Posts Tagged dissertations
News, Views, and a bit of Therapy for the Muse
Greetings Guidonians of Bloglandia! It has, indeed, been a good while since I posted anything here. The present is as good a time as any to rectify the situation. Much has happened between my cherry-popping freshman outing as a blogger and now. The biggest event, though, is that I am now a doctor of music composition. It’s a goal I have wanted to achieve ever since I was fifteen. I always thought how cool it would be to be able to put the “Dr.” title in front of my name. Granted, it is kinda cool. But it doesn’t really occupy a large part of my day-to-day thought processes (at least not after the first week or so of graduating), nor does it satisfy and fill any given void. So far, the biggest difference since graduating is that I miss being a grad student. I got good at that. REALLY good. Ah well, what is life if not constant change?
I’ll tell you what it is: an opportunity for shameless plugs! One great thing about being a doctor of composition is that the dissertation document is – *drum roll* – a composition! (Convenient, eh?) My document ended up being a three-movement set of character pieces for wind band based on the standard model in particle physics. Appropriately enough, I named it The Standard Model. If you are anywhere in the Lansing area on Tuesday, Sept. 29 at 7:30pm, please come by the Cobb Great Hall in the Wharton Center to hear the MSU Wind Symphony premiere it under the direction of Mr. Jamal Duncan. Jamal is a life-long friend of mine and one of the best musicians and conductors I know. It’s gonna be an awesome premiere! (shamless plug #1)
Anyway, reading the previous post (Dave MacDonald’s post regarding the teaching of composition) got me thinking. I had to address this very issue in a chapter I wrote for Composers on Composing for Band, Vol. 4. (shameless plug #2) Since I already had to give this a lot of consideration, I thought I’d take the opportunity to excerpt and paraphrase some of my own thoughts:
Admittedly, my experience in teaching composition is limited. While I still (and probably always will) consider myself a composition student, I have noticed a few stages that developing composers do go through. I went through these stages, and I am sure many fellow composers will recognize them as well. A good composition teacher will also recognize these different levels of development and approach students at these different stages appropriately. Young composers just starting out usually have a lot of enthusiasm, but not enough experience to optimize their enthusiasm. They should begin by learning the basics of music theory. Now, it is certainly true that great music can be written without a firm grasp of its inner workings. Sometimes people just have the gift. They can hear something in their head and find ways to translate it into notes on a page…and it will sound really good! But the rest of us mere mortals can benefit from knowing the tools of the trade.
I think of theory in the same way that a carpenter probably thinks of his hammer and screwdriver. True, you can build a shed without great knowledge of how to do so or even how to properly use a hammer and screwdriver. But it will be a long and frustrating process. Knowing the tools and how to use them provides shortcuts to finding exactly which harmonic progression, rhythm, orchestration, developmental technique, etc., will work best in a given situation. Young composers should study theory and do A LOT of listening and score study. Imitation of great music reveals what makes it great, and research does pay off in the long run.
The next stage of composition I dub the “sophomoric stage.” Basically, at this stage, the composer has had some success. He or She has discovered that, by writing down instructions in the form of music notation, people can play it, and the composer can hear the music come to life! It may sound obvious, but it’s a complete revelation the first few times it happens. It is easy for the composer to feel a little bit of power in “controlling” such a strong force as music, and a so-called god complex may develop. In other words, the composer’s train of thought will go something like this: “I am AWESOME! What do you do? You’re a biology major? Well, I am a COMPOSER! Yeah, take that.” I have noticed that this stage kicks in sometime in the later undergraduate years.
Then, the composer will reach graduate school and suddenly realize, “Wow…I have NO IDEA what I’m doing! Why didn’t anybody tell me this before?!?” (Chances are, somebody DID tell you, but you were too busy being the big fish in the little pond. You were just too damn full of yourself at the time to let the words of the wiser fish from the bigger lakes and oceans sink in.) Humility sets in. The composer realizes that to be the consummate musician s/he thought s/he was, there’s going to be
a lot of work and study and trial-and-error in the future. However, it is also during this period that the composer tends to develop an original voice and a unique style of composition.
Once the composer begins to develop this original voice and has a firm background and degree of experience in music theory and composition (ability to write a fugue and analyze a Beethoven piano sonata, for example), then this composer is best left to his/her own devices to follow individual paths of interest. At this point, the composer needs less instruction from a teacher. Rather, the teacher should become a wise and experienced sounding board (a “Yoda,” if I may…) for the composition student’s ideas, and make suggestions where appropriate to help focus the ideas. The composition teacher’s end goal should be to become obsolete. If, at some point, the composition student has outgrown instruction from a teacher, then the teacher has successfully trained the student.
Finally, how DOES a teacher deal with such an elusive subject as music composition? Honestly? I don’t know. Since the compositional decisions students may make are entirely dependent on the context of the medium, current project, etc., these decisions are rarely black-and-white wrong-or-right. Instead, they occupy a vast gray area of musical possibility that must be explored ultimately by the student. I liken it to therapy (bear with me here…). Consider the student as a patient with a pathological music composition “disorder.” The teacher is then the therapist guiding the student through the various obstacles within their own minds to help them complete a composition, thereby curing a specific set of neuroses. (Example: “So, <student>, you decided to address the rhythmic patterns that showed up in our earlier sessions. How does that make you feel?”)
I meant that as an analogy. But now that I reflect on that last paragraph, I’m not so sure…
Erebus
Posted by Ben in Uncategorized on March 26th, 2009
Seeing as Matt has already started the trend of posting program notes for those little bundles of [HELLISH] joy we call dissertations, I’ve decided to jump on the bandwagon while the jumpin’ hot. Here’s the abstract/preface/other to my diss – Erebus. Since I’m not posting the score, I’ve excluded the section on graphical notation used in the piece.
Enjoy?
Abstract – Theoretical Concepts
I was approached in August by Jeff Loeffert to write a piece for saxophone quartet and computer for the H2 quartet. After six months of work, Erebus is the result.
The work is divided into four movements, each of which is based around the symmetric pitch collection [D, Eb, F#, G, A, Bb, C#, D], its transpositions, and its component trichords and tetrachords (and their respective transpositions). This pitch structure is then combined with an independent computer voice based on Xenakis’ work with sonic clouds (see Formalized Music, Chapters 1 and 13) to create an aggregate of order and chaos in the form of the quartet and the computer, respectively. Over the course of the work, this dichotomy gradually resolves itself into a duet of equal forces, with a formal climax in the chorale of the final movement, when the two separate entities resolve into one.
The individual movements follow a generally ternary structure, with the addition of introductions and codas. The exception to the rule is the third movement, Ghost Winds, which is rhapsodic. This decision was based on my previous experimentations with formless music, none of which produced any satisfying results. The choice of ternary form is primarily due to the lack of a traditional tonal structure, and is instead reflective of the relative speed, density, and rhythmic similarities of the sections within the movements.
Program Notes
In Greek mythology, Khaos was the primordial state of existence from which the gods emerged. The first born of these was Erebus, the embodiment of the primordial shadow from which order was eventually born. Over the course of time, Erebus began to be seen as a sort of antechamber to Hades rather than a deity, eventually becoming a synonym for the land of the dead. Within this work, I have attempted to create this idea in sound over the course of the four movements, highlighting various aspects of the evolution of this mythology.
Insect Noises begins with the computer relegated to a supporting role as a drone, symbolizing the essential nothingness of the primordial state. Over this, the saxophones take on the dominant role, creating chaotic and distorted sounds interspersed with solo lines and a brief chorale in measure 50. The saxophones then continue in a slightly less distorted manner, employing a greater number of multiphonics before a brief coda that recalls the amorphous introduction.
Wasteland reverses the roles of the quartet and the computer from the previous movement. Now the dominant voice, the computer moves from a desolate cloud of sound into a pointed, if arrhythmic, sequence of plucked string timbres created from a synthesis of guitar, mandolin, banjo, and koto. As the movement continues, this section grows to a point before tapering off into a large-scale formal decay, ending with a return to the opening sections formless expansion, and concluding with a figure of repeated vocal sounds.
Ghost Winds is a slow rhapsody for both the computer and the saxophones, creating a pas de deux that briefly flirts with synchronicity through the ascending lines of grace notes that meld around the instrumental lines. As the movement progresses, the individual saxophones gradually begin to emulate the computer, creating an ever increasing amount of complex counterpoint.
Electric Night concludes the work by bringing the computer and the quartet into true synchronization, symbolizing the emergence of order from chaos. The computer and quartet gradually become more and more similar, culminating in the central chorale, before a recapitulation of the “blazing” tempo used in the beginning. In this final section the quartet and the computer continue to play off of the other’s part, ending the piece in a massive crescendo of rapid notes and multiphonics.
Performer’s Preface
Q. What happens when you stare into the void?
A. The void stares back
Q. Anything else?
A. If you look hard enough, you may see yourself in it.
