The new breed of composers

[Rob Richardson]

One of the headlines on B.Com's home page says that there's a new breed of classical composers whose purpose is to entertain rather than to explore abstruse concepts of musical theory.

IT'S ABOUT TIME!!!!!

Rob

[OperaTenor]

You better not let Bignaf hear you say that....

[dai bread]

He'll hear me say it as well.

Artists in all genres have been navel-gazing for far too long.

[DavidS]

Originally posted by dai bread:
He'll hear me say it as well.

Artists in all genres have been navel-gazing for far too long.

Not only artists: Could there be anything more uninteresting than articles written by journalists about other journalists?
One positive feature of many modern (eg minimalist) compositions is that they are short...

<small>[ 11-30-2005, 12:34 AM: Message edited by: DavidS ]</small>

[bignaf]

One positive feature of many modern (eg minimalist) compositions is that they are short...

<small>[ 11-30-2005, 12:34 AM: Message edited by: DavidS ]</small>

are you kidding me. most minimalist pieces are very long. drumming by Steve Recih is anywhere between 35 and 70 minutes (depends on number of repetitions).

Composers' role is not to entertain. the role of entertainers is to entertain. the role of composers is to create great art. great art is defined by appealing to people on a deep level, perhaps not immediately. you want entertainment go to the circus. I'm not a circus.

[Shapley]

Bignaf,

I take it that you, like me, have taken advantage of the recent lull in postings to revisit some of the old topics. There are quite a few interesting discussions that have been held here in the past, many of which I'd long since forgotten.

V/R
Shapley

[bignaf]

yep.

[bignaf]

I'm not a circus.

Actually, I am a circus in my clarinet and piano piece.

[Selma in Sandy Eggo]

Does that mean you will be emailing sound files?

[bignaf]

no, it's not recorded... but I have lots of stuff you guys didn't hear. I have all the stuff from the my senior recital, and my orchestral piece with singer, that was performed on the honors concert. they're pretty big files, so I'll think what I should send.

[Selma in Sandy Eggo]

no, it's not recorded...

I want to save them for when I'm old and feeble and you're rich and famous and respected, so I can say I knew Bignaf when...

[BigJon@Work]

Hey Other big,

I have this tune rolling around in my head that I am trying to write down. But when I sit down at the piano to try to pick out the notes, I find that the notes are not in the same scale as the piano. How do you write music that is not in a typical western scale?

[bignaf]

are you using also the black keys? does it not fir even using the black keys? if so it's probably microtonal.
if you have a microtonal tune rolling around your head your prettu unique... :p
did you find the first note, and then couldn't find any second note on the piano that would fit the 2nd note in your head?
if so, I'll tell you about the complex system of microtonal notation.

[BigJon@Work]

Nope, not even with the black keys. I can get the first three notes, then what I hear in my head just veers wildly from what is available on the keyboard. The closest thing I've ever heard to it is when an avant guard drummer was playing a pair of large drums that he could instantaneously change the tone with foot pedals. The music he played had subtle tonal shifts in that were quite intriguing to listen to. He was masterful, I wish I could remember who he was. I saw him years ago on a PBS special.

Yes, tell me more about microtonal. Is there a computer program I could use to program in a microtonal tune and listen to it?

I've found myself really drawn at times to music that uses alternate (non-western) scales. Dunno if that is related.

On another, but possibly related, topic, I know that some chords can have a perceived note that is different from any of the notes that are played. How do you work backwards to achieve that effect?

[Shapley]

Sounds like we may have found the missing link between music and the art of quantum mechanics.

[bignaf]

Nope, not even with the black keys. I can get the first three notes, then what I hear in my head just veers wildly from what is available on the keyboard. The closest thing I've ever heard to it is when an avant guard drummer was playing a pair of large drums that he could instantaneously change the tone with foot pedals. The music he played had subtle tonal shifts in that were quite intriguing to listen to. He was masterful, I wish I could remember who he was. I saw him years ago on a PBS special.

Yes, tell me more about microtonal. Is there a computer program I could use to program in a microtonal tune and listen to it?

I've found myself really drawn at times to music that uses alternate (non-western) scales. Dunno if that is related.

On another, but possibly related, topic, I know that some chords can have a perceived note that is different from any of the notes that are played. How do you work backwards to achieve that effect?

too many questions!
Microtonal: means it also has notes that are "in the cracks" between the half-steps. so if your tune has a micro ronal note, you should find which pitches are on either side of it. when you find a note that is just a little higher than it, and a note that is just a little lower than it (can be tough, since you might forget your note, or it might "slip" to fit a standard note) you know your note is in between. hardcore microtonal composers specify if the note is a quarter tone or 1/3 tone or 1/6 tone tone lower, but it's all pretty impractical. just think of it as a qurter tone.
now on to notation. there are several systems, composers haven't settled on a standarixed one yet (there are 2 popular options). in the most popular if you want a note that is a quarter tone higher than C, you write either a c with a "natural" sign in front of it and a little arrow on the upward prong of the natural sign. or you can write a D with flat sign, with an arrow pointing down from its bottom left edge.
non western scales: these often have tones that don't fit into equal half-step divisions (as you see on the piano). sometimes they are in the form of microtones, more often they are just slightly larger or smaller intervals than the western. many non-western scales, however, fit into the wetern tuning, they just use different selections of notes.

the last question can wait, it's unrelated to this, and the answer is elaborate. (2 answers in fact). later.

[BigJon@Work]

Shall I split the questions into a new thread(s)?

[bignaf]

that won't be necesarry, I just had work to do. I still have. I'll probably answer sat. night, or Sun.

[bignaf]

that won't be necesarry, I just had work to do. I still have. I'll probably answer sat. night, or Sun.

hehe. I didn't say which Sun.
ok answer to last question:
there's a few effects that your question could be reffering to.
I think what you're probably talking about is when all the notes in the chords all have a certain identical note somwhere low in their overtone series.
the overtone series: every sounds has not only the fundamental but also overtones that get fainter the higher they are (typically, the variations in this are what produce tone color, electronic music produces more extreme variations, throat singing and overtone singing also work with amplification of overtones more than lower overtones).
the overtone series for a c1 would be:
c2,g2,c3,e3,b-flat-flattened3, c4, d4 etc.
so lets say we have a chord that has a bunch of C's and G's they all have quite a bit of D in their overtones, so you'll hear quite a bit of D up there. this is more pronounced with octave trasposition of lower notes but you seem to specify "different" notes. if this is sung, but adjusting the vowel the overtone can become more promounced. this is done by some Sardinian ( I think) singers in quartet, producing a 5th voice which symbolyzes the holy ghost.

another thing you could be talking about is the effect that occurs while humming while playing a wind instrument. since both notes are emreging from the same source they interact to produce two more notes that are equal to the sum and the differential of their frequency. say we play A=220 (octave below the a the 440 the orchestra tunes on) on the horn and sing E=330 (remember a perfect 5th's top note's frequency is 3/2 ratio to the lower note). the difference between these numbers 330-220=110 will produce a note which is 110 frequency which is the lower A (remember, half the frequency=octave lower). the sum of these frequencies 330+220=550 will produce a higher C# (major third is a 5/4 ratio, so this C# is a major third above the concert A=440). what results is a pure A major chord, even though you're actually siging and playing only an A and E.

[BigJon@Work]

The first was the effect that I was looking for. It makes sense the way you explain it. Thanks!

Is there was a computer program that I could write microtonally and hear it played back to me?

Another effect I heard on some electronic music that was quite fascinating was switching key but not in half steps. The chords themselves were played on a regular keyboard, but the tuning was changed on the fly with a slider. Wonderfully weird when done right.