#as a violin player i am obligated to look down on the violas and i dont know why

[france-unofficial]

thinking about indigenous instruments and am in awe

[piotrbezhukov-blog]

So I Wrote a Concert.

Hey everyone. This is a longer post, so fair warning.

I didn’t have a terribly productive summer, musically speaking; a lot of my time was taken up with other stuff (work, an internship, other personal obligations, a depressive episode I’m still not on the other side of, etc, etc). That’s not great, because usually the summer is when I compose most of my stuff (usually, in the sense that I have a composing schedule after only a couple years of composing--ha!). With  all that said, I did manage to write enough for a short concert of chamber music, centered around the solo piano and the piano trio! 

I’d never really written for the piano before-- the polyphonic nature of the instrument scared me, as someone who writes melodies by ear and has no real grasp of harmonies. However, I like to think that I have a good grasp of rhythm (that tap dancing background is good for something after all!) and that was my guide through the instrument. As for the piano trios: I love the cello, and can tolerate the violin. Why wouldn’t I write some trios. 

With all that said, I’ve included links in the title of each piece to rough MP3′s of each of the four pieces for the concert. Below each link are the program notes I’ve drafted for the concert program. I’d really appreciate it if y’all let me know what you think!

Grazie,

T.A.R.

PS-- As always, PDF’s of the scores are available upon request.

Link and Program Notes for the Piano & Piano Trio Concert

I remember the first time I read a Bernard Shaw script. It was his Saint Joan, and, like most of his scripts, contains a long essay about what he as the playwright wanted to accomplish by writing the play. The essay is nearly as long as the play itself. Since then, I’ve tried to keep two goals in mind: first, to use program notes to explain clearly at least one thing that might be of interest to the audience for each piece that I write, and second, to avoid Shavian long-windedness in my program notes. Success is, as ever, illusory. With those goals in mind, I’d like to take a few paragraphs to offer you a guide through the pieces you’ll be hearing tonight. These remarks follow no particular pattern, nor do they dwell on a consistent topic—the focus, broad as it may be, is merely to offer some context (whether personal, aesthetic, or what-have-you) fr each of the pieces in the way they’ll be presented tonight. None of the pieces are so complicated or obtuse to make this guide essential reading (or at least I hope they aren’t), but you might like something to do while you wait for the concert to start.

A Minor Catastrophe:

The first piece in this concert for piano trio is actually not a piano trio at all; instead, it’s a piece for solo piano. It wound up on the program tonight simply because I think it serves as both a warm-up (and then some) for our wonderful pianist [insert name here], and because for better or worse I think it does a good job explaining my particular musical ‘voice’ (how I hate that pretentious term) or idiom. The piece is titled A Minor Catastrophe, which sums up the structure of the piece well. There is relatively little thematic material holding it together—instead, the cohesion comes from a relentless rhythmic intensity, and constant tension between various rhythmic patterns. The title also contains a pun to the constantly recurring theme—a simple tracing out of the A minor chord, which underpins the entire piece in the manner of minimalist harmony (that is to say, the harmonic structure of the piece is relatively static and entirely tonal). This three-note theme creates a tension with the other material of the piece, which shifts between phrases in multiple different times—that is, a phrase ‘in three’ (with a one-two-three, one-two-three rhythmic pattern) with pull and push against a phrase in four (a one-two-three-four, one-two-three-four pattern). I’ve used this pull and push to create some of the rhythmic energy of the piece, and if nothing else it keeps it moving along briskly.

Entirely in one movement, the whole of the piece finishes within the nine minute mark. In that sense, and given what could generously be called a rhapsodic form (and less generously a rambling one), it’s probably best to call this a “piano prelude,” according to the formal conventions of ‘classical’ music. Those conventions aren’t a language I’m entirely comfortable using; I was raised on ‘popular music’ and never had any formal musical training or education until college, and what education I have is introductory at best. I’ve always composed entirely by ear and inspiration, which probably accounts for some of the structural ambiguity (or incoherence) in the first two pieces you’ll hear tonight.

However, despite (or perhaps because of) the lack of a rigid structure of this piece, I think it offers a good look into my mental process and the way I think about music, as both a composer and as someone who listens to music. In that sense, I thought it would be a useful way to start tonight’s concert. Unrestrained by outside conventions, this piece, I hope, will serve as a workable introduction to the kind of music you’ll hear tonight.

With that in mind, let’s look at the second piece.

Quick and Dirty:

Having established a sound world for this concert that is essentially without traditional conventions or forms, this second piano prelude takes us a little further down the path of modern music. By that, I mean that the harmonies are more jagged and dissonant, the rhythms less predictable and more unsteady, and the melodies completely fragmented.

I wrote this piece, like virtually all of my pieces, by ear. Usually, this process entails a stunningly bad first draft of a piece that I then slowly whittle down and shape into something that comports with my limited knowledge of traditional conventions (sonata form, tonal triadic harmonies, etc, etc). And usually I wind up reasonably content with the result—I say reasonably content because as an artist I’m never truly happy with my work. This process, however, does lead me down the path of neo-romanticism, or sometimes minimalism, or so on. In other words, I worry that it tends to make each piece sound derivative of someone else’s music. So I tired something different.

With this piece I tried to create something that was purposefully *ugly* in the way it sounded. Hence, the title “Quick and Dirty.” (It’s also a comparatively short five minutes, thus the first part of the title.) I intend for this ugliness to remove the impersonal polish to try and find a more distinct musical voice underneath all the convention. As always, however, that is a judgment that is ultimately up to you the audience.

I was interested in ugliness, specifically, for a few reasons. First, a lot of my effort usually goes into disguising the work that goes into a piece–that is, making each piece look effortless and sound, if not pretty in the stereotypical sense, at least polished to a sheen. The other reason is that I’ve never really used music as an outlet to explore my mental state; it’s never the way I think about it. My usual approach is to create a piece for someone or something else– that is to say, I write a piece for X instrument because a friend needs a new piece to pad out their recital, or because I want to see what I can do with an odd instrumentation (i.e. two clarinets and a viola). I thought I should probably look inward at some point, and this is a somewhat clumsy first result.

Triage:

Having used the first two pieces of tonight’s concert to show off the pianist, I thought it would only be fair to similarly showcase our excellent string players [insert names here]. This second piece, a short piano trio, was built around what are called ‘extended techniques’ for playing string instruments. In other words, there are instructions for the players to use their instruments in some odd ways, to produce sounds that are rather different from the normal lyricism and rich song-like lines of the violin and cello. The intended effect is to add an ethereal element to an already somewhat mournful piece. (Of course, you know what they say about artistic intentions.) It might be that mournfulness that led me to the title Triage, which to me conjures up an image of the dead and dying, but I honestly think it was the shared prefix with the word Trio. I’m very drawn to surface similarities as a way to connect seemingly disparate concepts. On top of that, I do like a good pun. Sadly, between the title of the first piece and the title of this one, apparently I have to make do with remarkably poor ones.  

The form of this piece is essentially undefined, floating between one idea and the next. There is an occasionally recurring metronome in the piano, and few moments when all the players elaborate on a syncopated scale. But aside from those occasional grasps of familiarity, the players glide from one gesture to the next, sometimes echoing or reflecting back to each other, but never stopping to relentlessly drive a musical idea into the ground. It’s a dreamlike and insubstantial conjuring of a particular tone, or mood.

It’s also resolutely tonal, with very conventional harmonies and so forth. While I would hardly call myself a neo-Romantic composer, I’m certainly more comfortable writing the sort of music you can hum on your way out of the theater than I am writing more avant-garde or conceptually intense music. That’s probably a function of my composing style—I like to hum up a melody before I ever sit down at a piano or computer to work out the harmonies, the instrumentation, or any other aspect of a piece. And sadly, I never learned to hum in set theory tones. (Any singer could tell you I never learned to hum in any kind of tone, but that’s another conversation.) All of which is to say that, while I’m a great fan of most of the quote-unquote “new music” composers and the pieces they’re putting out, and while I admire the artistic talent it takes to write that sort of music, it’s a talent that I either don’t have or haven’t cultivated. My sound world is entirely blue-haired.

Which brings us to the final piece of the evening.

Piano Trio No. 1, ‘Repartee’

I very rarely like any of the pieces I write. Part of that is just the standard-issue self-loathing of the artist, part of it is that I’m still a relatively immature composer and I can see the amateurism in what I write, and part of it is simply that by the time I’ve finished a piece I’ve heard the playback from my electronic score so frequently that the familiarity renders it loathsome. The larger part, however, is a kind of conceptual loathing—very rarely does my original idea for a piece survive contact with the actual process of writing it. However, with this piano trio, the original idea sails through in fine form. That’s probably why this piece is one of my personal favorites.

I had a very basic idea for this trio. I wanted to write something glittering, light, and adorably entertaining. Forget artistic pretensions, or rigorous theory to back up every choice of chord. This is a piece that I had fun composing, and that you’re going to have fun listening to. The informal title, Repartee, reflects that idea: a jaunty conversation where the verbal volleys banter back and forth and around the room as everyone laughs gaily and has a grand old time.

The first movement is a light allegro: open, airy, dashing along to leave you suspended in a pleasant haze. The second movement, though a slower adagio, maintains the airy feeling through the use of transparent orchestration and delicate quavers in the right hand of the pianist. Throughout the third movement, a faster tempo creates tension with a lethargic two-step time signature; this tension propels the piece into the fourth and final movement, an ecstatic release for both players and audience, with the notes rushing by on their way to a triumphant finale that seems to arrive altogether too soon. The structure is fairly straightforwardly linear and old-fashioned. Each movement follows the rough pattern of fast—slow—faster—now-really-fast structure of most classical pieces, to present a clear contrast between movements, and to make sure there’s enough variety to keep everyone (me included) interested. One note about the musical theory: the first movement sits in B major, and every subsequent movement sits one half-step above the previous movement (so the second movement is in the inescapable C major, the third in C sharp major, the final in D major). I like to think this gives us a sense of rising up through the progression of the piece, even as we slow down to look at the pretty scenery.

The key to this piece, I think, is the incredibly simply and open harmonic pattern. In a word, I eschew the chromaticism of the neo-Romantics, and avoid the atonality of the avant-garde in favor of something closer to three-chord rock & roll. By keeping each instrument confined to a particular distinctive timbre, and by avoiding cluttering up their respective lines with excessive and extravagant harmony, the interplay between each of the short melodies—not quite full melodic lines, but more substantial than quick motives and phrases—is highlighted. The forward motion comes from a bounding and delightful rhythmic energy and the changing interplay of these short melodies.

Don’t remove any part of this caption and don’t steal shit, y’all. 

[maddybeck01]

Carl grimes request

You liked to collect CD’s. Everyone thought it was silly, but you thought that if one day the world decided to right itself that you would need music. Well the world hadn’t cooperated. But when you arrived at Alexandria, you found a CD player in the basement of the house. And after promptly rubbing it in everyone’s (Daryl’s) faces, you hurried off to find your bag of music.

After ripping through your bag to grab all of the CD’s you had collected, you laid them out in front of you. You had quite a selection. You had a few Fall Out Boy CD’s, some Panic! At The Disco, a My Chemical Romance CD, the twenty one pilots album Vessel, and some pop CD’s like Katy Perry (which you stuffed in your bag after a moment’s thought), a Taylor Swift CD (which was also tossed back in the bag), and a Meghan Trainor CD (Also thrown back in the bag).

You picked up the remaining disks and walked calmly (sprinted like a madman) to the garage. You plugged in the CD player and looked over your final picks. You decided to grab a Panic! At The Disco CD. After opening the garage door so everyone could hear your passive aggressive gloating, you popped in the disk. Turning the volume louder than necessary you began singing along to the first track.

People on the streets turned to listen, at the joyous sounds they hadn’t heard in forever. Some people wandered over to listen, others sat on their porch and listened, and some sat in the middle of the street to listen. The kids ran over into your garage and started dancing and laughing to words they probably shouldn’t be learning.

“Where did you find the CD player?” Your boyfriend Carl asked, walking over to you. You grinned. “I found it in the basement!” You exclaimed happily, bouncing around to the beat. “Dance with me!” You yelled at your smirking boyfriend. Yeah, you were a horrible dancer, but in the end of the world you didn’t think it mattered so much.

You grabbed his hands and started bouncing around him. He took off his hat (sliding it into an area where no one but him could reach it), and started trying to dance with you. The music had made everyone energetic, not caring how dumb they looked but savoring the moment.

You worked your way through, song by song, until you came to the last track. It was slow, and emotional, and lovely.

Whether near or far

I am always yours

You stopped your bouncing and started swaying slowly to yourself. Carl came up to you and put his arms on your waist. The piano flowed through the streets, complemented by the soft sounds of the violins and violas. You wrapped your arms around his neck, clasping your hands together. It was obvious you two had no clue at all how to slow dance, just swaying in place and listening to the words.

Any change in time

We are young again

Carl pulled you closer, and you changed your hands to position themselves to resting on his shoulders. You leaned to rest your head on his chest. He lowered his head and set it close to yours. You sighed contentedly. This was where you needed to be right now.

Lay us down

We’re in love

“I love you Carl,” You whispered. You could almost feel his smile. “I love you too Y/N,” He murmured back. You smiled too. This was the first time you had said it to each other. He stepped back half a step and pushed away the hair that had fallen in your eyes.

Lay us down

We’re in love

He leaned forward and pressed his lips gently to yours. Your hands went up to his hair, and pushing him closer slightly you kissed back. Pulling back and putting your hands back on his shoulders you said “Dance with me.” And he obliged.

In these coming years

Many things will change

Swaying still, you looked around and saw people watching you two. Some were crying, others dancing with their partners. You never wanted to leave this moment. It seemed almost too perfect. You didn’t want the song to end, to go back to living. You just wanted to be here with Carl.

But the way I feel

Will remain the same

You lifted your head up, gazing into Carl’s sky blue eyes. He was watching you, looking directly into your eyes. He smiled and twirled you around. You laughed softly and re adjusted yourself, leaning back on him and swaying. You had your back to him, pressed against his body. His arms were around you, swaying you with him.

Lay us down

We’re in love

You stepped away from him and turned to face him once more. He grabbed your waist and hugged you close. He was never really into the whole PDA thing, but he must have been feeling particularly affectionate at the moment. Maybe it had something to do with your declarations of love for each other. Or maybe it was the song.

Lay us down We’re in love.