# Discussion - Are you composing the kind of music you want to compose?



## Jobis

I am an amateur composer, and I find myself continually struggling to compose something I can feel proud of - something original and inspired. This task seems impossible; too many contrived elements seem to come through, and if I do write something satisfactory, it is on such a small scale that even Webern would barely register it as a full piece. At the same time I am gripped by a sense of being on the edge of a discovery - that if I just work a bit harder and experiment a little more I'll hit into something original, something I will really be pleased with. I know what kind of music I enjoy, and yet I am full of anxiety and lack of confidence in my own writing. 

For those of you who are composers; do you feel the same way? Or are you comfortable with the way your pieces are, and feel satisfied with your work? I sometimes wonder if it is possible to reach a state of full appreciation of one's own music; would the greats have stopped composing if they ever composed a piece that was in their eyes 'perfect'?

A major struggle I find in composing is that, now everything is permitted, how does one proceed? Must we set arbitrary rules or guidelines in order to avoid being bowled over by the infinite number of possibilities before us?


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## Vasks

You're over-thinking it. Just write. 

Only some composers' earliest pieces are of great quality, so don't fret about yours. 

The length matters not.

True originality matters not.


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## Celloissimo

Show your compositions to close friends who you know will be honest with you, or even post them here. The thing about composition is that one can only get better if they keep writing. Whether it is satisfactory or not is important, but it's more significant that you just keep writing. 

Also, I recommend writing a piece where you're just screwing around and not adhering to any form of rules (within boundaries, of course). It doesn't have to be a serious work, just make something for the hell of it. Doing this can get your creative juices flowing. Of course, don't be like Billy on this forum and completely bash all music theory as BS, as none of the "music" he has produced comes close to being satisfactory, but just have fun with it without feeling constrained.


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## PetrB

Jobis said:


> A major struggle I find in composing is that, now everything is permitted, how does one proceed? Must we set arbitrary rules or guidelines in order to avoid being bowled over by the infinite number of possibilities before us?


Part of any composer's task, whether that is past or present composers, whether those are amateurs, dilettantes or pros, is -- just as were were all taught in primary school when we were assigned essays, and later 'the term paper,' is to _limit, *rigorously*, one's subject._ I'm sure everyone recognizes that as both pragmatic if not downright sage advice.

I say start with _a musical idea_ (musical, psychological, and theoretic-technical) i.e. that versus a mere music-theory technical premise. Any truly musical idea will inherently have some theoretic premise in it anyway (yours to determine by examining it, analyzing it, and working with it), where a music-theory technical premise coming from 'only an intellectual place,' can often be more than barren, and music made from it ends up frequently as ultimately boring, even if at first hearing it has a face of being outwardly impressive and / or dazzling.

If I recall correctly, you said you were a bit of a singer songwriter. This gives me the perfect platform for my perhaps most favored admonition: 
Music of that nature which is thought of -- or as it comes to many a 'younger' composer who tends to think and hear in that mode -- _is based on simple melodies and the proverbial and deeply damned concept of chord progressions_.

For those coming from a more pop music background, as well as those who don't but begin comping 'classical,' those melodies and chord progressions, _are often the most self-contained, short-circuit looped music of any sort. Until the composer has a better grasp on the craft, most anything of that nature will end up self-contained and having absolutely no place to go other than to repeat them, or notch the whole thing up a whole or half step in full repetitions, etc._ Avoiding those, in order to somewhat undo and revise your musical thinking and goals should be prime on your list, i.e. start with just about any materials _but_ a melody or chord progression. (Even if you have no liking or affinity for serial music, investigating that thoroughly enough to compose several short pieces -- using the most preliminary and rigid set of Schoenberg's 'rules' -- will very much give you another way to think, hear, and see how music works outside of that pop-folk premise of melody and chord progression. Once done, and returning to more tonal music, your thinking revised, I would not be surprised if some of the barriers you find everywhere now begin to dissolve.)

A musical idea (could be a harmony, a sequence of several intervals, or both in the same vessel) which is not complete, self-contained, is an idea which can be developed into at least a complete piece, with a variety enough available through proceeding by similarity (the most advised, the most usual, and the most necessary for a beginning comper.) _Here, a short motif, motific cell of a handful of pitches, or a theoretic harmonic device (not chord progression) can be your second-best friend (your first best friend is an eraser _

Most generally, _getting the best grasp on the nature and qualities of the idea_ will help any composer the most. That could be a laundry list, via brainstorming, of nouns, adjectives, emotional qualities, as well as on the theory front, of "What, exactly, is the nature of what I have in front of me." Put another way and to address the quandary of there are no limits or holds barred, I think it pretty easy to clearly understand that whatever the genre and piece, the 'ones that work' have one way or another eliminated 'what does not belong in this piece.' As Nadia Boulanger said, whether it was she who coined it or if she was just paraphrasing, "Great art loves chains."

What is the inherent nature of my idea? // As I write what seems alien to it? (put any and all ideas which do not fit in that piece aside. Once working, that many more ideas follow quite naturally: this does not mean they all belong together, and maybe some of those other ideas are enough to make another piece of a slightly or greatly different nature) // How large is this piece? (again, the nature of the idea, and 'how large' it is should give the composer some notion as to the overall scale, duration, etc.) 

_*Any and all such questions on the limits or 'limitations' of what you are trying to realize do very much help*_. Another favorite adage of mine, true about creative work or life in general, *"Determining what you don't want can help you in finding and getting what you do want, even if the latter can never be fully defined."*

In other words, the easier and best way to proceed is with a musical idea, open vs. closed-circuit material, and to then immediately do the opposite of including everything but the kitchen sink 

ADD: Jobis, a P.s. I am maybe not composing the kind of music I necessarily want to compose, but I am composing the kind of music I can compose.


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## PetrB

Vasks said:


> You're over-thinking it. *Just write.*


Well, that is far easier to say than to do, the 'just writing' obviously _not satisfactory_ enough to the composer that it propelled him to write the OP.

Similarly, 'just write' has not at all worked for many another.

The only implication in your post I heartily agree with: Once you commit to writing a piece, you can not think _at all_ about what any others might think of it


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## Crudblud

I compose what I can compose, what I want to compose is forever beyond me. I like that because it gives me the impetus I need to keep pushing, to ensure that I'm doing progressively better work with each piece, but perhaps most importantly of all to keep me from becoming lazy and settling into a groove.


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## Jobis

PetrB said:


> Part of any composer's task, whether that is past or present composers, whether those are amateurs, dilettantes or pros, is -- just as were were all taught in primary school when we were assigned essays, and later 'the term paper,' is to_limit, *rigorously*, one's subject._ I'm sure everyone recognizes that as both pragmatic if not downright sage advice.
> 
> I say start with _a musical idea_ (musical, psychological, and theoretic-technical) i.e. that versus a mere music-theory technical premise. Any truly musical idea will inherently have some theoretic premise in it anyway (yours to determine by examining it, analyzing it, and working with it), where a music-theory technical premise coming from 'only an intellectual place,' can often be more than barren, and music made from it ends up frequently as ultimately boring, even if at first hearing it has a face of being outwardly impressive and / or dazzling.
> 
> If I recall correctly, you said you were a bit of a singer songwriter. This gives me the perfect platform for my perhaps most favored admonition:
> Music of that nature which is thought of -- or as it comes to many a 'younger' composer who tends to think and hear in that mode -- _is based on simple melodies and the proverbial and deeply damned concept of chord progressions_.
> 
> For those coming from a more pop music background, as well as those who don't but begin comping 'classical,' those melodies and chord progressions, _are often the most self-contained, short-circuit looped music of any sort. Until the composer has a better grasp on the craft, most anything of that nature will end up self-contained and having absolutely no place to go other than to repeat them, or notch the whole thing up a whole or half step in full repetitions, etc._ Avoiding those, in order to somewhat undo and revise your musical thinking and goals should be prime on your list, i.e. start with just about any materials _but_ a melody or chord progression. (Even if you have no liking or affinity for serial music, investigating that thoroughly enough to compose several short pieces -- using the most preliminary and rigid set of Schoenberg's 'rules' -- will very much give you another way to think, hear, and see how music works outside of that pop-folk premise of melody and chord progression. Once done, and returning to more tonal music, your thinking revised, I would not be surprised if some of the barriers you find everywhere now begin to dissolve.)
> 
> A musical idea (could be a harmony, a sequence of several intervals, or both in the same vessel) which is not complete, self-contained, is an idea which can be developed into at least a complete piece, with a variety enough available through proceeding by similarity (the most advised, the most usual, and the most necessary for a beginning comper.) _Here, a short motif, motific cell of a handful of pitches, or a theoretic harmonic device (not chord progression) can be your second-best friend (your first best friend is an eraser _
> 
> Most generally, _getting the best grasp on the nature and qualities of the idea_ will help any composer the most. That could be a laundry list, via brainstorming, of nouns, adjectives, emotional qualities, as well as on the theory front, of "What, exactly, is the nature of what I have in front of me." Put another way and to address the quandary of there are no limits or holds barred, I think it pretty easy to clearly understand that whatever the genre and piece, the 'ones that work' have one way or another eliminated 'what does not belong in this piece.' As Nadia Boulanger said, whether it was she who coined it or if she was just paraphrasing, "Great art loves chains."
> 
> What is the inherent nature of my idea? // As I write what seems alien to it? (put any and all ideas which do not fit in that piece aside. Once working, that many more ideas follow quite naturally: this does not mean they all belong together, and maybe some of those other ideas are enough to make another piece of a slightly or greatly different nature) // How large is this piece? (again, the nature of the idea, and 'how large' it is should give the composer some notion as to the overall scale, duration, etc.)
> 
> _*Any and all such questions on the limits or 'limitations' of what you are trying to realize do very much help*_. Another favorite adage of mine, true about creative work or life in general, *"Determining what you don't want can help you in finding and getting what you do want, even if the latter can never be fully defined."*
> 
> In other words, the easier and best way to proceed is with a musical idea, open vs. closed-circuit material, and to then immediately do the opposite of including everything but the kitchen sink
> 
> ADD: Jobis, a P.s. I am maybe not composing the kind of music I necessarily want to compose, but I am composing the kind of music I can compose.


So far I have used serial methods in composing, but I get the feeling I am using a technique that _does not belong to me_, if that makes sense.

I do actually compose quite a lot, but almost all my stuff feels like practice pieces to me. Another difficulty is that none of my friends enjoy 'atonal' or 'post-tonal' pieces, so I don't tend to ask them for critique.

I don't have any recordings of my pieces, but if I provided a score on here would anyone take notice?


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## Kopachris

Celloissimo said:


> Of course, don't be like Billy on this forum and completely bash all music theory as BS, as none of the "music" he has produced comes close to being satisfactory, but just have fun with it without feeling constrained.


Oh my gosh, is he still around? Remember when he was putting out a new symphony almost every day?


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## Vasks

PetrB said:


> Well, that is far easier to say than to do, the 'just writing' obviously not satisfactory enough to the composer that it propelled him to write the OP.


Maybe if the OP was struggling with trying to write anything at all, I'd agree with you, but the poster's first sentence is what I was responding to. He's written music but is worried that it's not _"original and inspired"_


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## Xenol

One way I write is to come up with a theme or story to go behind the piece. For example, in this: 



 I Imagined a ship at sea, which is then besieged by a storm.


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## violadude

Xenol said:


> One way I write is to come up with a theme or story to go behind the piece. For example, in this:
> 
> 
> 
> I Imagined a ship at sea, which is then besieged by a storm.


Eh, this might work for some people but every time I've tried it I get too hung up on trying to get the music to "sound" like something rather than just writing good music.

And honestly, with today's recording technology, I'm not sure why you would want your flute to "sound like a bird" (for example) if you can just actually record a bird sound and put it in there. I'd rather my flute just sounded like a flute.

Anyway, that's just my personal composer philosophy.


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## Ian Moore

> Are you composing the kind of music that you want to compose?


What a strange question!
If you don't like your own music how do you expect anyone else to.


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## Torkelburger

Jobis, I would take notice if you provided a score. Also, can you give examples (can be verbal description) of what your "contrived elements" are? Can you explain specifically what it is you find satisfactory in your music? Then we might be able to get an idea of how to help with your problems.


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## Jobis

This is one piece I am proud of; a semi-serial one.

http://speedy.sh/5D7Fc/little-piano-piece-1.pdf

It took me ages to write though, and I can't imagine writing a large-scale piece with this method because I had to write it bar by bar, very gradually adding on the end.


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## Torkelburger

Looks like you have to download software to take a look.


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## Jobis

just click slow download?


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## Torkelburger

k thanks. Yeah, there are some issues but you should keep going with it. It will be easier for you if you make some sort of roadmap for yourself in regards to the form of the piece. Are you familiar with any musical forms? If so, do you feel any may suit your material? (Keeping in mind there are also forms specific to serial music as well).


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## Crassus

I don't know exactly what should I aspire to be. People just seem to be more interested in what sounds like an attempt to get close to one of the great masters or what gives them immediate gratification and I don't find any of those options appealing.

I don't think I have trouble sounding original, I can pull original melodies/themes with relative ease. My problem is putting everything togheter and making it sound coherent as a whole, but then again; I think that's a problem even for the lettered ones.

It's a dilemma for me, life has shaped me in a way that writing music is everything I know but the concert hall is currently a museum. I have been trying to find a middle ground between well known pieces and what I heard from soundtracks and movie scores in the hopes of giving people a different insight of what music could be but until now it had no effect.

I can't say i'm satisfied with being a "composer" at all. I will keep writing music, of course; but I would have chosen something else if I could. We must content with our irrelevance no matter how competent we might become, the best we can hope for is to merely illustrate movies and video-games with sound.


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## Vasks

Crassus said:


> People just seem to be more interested in what sounds like an attempt to get close to one of the great masters or what gives them immediate gratification and I don't find any of those options appealing.


I don't either.



Crassus said:


> I can't say i'm satisfied with being a "composer" at all.


I think a composer who never has doubts over their current project is the exception, not the rule.



Crassus said:


> We must content with our irrelevance no matter how competent we might become


Don't make it too hopeless sounding. There should be an inner pride to realizing you've written something that demonstrates competence or better.


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## Petwhac

I sympathise with the OP. Composers today must find their own 'thing' where once upon a time that 'thing' was more inherited. 
It is very easy to become too self conscious about our own music and to worry about where we 'fit' in the world.
We must construct our own world and strive to create something we believe is true and meaningful to ourselves and crafted as perfectly as we are able. What other people think is beyond our control. 
Over thinking can indeed inhibit the process if the thinking is not about the actual composition in progress and more about our own particular approach in general.
PetrB's advice about self limiting is sound advice in my opinion. A blank canvas can be a daunting thing and the creative imagination is fired when it has to solve a problem.


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## differencetone

I feel exactly as Morton Feldman did when he said: 

"Earlier in my life there seemed to be unlimited possibilities, but my mind was closed. Now, years later and with an open mind, possibilities no longer interest me. I seem content to be continually rearranging the same furniture in the same room. My concern at times is nothing more than establishing a series of practical conditions that will enable me to work. For years I said if I could only find a comfortable chair I would rival Mozart."


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde

I'm with Crudblud on this one. It's something I've certianly been thinking of a lot recently and I find that by having a goal in front of me which I can never truly reach but doesn't seem impossible to reach gives me incentive to try to improve my own work.


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## Jobis

Harmony is one thing I really struggle with; how to strike a balance between functionality and artistic freedom.

Being somewhat inclined toward perfectionism, I never want to write any notes I can't justify as being integral to the harmony. Obviously I don't want to write in CP tonality, but if I try to write in a 'free tonal' way it ends up sounding very derivative; currently I just sound like a poor Messiaen knock-off. 

Serialism I find very hard to write because it seems to demand that I work incrementally; one instant at a time. It is very hard to go back and edit the middle of a phrase once you have reached the end, for example. I can work that way, but it feels so painfully slow and often contrary to my innate sense of where the music ought to be going (which isn't necessarily a bad thing, if that innate sense is inclined to sink into a banal kind of tonality).

Are there any good post-serial theories of harmony? I am interested in the 'sets' compiled by Forte, among other things, but I don't know how exactly to relate them to each other (in terms of a progression); one could easily write what sounds like a totally disjointed series of chords that do not form any kind of sequence at all.


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## Mahlerian

Jobis said:


> Serialism I find very hard to write because it seems to demand that I work incrementally; one instant at a time. It is very hard to go back and edit the middle of a phrase once you have reached the end, for example. I can work that way, but it feels so painfully slow and often contrary to my innate sense of where the music ought to be going (which isn't necessarily a bad thing, if that innate sense is inclined to sink into a banal kind of tonality).


My impression is that to write a longer serial piece, you will have to sketch out some possibilities of what can be done with the material in advance to figure out how you can develop it. The finished piece will then display those possibilities which are the most aesthetically rewarding.


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## Celloissimo

Ah man, not at all. I haven't been able to even come up with an inspired melody that flows cohesively. Either I feel like theory has sucked all the creativity out of my brain, or I just need a break from music altogether and come back for a fresh start.


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## PetrB

violadude said:


> Eh, this might work for some people but every time I've tried it I get too hung up on trying to get the music to "sound" like something rather than just writing good music.
> 
> And honestly, with today's recording technology, I'm not sure why you would want your flute to "sound like a bird" (for example) if you can just actually record a bird sound and put it in there. I'd rather my flute just sounded like a flute.
> 
> Anyway, that's just my personal composer philosophy.


... if I used "Birds" directly, with all the technology at hand I don't think I could just present them in a mix as 'recorded straight,' but some playing about with the recording, sampling it, morphing, filtering, etc. would be part of the deal. Of course, I near to detest much 'literal' in music at all, so to "toss in" a straight-ahead bird call or several goes against my grain. (Though straight-ahead taped birdsong worked for Rautavaara in his _Cantus Arcticus_, though


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde

Mahlerian said:


> My impression is that to write a longer serial piece, you will have to sketch out some possibilities of what can be done with the material in advance to figure out how you can develop it. The finished piece will then display those possibilities which are the most aesthetically rewarding.


I am actually writing a serial piece at the moment, it isn't long though, just under three minutes but I've worked out how to use my material in pretty much this way.


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## Richannes Wrahms

Over time I've developed my own serial procedures which allow for a great yet still systematic freedom (for example superimposing a twelve tone row with itself to derive other twelve tone rows and treat them as equals). I find that it is still essential to make at least a general formal sketch before starting to realise the piece. I am no professional though.


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## Gaspard de la Nuit

I hope to pick up composing again, I used to take it very seriously. I would say what I did was a compromise between what I what I am trying to learn how to do and what I am currently capable of doing, with an eye towards what I ultimately want to be able to do in terms of compositional technique.

I try to make my music as powerful and beautiful as I possibly can, I want it to be aethetically arresting beyond what human genes are capable of resisting....not too novel but not too familiar.


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde

Gaspard de la Nuit said:


> I hope to pick up composing again, I used to take it very seriously. I would say what I did was a compromise between what I what I am trying to learn how to do and what I am currently capable of doing, with an eye towards what I ultimately want to be able to do in terms of compositional technique.
> 
> I try to make my music as powerful and beautiful as I possibly can, I want it to be aethetically arresting beyond what human genes are capable of resisting....not too novel but not too familiar.


Working on creating an idiosyncratic aesthetic takes a long time and a lot of effort. Good luck with hopefully taking up composing again! It's a wonderful thing to do.


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## Crudblud

I might be misunderstanding, but the idea of working to create what is there naturally doesn't make any sense to me. Certainly this natural "idosyncratic aesthetic" changes in many ways over time, but it doesn't need a guiding hand to be there in the first place.


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde

Crudblud said:


> I might be misunderstanding, but the idea of working to create what is there naturally doesn't make any sense to me. Certainly this natural "idosyncratic aesthetic" changes in many ways over time, but it doesn't need a guiding hand to be there in the first place.


I suppose what I'm trying to call "idiosyncratic aesthetic" is more in terms of getting a full grasp on compositional technique and using knowledge of music theory, rules and how to break them to create a piece of music rather than coming at composition blindly and making things which "just sound nice" to whoever is composing it.


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## Crudblud

ComposerOfAvantGarde said:


> I suppose what I'm trying to call "idiosyncratic aesthetic" is more in terms of getting a full grasp on compositional technique and using knowledge of music theory, rules and how to break them to create a piece of music rather than coming at composition blindly and making things which "just sound nice" to whoever is composing it.


Oops, you caught me! Better go hand in my composer's card at the front desk.

I think the term and the definition you've given don't really match up, but what you intended to say is fair enough.


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde

Crudblud said:


> Oops, you caught me! Better go hand in my composer's card at the front desk.
> 
> I think the term and the definition you've given don't really match up, but what you intended to say is fair enough.


Yeah I suppose not, but trying to come up with that sort of jargon is more difficult for me than composing two part counterpoint.


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## Jobis

So does anyone know of any modern approaches to harmony/polyphony that aren't based on strict laws, such as serialism (on the one hand) or totally ad hoc 'free' tonality/atonality (on the other)?

The problem I find with serialism is that the harmonies are derived from a single linear row, rather than being super-imposed colourations of a melodic line/fundamental tone. The result of this is that the harmonies sound like a kind of melodic pileup; several tones of the row occuring at the same time.

I realise one could create another kind of harmony by having two rows playing against each other in counterpoint; but how do you derive harmonies between two separate rows; are they not rather working independently with accidental or resultant harmony? I am not interested in arbitrary use of tone rows in that way.

Also if I do break the 'rules' slightly, then my diversions require justification, and how do you explain 'wrong notes' in a serial sense? If I find breaking the rules just 'sounds better', then it turns out personally the rules are more of a bind than something that frees me to write the music I want to write.

Perhaps most importantly, I don't want to write music that _sounds_ serial. Of course you can name serial music that doesn't sound typically serial; but its just as easy to fall into banality and the derivative in serialism as in any other way of working, perhaps even more so.

Is this something you folks don't struggle with?


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## Mahlerian

Jobis said:


> So does anyone know of any modern approaches to harmony/polyphony that aren't based on strict laws, such as serialism (on the one hand) or totally ad hoc 'free' tonality/atonality (on the other)?


Serialism isn't really all that strict, especially from the 60s on. It became more of a guiding principle than a set of rules.



> The problem I find with serialism is that the harmonies are derived from a single linear row, rather than being super-imposed colourations of a melodic line/fundamental tone. The result of this is that the harmonies sound like a kind of melodic pileup; several tones of the row occuring at the same time.


You can organize your row harmonically to begin with, or you can set it up so the row is broken up between the melodic/thematic lines and the accompanimental ones. Of course, you have to realize that a congruence between melodic and harmonic voices was the exact thing Schoenberg was after when he developed the technique, as he had been doing this going all the way back to the Chamber Symphony.



> I realise one could create another kind of harmony by having two rows playing against each other in counterpoint; but how do you derive harmonies between two separate rows; are they not rather working independently with accidental or resultant harmony? I am not interested in arbitrary use of tone rows in that way.


You can play the same row off of itself in a different transposition. If you want to avoid octaves between the rows, you have to set them up in advance in a very specific way for this to work, but the row in Schoenberg's Variations for Orchestra, for example, is set up specifically so that it can be played with itself in parallel thirds.



> Also if I do break the 'rules' slightly, then my diversions require justification, and how do you explain 'wrong notes' in a serial sense? If I find breaking the rules just 'sounds better', then it turns out personally the rules are more of a bind than something that frees me to write the music I want to write.


If it works for your music, that is its own justification.



> Perhaps most importantly, I don't want to write music that _sounds_ serial. Of course you can name serial music that doesn't sound typically serial; but its just as easy to fall into banality and the derivative in serialism as in any other way of working, perhaps even more so.


All sorts of things are serial.
















I'm not sure what serialism "sounds like".


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## Jobis

Mahlerian said:


> Serialism isn't really all that strict, especially from the 60s on. It became more of a guiding principle than a set of rules.
> 
> You can organize your row harmonically to begin with, or you can set it up so the row is broken up between the melodic/thematic lines and the accompanimental ones. Of course, you have to realize that a congruence between melodic and harmonic voices was the exact thing Schoenberg was after when he developed the technique, as he had been doing this going all the way back to the Chamber Symphony.
> 
> You can play the same row off of itself in a different transposition. If you want to avoid octaves between the rows, you have to set them up in advance in a very specific way for this to work, but the row in Schoenberg's Variations for Orchestra, for example, is set up specifically so that it can be played with itself in parallel thirds.
> 
> If it works for your music, that is its own justification.
> 
> All sorts of things are serial.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I'm not sure what serialism "sounds like".


I didn't mean to say that there is any one serial sound, what I said was that I don't want my music to sound serial. As in, the kind of piece you listen to and can immediately recognise it as serial.

Most 'serial' composers, as you said, do not follow the rules religiously, and haven't really done so since Webern.

I want to do something new, and the term 'serial' is so far reaching these days that it encompasses all sorts of practices, few of them serial in the original sense.


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## PetrB

Jobis said:


> The problem I find with serialism is that the harmonies are derived from a single linear row, rather than being super-imposed colourations of a melodic line/fundamental tone. The result of this is that the harmonies sound like a kind of melodic pileup; several tones of the row occurring at the same time.
> 
> I realise one could create another kind of harmony by having two rows playing against each other in counterpoint; but how do you derive harmonies between two separate rows; are they not rather working independently with accidental or resultant harmony? I am not interested in arbitrary use of tone rows in that way.


Berg used multiple tone-rows simultaneously, with tremendous (and _lush_) resulting harmony. You might want to look into some of his works.


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## Torkelburger

> So does anyone know of any modern approaches to harmony/polyphony that aren't based on strict laws, such as serialism (on the one hand) or totally ad hoc 'free' tonality/atonality (on the other)?


Yes. I highly recommend two books that are worth their weight in gold on the subject: 1) _Twentieth-Century Harmony_ by Vincent Persichetti and 2) _New Directions in Music_ by David Cope. You have to get BOTH as the first one is the bible of traditional, standard twentieth-century harmonic techniques of 1900-1960 while the second book is the bible of the avant-garde, aleatoric, experimental, extended technique, etc. Both are must-haves for any composer at any stage of his career IMHO. The first book has writing exercises that you could do on your computer and work on discovering what materials best suit your voice.


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## dgee

This is a good website about a range of techniques as they are applied or pertain to Per Norgard's music - some food for thought maybe:

http://www.pernoergaard.dk/eng/musikhistorisk/musikhistorisk.html


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## Jobis

One kind of working practice I have used in the past was a variation on traditional serialism (which is by no means original, I expect);

Instead of having a prime row, I would have an ordered series of interval relations, from 1-6.

A row might be something like; ,3,4,1,2,5,

The commas would represent the actually sounding tones, the numbers inbetween being their intervallic relations. 

This allows me to invert a sequence dynamically - rather than having a prime order and a separate inversion. I can just as easily go from C to A as I can from C to Eb, since they have the same intervallic relationship to C. 

Its nothing new, but it helps me to think about serial procedures in both a simpler, and a (personally) more freeing, dynamic way. 

That Norgard site is fascinating! Cheers dgee.

*Petrb - I'm familiar with Lulu, Wozzeck and the Violin Concerto which are all incredible works in their own ways, but I've never looked at his work from an analytical perspective; though that would be very profitable for me I'm sure.

*Torkelburger - I'd heard of them, but I wasn't sure if they were any good. Will definitely try and get hold of them now, though! Thanks.


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## differencetone

Torkelburger said:


> Yes. I highly recommend two books that are worth their weight in gold on the subject: 1) _Twentieth-Century Harmony_ by Vincent Persichetti and 2) _New Directions in Music_ by David Cope. You have to get BOTH as the first one is the bible of traditional, standard twentieth-century harmonic techniques of 1900-1960 while the second book is the bible of the avant-garde, aleatoric, experimental, extended technique, etc. Both are must-haves for any composer at any stage of his career IMHO. The first book has writing exercises that you could do on your computer and work on discovering what materials best suit your voice.


Another book which music professors like is:

Composing Music - A New Approach by William Russo


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## Guest

I am not a composer. I am barely even a musician - not formally trained in the slightest on guitar or piano, really. So I fully understand how limited one can feel when moved by music in that particular part of the brain.

I am currently (and very occasionally) working in my free time from my job and my engineering degree on some stuff involving superimposing mathematical coordinates and musical staves, but the lack of an education is really quite limiting. I do have a few fragments floating around though.

I also did a funny fragment of a "Bach permutation" where I did some sorta Norgardish stuff (I guess) by establishing a series of rules to alter a Bach keyboard work. Something like, I derived a sort of tone row from the piece and then said, oh, every 5th note will be replaced by the next note in the row. Every 13th note is dropped, doubling the preceding note value or whatever. It was interesting because I didn't expect how much the rules would gradually compound upon themselves, but the particular fragment still sounded like a--.

Also, a sidenote, I was thinking about something like that intervallic row thing the other day. Glad to know it works for you.


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