Portfolio of Musical Composition

Portfolio of Musical Composition
Author: Ian Morgan-Williams
Publisher:
Total Pages:
Release: 2013
Genre:
ISBN:
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I use a range of techniques to put together my musical ideas, techniques that are rooted in the incidental and intentional listening that identifies who I am, as a person as well as a composer. Reflecting on the intentional is relatively easy. Reflecting on the incidental requires objective analysis of one's own music. Inevitably, such analysis identifies preoccupations and preferences, as well as technical weaknesses and obsessions, all of which may or may not be unhealthy. Like many composers, I develop various systems to help me generate the sketch material which eventually becomes the completed piece. These are important to me and can occupy the mind long after the job of selecting - and therefore discarding - and organising has been started. This is the work that in essence produces the version of the music to be heard - the only version that matters. While others may be interested, even intrigued, by the process of composing, it is difficult to accept the importance of the process to the listener. Once systems have served their purpose, they hold little relevance for me; they may be compromised, altered, even ignored to serve the needs of the music as it develops in its own right. The preoccupations that occupy me presently are: omophonic heterophon Non octave-repeating modes and derivative chord group Rhythmic devices in melodic constructio Temporal ambiguit The application of sets of rules or systems This commentary describes my methods and some of the intentional and incidental influences on my music, and reflects on my thoughts about how my music might be perceived by others. It also reflects on others' and my thoughts on the relationship between composer and listener. This is something I have come to appreciate the greater significance of during the post-compositional analytical process - my starting point for the commentary - and something which seems increasingly more complex than I had once imagined.

Musical Composition

Musical Composition
Author: Alan Belkin
Publisher: Yale University Press
Total Pages: 273
Release: 2018-06-19
Genre: Music
ISBN: 0300218990
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An invaluable introduction to the art and craft of musical composition from a distinguished teacher and composer This essential introduction to the art and craft of musical composition is designed to familiarize beginning composers with principles and techniques applicable to a broad range of musical styles, from concert pieces to film scores and video game music. The first of its kind to utilize a style-neutral approach, in addition to presenting the commonly known classical forms, this book offers invaluable general guidance on developing and connecting musical ideas, building to a climax, and other fundamental formal principles. It is designed for both classroom use and independent study.

Portfolio of Musical Composition

Portfolio of Musical Composition
Author: Benjamin Oliver
Publisher:
Total Pages:
Release: 2010
Genre:
ISBN:
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Musical culture is increasingly globalised and technology allows us to engage with an evermore diversified range of musical approaches, traditions and sound-worlds. How composers react to this diversity of musical approaches is an important theme in contemporary composition. My approach to composition within this globalised situation has been to focus on the notion of 'integration' and creating structurally consistent score-based frameworks. I have composed a portfolio of work that reflects the central focus of 'integration', concentrating on three inter-related research areas: 1. Exploring how one can integrate or frame improvisation and/or electronics into notated structural frameworks. 2. Exploring the use of technology to translate or integrate material generated through improvisation into notational practice. 3. Developing a coherent and individual technique and aesthetic that draws on structural influences from a range of musical idioms, but never resorts to cliché or pastiche. My exploration of integration in writing the compositions in this portfolio has been primarily technical. I am fundamentally interested in the 'nuts and bolts' of composition, how musical materials can fit together and interact. Therefore although the character and substance of the different materials I engage with is important, my foremost preoccupations when composing are the formal and technical aspects such as: structure and proportion; pitch and rhythmic organisation; orchestration technique; the use of extended notations; and compositional processes such as abstraction, permutation and rotation. As I outline in my commentary the composition in this portfolio reflects my aesthetic position that working with an eclectic range of musical materials and diverse methods of expression such as improvisation and electronics is not an end-in-itself. By integrating diverse musical influences I am not trying to create a pluralist synthesis of different semantic paradigms, but aim to find my own innovative, coherent and consistent compositional approach.