Category: Compositions

Orchestral Study #10 (rupture, slowed down and from different angles)

Orchestral Study #10 (rupture, slowed down and from different angles)

End of the year and end of my project to write a new orchestral piece each month (comments on the germ of my idea in #1). I’ll be taking a break from music for a few weeks (months?) just to recharge. I’d mentioned before, and this is odd, but this whole process was creatively draining. There is stress of potential failure three weeks out of four, with only fleeting contentedness on the fourth as you prepare for the next.

There are two accomplishments that came out of this. First, I feel more competent working within a more tonally free harmonic language than I had when writing for piano. I was concerned from the start that I would write “pop” music for orchestra that was either bland or in the realm of movie music (no offense, just not for me). The results, I feel, are for the most part successfully 20th/21st century modernist in style.

Second, although I’m still greatly lacking in technical competence of the instruments’ mechanical limitations and tonal “best practices”, I feel I’m better equipped to work with the different tonal colors possible in an orchestra.

Moving forward:

Continue with studying Piston’s Orchestration.
Become more acquainted with each instrument’s technical nuances w/r/t not only range but also areas such as fingerings for strings, positions for brass, and difference in tone for the different registers of each instrument.
Study and follow along with more scores. IMSLP and YouTube and IDAGIO are easily available, so there’re few limitations. YouTube even has some rare instances, though very limited, of modern scores that are still under copyright.
Start working with DAW software and sample libraries to get better recordings. I’ve worked on the cheap (spelled f.r.e.e.) with MuseScore for notation and Audacity for simple audio editing. MuseScore is comparable to Finale for my purposes, however even though it can export MP3s for the full score or for custom instrument groups, the results are only good as a reference.

This final composition: I had plans for a larger work in three sections (standard orchestra, dissonant held tones in brass with softer string in the background, close with a harmonically limited string chorale referencing the previous section’s strings) but ended with only the first section. It was a month full of holiday distractions. Compared to previous studies, here I better explored motivic development using Brahms symphonies as a reference. Score is full throughout.

I intentionally limited these 12 studies to a month each in order to try different techniques and styles, and then quickly move on so as not to get bogged down in flawed, early attempts. Write, learn your lesson, move on more wise for the effort. This naturally forced me to not fully develop the ideas within each piece. When I return to writing, I plan on writing a symphony in order to let the work live in my head over a longer period.

Well… that’s the plan.

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Orchestral Study #11 (a crowd, disassembled)

Orchestral Study #10 (rupture, slowed down and from different angles)

My original intent (which, if all previous intentions are any model, was destined to be diverted) was to open with quiet statements, work to a “tapestry of sound,” then return to a variation on the initial statements. I saw a horizontal shape, expanding and then returning.

I watched Berg’s Wozzek when I was in the middle of the piece (needing the insight but contradictorally worried that it would dilute any originality), and was reminded of its brilliance. I know many of the melodies from college but it’s also notable theatrically. It did end up giving me some ideas to break out from repeated-eighth-note lines and try to be more rhythmically varied.

Theme A in eighth notes, varying between 2/8, 3/8, and 4/8, with the melody in flutes, oboes, and violins.
Theme B as a chord progression, transitions blurred with exaggerated anticipations and suspensions and non-harmonic tones (of a sort, without a reference key). Melodic decorations in the winds as call and response or a shared melody, ending with repeated note decorations.
Theme C as melodic chattering, call/response/shared melody between winds and strings.
Theme A repeated, modified with extended phrases injected.
Theme B repeated, modified with extended chords at the end. Repeated note melodic decorations.
A short canon.
Theme C repeated in style, but with a single voice, spaces left for the absence participants.

(ABCABC)

I am starting to be more conscious of when I need to let silences and scarcity fill a statement. It takes close listening to know when and where those silences need placed. I’m better at not letting percussion take over a section. Less/more and all that.

Next up: The last one. I honestly have no idea what direction I’ll go. Although it sounds silly, a new piece every month has been somewhat exhausting. I think about Wozzek (and am now re-watching Berg’s Lulu, produced by William Kentridge, amazing for different reasons) but also feel like I need to go back to tonality. The first days of the month are always a pause to clear the head.

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Orchestral Study #10 (rupture, slowed down and from different angles)

Orchestral Study #10 (rupture, slowed down and from different angles)

I approached this a little lost after #9 because its abundance of ideas in a way drained my creativity. But then a line in Piston’s Orchestration got me started, from the section “Types of Texture – Type VII, Complex” where he describes how the previous discussed types of texture–unison, melody, counterpoint, chords, etc.–can be combined simultaneously. In detailing examples of the complex type, he described a section of Rite of Spring as a “tapestry of sound.” He then organized the 31 parts in that section (page 9 of the edition he cites) into 11 groups of greater and lesser importance, emphasizing the subjectivity of that grouping and the utility of the exercise for becoming more proficient in orchestration.

I did not go in that direction (and honestly don’t think I’m quite ready).

The intent then became a piece with the structure: complex stacked chords, then melody, then twittering chaos in woodwinds (cf. #2 starting at measure 44). But plans develop as ideas become concrete, and the melody I wrote was completely abandoned, and I adjusted a bit as new ideas developed.

Quiet, spare opening statement, percussion
A section
1. Stacked chords, heavy dissonances
2. Stacked chords, oboe solo with clarinet accompaniment, arrhythmic
B section
1. Stark change, build up from spare silences
2. The aforementioned “twittering chaos”
A section, return
1. Return to chord progression from #2, quieter, more consonant, and with reduced orchestration
2. Progressing to white noise and end

I feel like my percussion writing, although using the same timpani/cymbal/triangle (minus snare), has gotten more nuanced since I started using percussion in #8. The twittering chaos is very satisfying to write but takes exhausting focus (“I love having written but hate writing” amirite?). It feels like there are dozens of rules I’ve learned from writing this piece concerning dissonance and instrument combination, but that they are more internalized than they are expressible. It’s also becoming more apparent, from the last couple of pieces, that I’m writing for MIDI orchestra and not orchestra orchestra. That is an issue, without learning the instruments and having actual ears-on sessions, that may be un-fixable.

I’ve thought impressionism and minimalism for next month, but not sure.

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Orchestral Study #9 (seven interludes)

Orchestral Study #10 (rupture, slowed down and from different angles)