# Questions for those who have written ensemble pieces in any 20th century idiom



## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

I'm gonna lay out a big blob of words for some long suffering person to sort through.

To those of you who have written fairly successful works, whether you consider them student compositions or not, in say, a mid 20th century style comparable to and influence by the likes of maybe to Bartok, Shostakovich, or slightly later like Dutilleux, Schuman, or even later/more progressive, like Henze, Schnittke, Carter, you get the idea(pretty wide range, but the point is veering towards highly complex but very distant from common practice and basic use of triads): when you are actually working on your piece, what methods do you use?

So far, I have been an at the piano composer for my full length pieces. When I have composed short fragments away from the piano, I have either payed little attention to the harmony and been messy in a weird sort of exercise that I intended only as a sketch, or I have been very careful and made a few phrases for chamber ensemble that have sounded very much baroque or classical. Is there a long training process of getting your mind to be able to precisely parse out all kinds of crazy pitches, for composing in a more modern idiom away from the piano? Fortunately I have perfect pitch and decent enough relative pitch, so that helps, but perhaps I need to get better at relative yet?

Or maybe there is a different way you think about this entirely? My mind seems to work contrapuntally, and it is hard for me to break out of the rigidity, though I will say that my approach to counterpoint is very much intuitive.

I have never been able to write at the piano and have it not be FOR piano. If I want to write for something else, I generally do it away from the piano. For some, the piano seems to be a good musical chalkboard, but for me it feels like something that threatens to pull me in its direction and take over the way I write.

As for hearing timbres and textures of different instruments in my head, I struggle with that when I'm not in a day dreaming state. I can't summon it in a serious mood, I have to have a playful imaginative thing going on to hear these things. 

I'd like to be able to write a chamber orchestra piece in a more modern idiom, is the point, but I don't really know how to start getting my ideas out there, and what is process is conducive to flowing out with ideas. I imagine it will be a multi layered process involving revision.


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

Since you struggle with timbres and textures you might want to use a music notation program like Sibelius or Finale that has a good library of samples of various instruments. That way you get instant playback while scoring and sketching which will somewhat approximate the actual sounds. Among the other interesting features such programs (Sibelius, at least) have is plug-ins to automatically transpose, invert, retrograde and halve or double rhythmic values. 

As for the composing, I'm not sure what to advise. However, you might want to begin with rhythmic or melodic cells or elements that don't immediately conjure common-practice harmonies, diatonic scales, or stable meters. Begin with something whose implications you don't understand and can't predict, something you would have no immediate idea how to harmonize. Or start with a dissonant sonority and then work to justify it in a quasi-tonal way by its continuation. Set an impossible problem and you will learn much in trying to solve it.


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## Vasks (Dec 9, 2013)

Edward's suggestions are spot on and to a certain degree I do a number of those very things.

Oddly enough, I'm just getting to the 8 minute mark of a chamber orchestra piece (just hit the piece's climax; so I just have to complete a 1-2 minute wind down). I started the piece with the full score staring at me and merely a story line to follow loosely. I too rarely use the piano and I too think more often contrapuntally. For inspiration to get started you might also have a story or maybe a poem's mood or design can light up your imagination. Perhaps a painting or drawing could as well.

Your last sentence was revealing however, because I can't imagine composing without constant revision. Not only am I revising every time I continue working on a piece, but I will also revise heavily once the first draft is completed.


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## Crudblud (Dec 29, 2011)

I guess, and this is presumptuous of me, this is something that I might be expected to respond to, and I will, but with the following two caveats:

* I have never written in a 20th century idiom, and if I have ever attempted to do so I have failed.*

*I do not write music for performance, so here the relevance of my experience is severely limited at best.* That's why I don't post in advice threads all that often, once in a while I get arrogant enough and so you are reading this post.

What I can tell you, and take this with a grain of salt, is that in order to write in or, better, learn from the styles of the 20th century, one must experience them. Studying scores may teach you mechanical means of achieving your goal, but as an expert chess player once told me (not verbatim): mechanical thinking in chess will get you so far, but when you're presented with a position that requires a deeper kind of thinking, you'll be out of luck. Now, I know, I know, what the hell does chess have to do with writing music? Probably nothing, but the point is that it's all good and well learning the mechanics, and with them and enough practice you'll be able to write passable imitations of the masters, but you need more than that to make music that is genuinely your own.

In my experience, it may work for you, it may not, listening is the best way to learn. We live, fortunately, in a time of unprecedented access to recorded music, and of unprecedented flexibility in terms of how we listen to it. Take advantage of that, listen to everything you can, and really think about what you're hearing. Is there something in the piece you don't understand? Go back, hear it again, try to pick apart the different voices and think about how it's done, think about why it's done.

Write as you go, working with what you have to hand. You say you work at the piano but find it too constricting? Find ways to work around that, make the instrument work for you as you need it to in a given situation. Expect to produce clunkers, and don't worry that mediocrity may be all you're capable of: we've all been there. I've been doing what I do for over a decade now, and I still go through so so many downright awful prototypes before I get to something that's even half-promising, the important thing is that you work through stuff like that and keep learning and developing.

As I have said before, the important thing is to avoid mechanical thinking, surprise yourself, try things that cross your mind as they come to you, see if they work. If they don't work, ask yourself: why? can it be fixed? how? Don't be afraid to leave something for later if you're stumped, chances are you've stumbled upon a problem to which solutions can be found elsewhere, and furthermore that you may find them when you are least expecting it (i.e.: when you are not even consciously thinking about music). If nothing comes to you, the simple fact of having spent time away will at least allow you to approach the work with fresh eyes and ears.

As a final note: if you're looking to write music for performance, don't rely on sample libraries for timbre guides, I can guarantee you that even the cutting edge stuff of right-this-second is massively limited compared to its sources. You'll only end up limiting your imagination to accommodate that.

I'll sign off before I waste any more of anyone's time. If any of this mess of country bumpkin hokum (not to be confused with the innuendo-laden blues subgenre) helps, you're welcome; if not, angry letters are received with sincerest apologies. Said apologies already given for the rambling nature of and extreme : abuse in this post.


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

Crudblud your advice sucks! 

Just kidding. 

Thanks for taking the time to respond so thoughtfully. I understand where you are coming from regarding 'mechanical thinking.' Even in my pieces that have a grounding in common practice principles, I am careful not to be too predictable, and sometimes my solutions are initial accidents. 

The advice about not being afraid of mediocrity resonates with me as something that I must work on. I am too often mentally blocked trying to do things to a certain standard. 

I probably need to make a fresh expansion effort in what I listen to from the 20th and 21st centuries; I've been feeling it coming on for a while.


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