Yes, I know, the whole reporting-from-my-studies-at-Surrey thing isn't going so well, but I hope this post will show that I've been a tad busy. Today was the deadline for my first full assignment, a brief but complete composition for a small ensemble. I opted for a duo for flute and classical guitar:
There are eight pages of this stuff, so if you want to see the whole thing, here's a PDF of the score.
I didn't get a chance to record the guitar part (I'm not even sure I could play it!), so the final audio is in midi. Not as good as I'd like it, of course, but it gives a fair impression of what the piece is meant to sound like. (The guitar midi had to be edited fairly painstakingly to get the over-ringing chordal effects where necessary.) Anyway, for what it's worth, here it is:
Finally, here's the commentary I had to submit with the piece, of interest to music theory nerds only!
“She Erases a Constellation[1]” for flute and guitar: a brief commentary
Simon Hopkins, October 2021
Process
Following Reginald Smith Brindle’s observations about the difficulty of starting with a blank page[2], I started with a simple sketch of the piece’s outline:
I then outlined the piece purely rhythmically, initially working with cells such as this:
The entirety of the agitato A section and much of the Tranquillo B section were written as rhythms only, according to the narrative structure outlined below. Different harmonic and melodic approaches were ascribed to “zones” of the piece. The melodic lines and chords were then written into this framework. I worked on paper with the first full draft, adding dynamics, expression and correcting errors in the scoring:
The scoring was finalised in Sibelius and the audio was rendered (in midi) in Logic X.
Structure/narrative
The overarching narrative took its cue from the first movement of Leo Brouwer’s “El Decameron Negro”[3], especially in its juxtaposition of agitated and reflective passages. Essentially ABA in structure, the piece’s sections respectively move from rhythmic and harmonic dissonance towards a more congruent endpoint.
Analysis: rhythm[4]
The piece employs rhythmic dissonance throughout. The opening (bb 1-11)[5] and duet in the Tranquillo (bb46-69) use radically different rhythmic groupings in the parts to render them apparently independent, somewhat influenced by Morton Feldman[6]. The guitar solo (bb70-92) uses guitaristic Euclidean rhythms in the style of John McLaughlin[7] and Roland Dyens[8]. The ostinato groupings in bb22-33 are obliquely inspired by the math-metal of Meshuggah[9] and Tool[10].
Analysis: harmony & melody
The harmony draws on a range of approaches The opening (bb1-10) is based on two whole-tone scales, and is polymodal from b9. The chords in bb11-17 are Lydian AITs based on the notes of the first AIT. The approach is modal in many places (eg. Lydian dominant and altered scale in bb18-30; Dorian #4 in bb54-67; Aeolian, Dorian and Lydian in bb68-90). Trichords are deployed extensively (eg. bb16-18 and bb54-67).
The melodies were mostly drawn instinctively from the harmony. The melody in bb 46-57 is based on a palindromic dissonance contour (IC: 16234543261); this is foreshadowed in the flute solo. The flute part in the recapitulation is in large part melodically inverted from its initial appearance.
Notation
I drew on Eliane Gould’s Behind Bars (2011)[11] for notation guidance. The guitar part is more closely annotated (see below); RH fingerings and string directions are given where necessary to avoid ambiguity but are indicative only[12].
Critical reflection
I’m broadly happy that the narrative objectives of the piece and the intended tension between dissonance and consonance (generically speaking) have been achieved. I would love to have worked with a flautist to explore the flute more idiomatically, and of course to have had the time to record the guitar parts properly[13]. Overall, I may have employed too many of the approaches discussed in the course so far, and in retrospect might have given a little more breathing space to fewer.
[1] The title is a line from the poem “Lore” by Kate Wakeling. There is no programmatic relationship between the poem and the music, although there is perhaps some relationship in the ambiguous tone: “Her gaze is thunder then a famine/her voice a hundred golden coins”.
[2] “Another important factor must be borne in mind when we begin a piece: too much detail at that stage can be a handicap.” Reginald Smith Brindle: Musical Composition (1986), p5
[3] See The Music Salon Blog (2012): http://themusicsalon.blogspot.com/2012/12/townsend-el-decameron-negro-i-el-arpa.html
[4] For a full breakdown of the harmonic, rhythmic and melodic approaches, see Appendix A: Annotated Score
[5] Observations about the opening A section apply to the recapitulation.
[6] See Samuel Andreyev: “Morton Feldman's Bass Clarinet and Percussion: Analysis” (2016) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=emeDjNSxsCs
[7] eg. Mahavishnu Orchestra: “Faith” (1975) https://open.spotify.com/track/3jobR8lLBgq4VZiqRcZhae?si=50c396dc7bd2405c
[8] eg. “Lettre mi-longue” bb33-35 and “Lettre à soi-même” bb6-14 (2001)
[9] See Jonathan Pieslak, "Re-casting Metal: Rhythm and Meter in the Music of Meshuggah"(2007) https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/mts.2007.29.2.219?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents
[10] See Rick Beato: "What Makes This Song Great? Ep.15 TOOL" (2018) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ScRG40_7zb0
[11] For flute: pp253-260; for guitar: pp373-389
[12] “My fingerings are offered only as suggestions throughout, but students are urged to consider the rationale behind them before throwing them out!” Gerald Garcia, introduction to “25 Etudes Esquisses” (1995)
[13] That being said, the midi part was edited painstakingly to emulate over-ringing chord voicings.
