Week 1 - Prepare // Mar 22nd
Welcome to the Main Thread for the first week of the composition challenge! This is the place to discuss the Week 1 livestream and post your Week 1 assignments.
- Make sure you've read the guidelines before replying (<- click)
- Watch the kickoff livestream for help with the first section!
Week 1 assignment description:
Write one short "imitation" piece modeled off an etude by another composer of your choosing by using key elements found in the "model piece."
(For inspiration and some tricks on how to do this, watch the livestream above!)
If you want to describe your process (optional), feel free to use the following template.
- Etude you are imitating:
- Things you found easy:
- Things you found difficult:
- (Optional): a video of you performing it!
- (Optional:) questions
↓ Reply below with your assignments and questions! ↓
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- Etude inspired from: Brouwer's second study
- Easy things: Finding elements to create the piece
- Hard things: Made those elements original and interesting, and manage to create the score!
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Blaise Laflamme Great work Blaise - it really captures the contemplative mood - well done!
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Ron I'm happy you enjoyed it. Ashley (Ash) Lucero explained well what't I've done on the concept and form side. For the mood I wanted to keep the choral approach, while being less tonal, but not atonal, something more spacey, like gregorian chant. So the second chord of the initial study gave me the idea of using chords build out of fifths instead of thirds. Instead of using something like CEG, I would use CGD, then voicing gives fifths, fourths and seconds :)
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Blaise Laflamme bravo!!!
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Blaise Laflamme great composition. It’s still Brouwer but also Blaise.
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Blaise Laflamme this is one of my favorite etudes Blaise and you did an amazing job of recreating it. The harmonics are lovely!
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Blaise Laflamme very original, nice job!
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Gokce Turkmendag Debbie joosje Emma thank you for the kind words
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Etude inspired by Tárrega's Adelita
Easy things: using musescore
Hard things: find right tempo and making it sound legato.
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here's me playing the piece
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Vilio Celli What a charming theme you have created! You came up with something musically that your notation does not reflect: mixed meter! If I were to rewrite your idea, it would start in 3/8 and switch to 5/8 in the next measure. I have attached an example to this post. I really like this idea! Will you write more?
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Ashley (Ash) Lucero yes good idea! Will write more with the theme and variations.
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Vilio Celli Well done Vilio - what did you use to record it?
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Ron thanks Ron, I just used Quicktime and a usb mic
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sorry for late reaction. Very busy week... But I don't want to miss the deadline, just for the fun of the challenge....
Study I worked on: Carcassi etude op. 60, no. 7
What I found easy: analyzing the score (from memory, only A-section), harmony, techniques, contours, tension-resolution, etc. From there developing ideas to change key and rhythm.
What I found difficult: the ideas I made up first (no guitar and no score at hand, but I know the piece really well) are theoretical and a first soundcheck with the guitar is disappointing! So, with the guitar at hand I came up with some other ideas. It's just so hard to find my own way and still keep in touch with the source.
Also, this is my first experience ever with music notation software (MuseScore). Technically not a big deal, but this one seems very basic... There's a lot I can't notate... Any advice welcome
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joosje Love it, Joosje! Carcassi meets Dave Brubeck!
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joosje With Musescore, I went to the online handbook to figure some things out. It just is not intuitive for me. https://musescore.org/en/handbook
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Eric thanks, Eric. Yeah, I had a quick look to find out the basics. Need to find the time to read through the handbook again. It’s very useful...
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joosje Well done Joosje. I almost went for Carcassi as well - takes me back to some of the first pieces I ever played. MuseScore can be frustrating at times and, like Eric, I don't always find it intuitive. The handbook is very useful though.
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joosje Great work! Interesting new harmonies applied to a tried and true texture. I love your exploration of different sounds over a bass-line that seems more diatonic than the rest of the music. It creates a really nice balance :)
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joosje also, you did a really great job with the notation, honestly! Very professional looking
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here's is a revised version of my score.
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Vilio I like it. Thanks for submitting
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Vilio Celli that looks really intriguing Vilio. Would love to hear a recording of you playing it.
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Original piece: Giuliani study number 13 opus 50
What I found easy: It was a lot of fun so I could spend time at night doing it without noticing, my practice has suffered this week... I used a very easy study with an easy structure that I kept along with the rhythm and the coda. This made things easy.
What I found difficult: This was my first time doing anything like this or using musescore. Once I chose the piece all the melodies I came up with were very gloomy. Then I searched for different styles and changed the sense of the scale and once I had an idea, things were better. Although it is still gloomy :) . Although Musescore is quite intuitive, I spent more time than needed... I wanted to change the coda but could not think of anything...
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Emma that's great Emma. I like it and well recorded
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End of the Year Challenge: Finish Strong!
