keep in mind.
From what I understand in >>65950604
the way it resolves is one of the dim7 chord tones is lowered to become the root of a 7 chord which is not that far from thinking of it as a b9 going to a root.
I guess it works better when that 7 chord resolves to a minor chord, but still a nice concept to play around with.
>>65952512
yep in >>65950604 you lower 1 note of the dim 7, and that note become the 5th scale degree of the new key.
That way you can get to 4 different keys from a dim7 chord (helpful for all of you in the /comp/ challenge!)
>>65952512
yeah I'm just saying phrygian dominant's not a good move. If you want a non symmetrical scale it's a good idea to just fill in the gaps of the scale with diatonic notes.
