# Pierre Boulez is dead!



## The nose

Ok forgive me for the dramatic title, here's a dodecaphonic composition of mine called Souvenirs d'Enfance

I'm sure Boulez would have hated it. What do you think?


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## Pugg

We had numerous threads like this, do a bit of searching


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## The nose

That wasn't really the sense of the post, but i get why is confusing. I was just posting one of my composition for you to hear...


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## Vaneyes

The horror, the horror, the horror.


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## The nose

Vaneyes said:


> The horror, the horror, the horror.


I'm taking this as a compliment!


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## Stirling

It is an exercise.


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## The nose

Stirling said:


> It is an exercise.


What do you mean?


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## Stirling

If you do know, then you have a great deal to learn.


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## Ian Moore

Do you mean if you _don't_ know...
You're very opinionated, Stirling. We all have a lot to learn including you.


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## Stirling

If you say so...


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## The nose

Well for now i've got "The horror, the horror, the horror" and "Exercise" as comments... another few and it could be the lyrics for a song.


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## Crudblud

On a presentational level you need to pay attention to dynamics and tempi, they are completely static in this rendering, it sounds dull and lifeless as a result. Often composers blame the low quality of the samples they are using for their "mock ups" for this problem, but in reality the fault lies with them and their lack of sensitivity to the manner in which MIDI operates. As for the composition, it's fairly obvious you haven't worked much with tone rows before. The application here is very "by numbers," it lacks any sense of gesture or contrast, the seemingly random pauses throughout doing little to break up the monotony and blandness of your treatment of the materials here.

The solution is simple: you need more practice, both with tone rows and with MIDI. I'm a fairly firm believer that there is no such thing as bad material, only bad treatments, and bad treatments usually arise, in 12-tone music at least, from the composer being led by the row rather than the other way around, there is no need to approach the row meekly. Likewise, MIDI need not be restrictive, it is an incredibly versatile system which can handle most anything you can throw at it music-wise, the only obstruction to its greater effectiveness of use in realising your works is your lack of understanding of its fundamentals. Try working on a much smaller scale, maybe as short as thirty seconds, experimenting with contrasting dynamics and tempi, try adding verticality (contrasts in register), and just generally look at the row not as a predetermined sequence of notes but as a generator of material which you can then treat however you want. You'll very quickly find, I think, that the potential of the material is limited more by your imagination than by any of its own inherent properties, and then you can start to think about ten-minute, twenty-minute, thirty-minute pieces using a tone row or perhaps more than one, but for now you just need to get a better handle on what you're working with.


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## The nose

^^^
Thank you for your helpful and precise comment.


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