# What kind of challenges do you give yourselves? fellow composers!



## Xenakiboy

Ok, so this week I'm writing a set of 10 - 20 Etudes for solo piano. :devil:

What kind of challenges do you give yourselves? :tiphat:


----------



## Pugg

Xenakiboy said:


> Ok, so this week I'm writing a set of 10 - 20 Etudes for solo piano. :devil:
> 
> What kind of challenges do you give yourselves? :tiphat:


Don't forget the new day job, in a few hours it's Wednesday in your neck of the woods.


----------



## Xenakiboy

Pugg said:


> Don't forget the new day job, in a few hours it's Wednesday in your neck of the woods.


Yep, I'm looking forward starting tomorrow. But firstly as a composer, I will always be composing, maybe not at work but you know the deal... :tiphat:

What are you composing Pugg?


----------



## Billy

I love the challenges of using and incorporating new technologies in my music. Mostly I make free-form rock music, and when I turn to some classical, I try not to use the computer much, but just my trusty Kurzweil synthesizer for both kinds.


----------



## Pugg

Xenakiboy said:


> Yep, I'm looking forward starting tomorrow. But firstly as a composer, I will always be composing, maybe not at work but you know the deal... :tiphat:
> 
> What are you composing Pugg?


I don't compose , in my opinion everything is done better then I ever could do. 
Besides that, there's so much music out there to explore, so, I stick to my job and the piano teaching.


----------



## Alexanbar

Pugg said:


> I don't compose , in my opinion everything is done better then I ever could do.


I read the next story.
One man composes music. 
The teacher says: "Could you not to compose music?"
- Yes.

You may compose music if you can't live without composing.


----------



## dieter

Today the challenges were to get through a CD of Milton Babbitt's music, followed by a CD of Jacob Druckmann's music. I failed miserably.


----------



## JamieHoldham

My challenge is to use counterpoint where ever possible, use as many counterpoint techniques as possible, explore counterpoint and possibly invent new forms or alter existing forms of counterpoint related styles of music e.g Fugues.

I basically want to be the next Bach, I'll never be as good as the master of course


----------



## Alexanbar

Usially I listen a score many times and counterpoint is created necessarily.
Sometimes I change counterpoint completely.


----------



## Mahlerian

dieter said:


> Today the challenges were to get through a CD of Milton Babbitt's music, followed by a CD of Jacob Druckmann's music. I failed miserably.


Why were you compelled to listen in the first place? I enjoy quite a bit of Babbitt myself, but I know it's not for everyone.

As for the OP, I'm writing a longer piece for flute and piano, in three sections played without pause.


----------



## SeptimalTritone

Mahlerian said:


> Why were you compelled to listen in the first place? I enjoy quite a bit of Babbitt myself, but I know it's not for everyone.
> 
> As for the OP, I'm writing a longer piece for flute and piano, in three sections played without pause.


Because, and I'm being genuine here: when one doesn't like a romantic era composer after a good amount of careful listens, we generally can comprehend what's going on to be confident in ourselves that we just don't like the composer. But when one doesn't like a modern or avant garde composer after a good amount of careful listens, because it can feel so difficult to comprehend at the gut level and because so much is going on at the surface and in the background cogs, it is harder to be confident in ourselves that we just don't like composer.

For example, actually, I just listened to Repons, Derive, and Sur Incices a few times each recently, and... god I know you can't imagine anyone finding it ugly, but I do. Not because of any sort of dissonance, but because these feel like a bunch of somewhat similar sound fields and structures or motifs and more generally, stuff stacked on each other. I have little sense of the interaction between these sound fields. I have little sense of the harmonic rhythm and little sense of goal. Well, actually, the feeling of semi-stasis, and gradual kaleidoscopic shift and coloristic exploration by exploring highly extended chords and motif/textural structures may just be the point.

And reading about Boulez doesn't seem to help. I once read that Russian dude's analysis of Le marteau, and it didn't teach me anything. Who cares that it cuts up a tone row in various sets, pitch mulitplies these sets, and walks through the possibilities in a structured way? Such an analysis tells me nothing about how I should listen to it (indeed, a lot of Webern or even romantic/classical analysis is extremely cookie cutter play-by-play reporting, and I've had to fill in a lot of my own reflection into things to learn how the music works.) I just don't "feel" it. There is a sense of kaleidoscopic similarity, but I really don't like dense and chromatic and non-tertian spaced fields of notes, combined with only a coloristic sense of drift rather than a cadential or modal sense of motion. I need, in such dense textures of just notes and not other kind of sounds, notes need to have their goal and motional feel: that's what turned the second Viennese guys from being intolerable to being awesome.

On the other hand, something purely electronic and musique concrete based, like Stockhausen's Hymen, is easily comprehensible, accessible, and enjoyable. And Lachenmann's or Dumitrescu's or Xenakis's instrumental pitch-noise continuum is comprehensible and enjoyable because one can directly feel that continuum being played out in real time, and it provides a definite feel of something clear changing, that one can feel like a master of. But with Boulez, one has that feeling of so many notes, where it seems like they should have some sort of progressional feel but they actually don't: they are merely a soundscape painting by themselves, although there is motif, layering, development, dialogue, and a feeling of harmonic space and textural space and combinations of things covered, although gradually so you don't know what hit you... and you don't feel like a master of it.

Well, is my reason for not enjoying Boulez as one of the best few post-1950 composers a failure of comprehension, or legitimate?


----------



## Mahlerian

SeptimalTritone said:


> Well, is my reason for not enjoying Boulez as one of the best few post-1950 composers a failure of comprehension, or legitimate?


Those don't seem like mutually exclusive choices.

Your sense of the rapid activity creating perceived stasis within certain harmonic fields in Boulez's music is similar to mine, but unlike you, I find it fascinating rather than infuriating, an extension of similar techniques one finds in Debussy or perhaps in non-Western musics.

I've never read much in the way of detailed analysis of any of his works, so I can truthfully say, with Stravinsky, that my attraction comes from the fact that "I like the way it sounds."

I can't have any understanding of your perceiving it as ugly, because I only have access to my own perceptions, but I'm aware that many people do perceive it and other things I find beautiful (including Mahler!) as ugly. My point was not to assert my superiority as a listener, but on the contrary to point out that we should never take our own subjective reactions as normative and make assertions for others.


----------



## SeptimalTritone

Mahlerian said:


> Those don't seem like mutually exclusive choices.
> 
> Your sense of the rapid activity creating perceived stasis within certain harmonic fields in Boulez's music is similar to mine, but unlike you, I find it fascinating rather than infuriating, an extension of similar techniques one finds in Debussy or perhaps in non-Western musics.
> 
> I've never read much in the way of detailed analysis of any of his works, so I can truthfully say, with Stravinsky, that my attraction comes from the fact that "I like the way it sounds."
> 
> I can't have any understanding of your perceiving it as ugly, because I only have access to my own perceptions, but I'm aware that many people do perceive it and other things I find beautiful (including Mahler!) as ugly. My point was not to assert my superiority as a listener, but on the contrary to point out that we should never take our own subjective reactions as normative and make assertions for others.


You are definitely right about activity within a given harmonic field, and then slow change of said harmonic field, is a standard Debussy technique.

A lot people have said that if one takes the slowly changing harmonic fields and textures of Debussy, with the chromatic pitch ordering and organization of the second Viennese, one can see why a figure like Boulez would pop up.

Maybe it's just the combination of the rapid and dense activity with a stasis that allows combination of these blocks in many different ways with many... too many different permutations that I dislike.

Of course I agree 100% with your last sentence.


----------



## Xenakiboy

I've been surprised by how my threads have turned into unrelated conversation before but come on guys, the thread is about challenges you are giving yourselves as composers. not at any point was it about listening or disliking music


----------



## Vasks

Xenakiboy said:


> I've been surprised by how my threads have turned into unrelated conversation before


Welcome to the World Wide Web


----------



## Xenakiboy

Vasks said:


> Welcome to the World Wide Web


:scold:

You don't need to tell me about it :lol:


----------



## Xenakiboy

Why have the mods allowed that? (out of curiosity)
As the thread is plainly and obviously not titled "what music do you struggle with?" or "what challenges do you music listeners give yourselves?"


----------



## Pugg

Alexanbar said:


> I read the next story.
> One man composes music.
> The teacher says: "Could you not to compose music?"
> - Yes.
> 
> You may compose music if you can't live without composing.


My life is very fine without


----------



## Richannes Wrahms

DominusSeptimalTritonus's brain said:


> I dislike even more composers than RnnesWms. I must be getting good at this.


. .


----------



## Mahlerian

Xenakiboy said:


> Why have the mods allowed that? (out of curiosity)
> As the thread is plainly and obviously not titled "what music do you struggle with?" or "what challenges do you music listeners give yourselves?"


A certain amount of leeway for thread drift is allowed as part of the natural progression of many topics.

Back on topic, after I finish the flute and piano piece, I might write one for guitar...


----------



## musicrom

When I compose, I always try to challenge myself to do something new/different. It might be something as simple as trying a different instrumentation, or maybe to focus more on thematic development, or trying a different musical style, or trying to pay more attention to form. 

I haven't had any sort of formal training in composition, so I figure trying new things is the best way to improve my skills. The hope is that eventually I will be able to do all of these things in one piece.


----------



## Xenakiboy

My deal is that I'm not satisfied as a composer if I'm not challenging myself, putting myself out of my safety-zone. But I read a lot of theory regularly, so that helps me to learn and strengthen myself!


----------



## Hibiki Itano

I don't want to put any pressure on my writing, since I think that music has to come naturally. So I always give it some time.


----------



## Yombie

today i tried to find the most challenging music to listen to, something that was kind of abject, non melodic and non rhythmic, and i tried to make it listenable.


----------



## dzc4627

Abandoning any form of midi completely. Just writing on the piano.


----------

