Summary so far:
We've considered some aspects of "creativity" which may be similar in creative writing, in art, and in musical composition. We've heard some quotes from three possibly interesting books for further exploration: Sacks' "Musicolgy" (neurology, perception of music, the field of "music cognition"), Lehmann's "Psychology for Musicians" (which includes a whole chapter on the psycholgy of composing), and McCutchan's"The Muse That Sings" (which includes beautiful interviews with 35 living composers, speaking about their reasons for composing and their processes).
We've peeked at some of the available computer software, considering issues raised by things like Cope's "EMI" program which creates Chopin-like, Joplin-like, etc music.
We began exploring some online resources, taking advantage of Google and Wikipedia and YouTube as "at the touch of a fingertip" trails to all the many aspects of music and composition. Together we watched numerous excerpts, and saw that YouTube even includes free "How To" lessons like the "Tension-Release" one we watched.
I left you to look, outside of class time, at my list (on the Class 1 page) of the sorts of questions composers might ask themselves...
We saw the importance of "patterns" as related to the basic Elements of Music. We saw how a scale such as the pentatonic scale invites the fun of immediate "error-free" improvisation, and we considered the possibly-similar processes involved in "improvising" and in "composing." We briefly explored some ways to look for interesting rhythmic patterns.
We instantly co-composed a medieval chant, and considered the power of even an unmetered single melodic line. We sang an example of early polyphonic-style motet using 3 Blind Mice/Row Row/Eensy Weensy, and considered the intriguing possibilities offered by "horizontal" polyphonic thinking. We played with the Baroque practice of "Figured Bass." We saw the patterns in chord progressions, the basic building blocks of "Common Practice" scales and chords, the possibility of "modulation" to new keys, and the graphic beauty of the "Circle of Fifths." We quickly crafted little melodies for a "Minuet in C."
We watched how, century after century, musical innovations affected the compositional style of each historical period. We heard how the late Baroque composers such as Bach or Handel combined the linear interest of the Renaissance polyphonic idea WITH the instrumental chord progressions of "Common Practice," yielding homophonic+monophonic+polyphonic compositions such as Brandenburg Concerto #5 and the Hallelujah Chorus. We spent a moment following along with a fragment of a (Romantic era) Berlioz symphonic score, with all its complex choices.
- go back and finish up some of the history we had run out of time for last week,
- share a few different methods of analyzing music, so that you can more easily steal oops I mean build your sonic vocabulary,
- show you something fascinating about the minuet melodies you had so quickly sketched out last week,
- hear a piano waltz composed and played by Bill Mandle, your classmate, so that we can hear "one of us" talking about motivation, and Elements of Music, and compositional process,
- hear and discuss any freshly-composed fragments or small works which any of us might have made over the course of the three weeks since we first met,
- and bring some sort of closure to this entire experience.
These pages will remain up here on my website and you can return to them at any time, explore links we might not have had time for in class, and refer back to things like the Philosophical Questions - which may spark your own continuing exploration of whichever trails have most captured your own interest.
Don't forget also - as old-fashioned as actual BOOKS might seem anymore! - the UNCA library holds many fine music books AND actual scores, and you can get a library card for free with your Reuter Center membership, so don't hesitate to explore the UNCA library. The music collection is upstairs, kind of around the far corner back against the "front" side of the building. Catalog numbers that begin with M are actual scores (everything from medieval chant to piano solos to symphonies), ML are prose works ABOUT music, and MT are basically "How To" music books.
If you don't have a piano at home, and would like to spend some time with one, this time of year (but, sadly, ONLY this time of year) the practice rooms downstairs in Lipinsky (the building just downhill from Reuter Center, right beside the library) are often unlocked and empty, and no one seems to mind if we use them during this "slow" summer season. Once the music students return in August, the rooms are in use all the time.
Even after this Exploring Musical Composition class is formally over today, please feel free to email me, I always love to "talk music" and will always be happy to find mail from any of you in my inbox!
Thank you so much for your open-hearted participation in this class, it has been a true joy each week. I will save your email addresses, and if I ever get free time where we might try to get together again and continue in this vein, I will email you all (for now, I have to turn my attention to some other things...).
Have a wonderful rest-o'-the-summer! kp