Soaring on the Rays of Infinity - Piano Sketch

I absolutely adore this piece and I'm really excited to hear it fully formed! I'm constantly blown away by the talent on this forum.

 

I haven't read the discussion but this piece sounds amazing. However I would slow a bit the first 30 senconds BPM.

 

Alexander,

First of all, my congratulations on this piece of music It is abundantly clear that a monumental amount of work has gone into this.

I can't offer you any valid 'criticism' or 'suggestions' just now as at the moment I just haven't got the time to give this piece the serious attention it clearly warrants.

However, I have, as usual, a fair amount of travelling to do in the next few days, and would love it if you could make a download of it available so I can give it sone serious attention. I tend to listen to music to the point of destruction when travelling and I always learn a lot from it. (I appreciate that you may not wish to do so however.) Then I might be in a position to offer an idea or two.

Oh, in case I forget to mention it, I like this piece of music. A lot.

Best Wishes,

Michael.

 

Wow, I can only say bravo Alexander. Checks all the boxes of the music I love. Great piece, congratulations.

 

Ok..... I am really slow.

This will most likely need to be at least two posts.

At this point I would say the biggest piece of advice I would give is to simply finish the piece. Make it a Version 1.0
Reach a point where you feel it is proper to say "It is done".

It's important to be able to work within constraints. Freedom thru limitation as they say. It's also important that you have very positive moments too.
Reaching the conclusion is ideally like climbing a very tall mountain. A lot of work, but rewarding.

You have already been very disciplined with regards to the quality. It seems to me we are now really at a "cosmetic" stage. While I don't think this has occurred yet to you, their can be the "law of diminishing returns" . Or even worse when the edits and obsession actually make the piece more shit.

Now there may be things......say 1 month, or 6 months from now (or more) that you will want to change. That's why I called it 1.0

All the suggestions I will be writing out, be mostly from the point of view as if you were going to create a suite, and not necessarily edits needed for this piece.

The reasoning for this also is a practical one: If you were given a "dream gig"......say I offered you 2 million dollars to write a 60 - 65 minute soundtrack in this same style.
I would also give you twice as long as standard as it is difficult music.......so you have 12 weeks to write 65 minutes.

I think this might kill you right now. (it might kill me too BTW.......perhaps a future Redbanned mega challenge !)

The ability to make more from less...... that serves everyone. Anyhow....... when I get to it, I hope at the very least my examples broaden your perspective.

But first............. disclaimer time ........

Not so much for Alex, but to ensure the positive vibes around here, and those who might not know Alex and myself have commented on each others music for years:
____________________________________________________________________________________________

First off let me say the obvious: Bravo ! Your hard work shows, and this all sounds great. I’ve heard your pieces for a few years now
- maybe 5-6 - from Vi-C and your development as a composer is truly inspiring.

Now I know you are German, and I can just whip you (y’all are into that shit) without regards to your feelings. I’ll of course give you my best advice on “musical dentistry” but first let me offer an analogy

Over the past weekend I was listening to an interview with a famous comedian named Jay Leno.

He was first talking about how Robin Williams used to ask him to sit in the audience to criticize him after the show. The basis of this was Robin Williams was such a good presenter he could read the newspaper and people would be pissing their pants. So he wanted to know from Jay what was really funny, and what was performance.

Jay Leno went on to say the same thing he experienced with another famous comedian named Johnny Carson. He also recognized Leno was a marvelous presenter. Carson advised him after watching one of his gigs, that he should write out his jokes on a notecard, and just read the notecard in front of the audience. No facial expressions, no mannerisms at all. Then, the ones that were really funny……he could use those and it would take up his material to another level.

Now, in no way do I think I am like a Johnny Carson of music. Far from it. In fact I have had a totally shit week of composing.( I am ghosting for another composer and he zigs when I would zag, and if it was not an ethical breach I would totally post the piece here for …, purely moral support if nothing else.)

Basically, I am just saying I consider this commentary as one professional to another.

The things you talk about the most, and spend the most time on (orchestration, memorable/interesting and easy to follow "patterns", and mock-ups) are your core strengths. (what a surprise… the things you focus on are what you are best at.)

The next post will be about things you can add to you tool box.

Coming soon......................

 

Woah first time I'm hearing this, must have missed this thread some how. Excellent work, reminds me of Max Steiner's Casablanca score.

 

PART 2:

Most of these comments are in the “subjective” zone, so as always take what you serves you, and ignore anything that does not suit.


Finish the piece and call it 1.0


Then work on

Piano only - Theme and Variations


Use these as a “garden” to grow new ideas.
I often find it helpful to give a goal in terms of Quantity. Let's say you aim to write 10 variations of 16 -32 measures in length.

Don’t make them too long either. Working again in piano score means you can focus all your attention on the music.
It can be hard to be motivated to re-work existing material after all these days/hours and it’s fully orchestrated.

This will allow you to treat each variation like an experiment. It also provides freedom (temporarily) from the “story-telling” aspect of the composition. Reflecting upon my own learning, I pushed off theme and variations for a long time as I was mostly interested in the story/drama side. I now think I was mistaken. Basically, the storytelling skills you already have, which are essential too, will still be there. In any given composition our listening in the moment is influenced by the memory of what came before and the expectations we have going forward.

This means, for example, you might reharmonize your melody with more distant harmonic areas than you ever would for the opening. Or more dense counterpoint etc. A "context free zone"

It’s sort of like being a puzzle maker. Each one is a piece that fits into a larger whole. Just make each piece as interesting as you can, and then you can step away and ponder how they could be inserted into your piece, or for a new movement.

It somehow slipped by my attention for a long time that composers like Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms wrote such skilled long form pieces, worked on theme and variations all the time.

As you continue to study scores you can always try juxtaposing a new idea with your previous theme.

Suggested listening

I think I wrote to you the first time I heard piece that it reminded me a bit of Leia’s theme from Star Wars IV.

I am not sure if you know the piece, but give this a few listens.
( I assure you all the composers from the 40’s would know this piece inside and out.
It’s one of the most talked about works in all of music theory.)

(Both use ascending 6th’s as the opening of their melody.)


I think these will be good sources for your expanding on voice-leading/contrapuntal aspects of your music.
The Wagner work is often called music of “Delayed Gratification”. It’s worth exploring both works.
You already have these things in your work too, but these examples go further.



Here are some of the things I would focus on:

Rhythm and Meter
Long range horizontal lines

One of the biggest improvements from the piano reduction to the orchestral version is we loose the heavy pulse of the accompaniment, which additionally was in rhythmic unison with the melody. Do a A/B comparison and only listen for the rhythmic aspect. Since the orchestral version has more rhythmic independence, it also sounds more contrapuntal.


Maybe right from the start I would just try and use my imagination. I try also not so much “think-up” ideas, but also just observe the music.
Asking questions is very helpful. (as in asking oneself the questions)




My first response is wondering if this is a single line, or are we hearing two parts as one.

(it’s worth noting this is due to the difference in steps or leaps.)





I bring this up first for two reasons.

1. Piano writing can often to lead anyone to not thinking about note duration/decay
2. The other reason is, it maybe be possible to parse out the two different elements for a leitmotiv

For example (I am just making this up on the spot) each line could be a character or a psychological state.
Looking at your progression for you melody we see this minor 2nd movement is pretty important.

(Reduction)



So minor seconds might represent - intrigue/suspense when ascending, and for descending disguise/keeping secrets.
Perhaps connected to the male character (?)




The other motif, (and this applies to the rest of the melody that has diatonic step wise movement.) another dramatic anchor.
So this could be about the female character, or things like “the glance” or “the kiss” etc.

The combination of the two is reflective of them integrated, and how they interact with each other. So then this.



Is almost like a dance between the two. The good news is what you parse out and develop individually can be juxtaposed later and make interesting new directions.

(To be clear, I am not suggesting leaps should be avoided. The opposite….they can add interest !)


Ex. 1 Mozart Piano

Once again the 6th gets featured (C# - A) in the

If we look at his melody: (Again this is meant to be a theoretical reduction and not how the actual score would be notated. Some things are intentionally left out. Look up Schenkerian theory for a more detailed explanation.).

I have notated the melody we hear as two separate voices. (stems up/down)



So if you look at one voice it is simply the scale descending (5-4-3-2-1-7-1)

The other voice also descends mostly by step with a 3-2-1. There is a leap to D, which I am sure he wanted to do to hold as the note skipped is the leading tone. All diatonic notes are presented in the melody.

Now why give a fuck ?

Well this melody to has nice leaps and steps with similar intervals……..but ………
what does Mozart do when the strings enter and he develops the melody ? He is so clever with his material.

So now, we hear:



The melody is the same three notes of voice 1 (important to note in the same register).
He has already used that to plant the seed, and now it feels familiar, but very different.
Notice how all the leaps are removed until “arrival” spots. As the middle material continues it behaves just like the before….moving in diatonic step, but now up and down.

About those arrival spots ….. look at the first note and the last. There is the 6th from the opening. Mozart is incredible for musical flow. Hopefully that is a clear illustration of parsing out one aspect of a melody and expanding/developing/twisting


As an example of juxtaposing smaller motivic ideas, this piece is a great example.
Very tiny musical ideas which get re-arranged in so many clever ways

More soon !

 

OK. Now with with the general approach established, lets look at writing a few variations

(the main point is not that one is better than the other. It’s about variety. That you have a tool box for saying one thing…..20 different ways and you control it as you see fit.)

I’ll begin with the points Gregory brought up. @Gregory D. Moore

Let’s listen to your melody from :27 to :42



Basically it's an exact repeat, and the variation comes from the inner lines the second time. So put together we get something like this:




(* what is interesting to me, is the 2nd time the G is much less pronounced, so it almost sounds like there is a 2 beat rest in measure 5. I like that ! But I worry that maybe a happy accident. The next phrase also has a cool 3 feeling like 1, which I think was intentional and a deft move.)


Ok…….. so here we can see what creates smaller vs longer phrase arches.

To map out the multiple phrase rhythms as to how I hear this section would be



What I am trying to convey is I can view it measure to measure. Each down beat is getting accented very strong. I also simultaneously perceive it as groups of two measure phrases as you depart and return from the tonic. Lastly the phrase is clearly heard as a group of four with the long G
signaling the statement has completed (temporarily)


Now………. let’s say I take your melody and keep it exactly as is for the first time thru.

The second time, I will simply alter one pitch. (D: this will make it clearly a Fmi6 aka Dmi7b5).
To carry over from examples in my last post let’s avoid accenting every downbeat with our melody.
(Remember that E that was sustained)

Additionally I’ll incorporate a little bit from the Mozart. I am just going to ornament the 2nd part of measure 6.

Now we get this:



Next I’ll make another change. Where you go or these last two measures(I think ?) to

F maj7/C, quickly back to F minor, and to Cmaj7.

I’ll resolve back to C at measure 7, (again using the Mozart idea of outlining the initial idea in retrograde) and since we have heard the first time Ab- G at the end of the phrase I’ll reverse this too.

Finally I went back and tweaked the end of measure 4 just to give it a push forward.

Now we might have something like this:




So, (again the point is not that this is any way better, but our perception of it changes)

Now, to my ears at least, the phrase arches are more like this:




The most important being the feeling of a whole 8 measure phrase, which was achieved by basically making the last measure unstable (E7)

I’ll be able to add one more of these to the thread with more counterpoint and maybe even more blurring of the barlines.

Again, you most likely do not want to go this far right at the start. But I think the practice of theme and variations will let you observe the different affects, and you can measure by what excites your ear.

Putting back to back the examples

Your version plays first, what I described follow. (* I am just using noteperformer, and only strings.....so please keep in mind it's the "gist")

 

Jesus Christ, Doug, you're a treasure.

 

The posts of Doug's I've bookmarked would fill, well, a book.

 

Way out of my league in terms of commentary. I love reading Doug's feedback on work like this, so I appreciate you sharing even just for that opportunity.

Well done. Seriously. I'll be listening to this a few times.

 

As we have discussed, I would like you to record them as an audio book.

In the form of sonnets, and accompanied by lutes.

Dilly, Dilly

 

Would love Noire movie recommendations to study!

 

Hey !
I read your message too, and please know there is no reason / obligation to reply to anything I posted (including the last one I still have to write)

If something makes no sense that I wrote, then by all means ask for clarification. Otherwise .... do your thing.

I have not really talked yet about that piece. In the next post, as I alluded is coming.

I don't think, at least in any meaningful way, I have talked about harmony. You already do that well, and I am not very concerned about that aspect of
your craft as I feel you have a intellectual "gravity" that pulls you towards further investigation of harmony

I am sure it can be odd at times, but with these longer posts (I do this alot too for other people I comment on) I am trying to point to things that
I suspect are "blind spots"

That's why I picked rhythm and meter. The Williams post coming is going to be on the same thing. It's applicable to any type of harmonic language.

That's fairly easy to explain. You know so much of this stuff comes from the German empire. (Prussia/Bavarian and earlier periods)
You're not really a guy named Daryl from Florida are you ?

Ok... This is trivia, but I opened the door so here we go.

The II min7 b5 is not really considered to be this in classical theory. The overtone series is the reason why. It would be a iv min6 (Fmi6)This gives the sonority (another term for chord) the most stability.
F as the tonic, makes the C the 5th, the Ab the 3rd. The D is viewed as an extension of this triad (the 6th). So Dmin7b5 would be the 3rd inversion. (Jazz theory differs as most commonly the II min7 b5 goes onto the V Dom and not just straight back to I)

The German music theorist Hugo Riemann wrote extensively about harmony and books today like "Hollywood Harmony" (This book was discussed a lot at VI-C) draw heavily still from his work.

Function. That's Riemann. He made the term popular. While Rameau and Weber also had theories about this concept before put a whole new spin on things and was better at explain late romantic music's sudden modulations.

He created tonal areas of Tonic - Dominant - and this "purgatory" area called Sub-dominant.

He wanted chords to be considered outside of the context of "Key" and "Scale Degree".
Instead he argued for an essential identity of individual chord, meanings of the chords which progressions link together. Very much in a archetype (aka Signafier to use your term)

To circle back to this; in Riemann's theory this "progression" (now intentionally in quotes on my part) works so well, is because they are the same chord.

Read that again.

"they are the same chord."

C major is C, with a Major 3rd and then a Min.3 stacked above it.



If we treat C as an AXIS, and invert.

C --- Down a major 3rd, and the down another min 3. we get F min.



Now if we extend the fmi to include the 6th (D) and do the same process again on C we will end up with C7.

This was one of his points. It creates an ambiguity (very good for film scoring) of how we perceive this. If we kept the extensions (you drop them on returning to C some of the time) then it's a big V-I in which the V sort of feels like the I. You move to Cmaj7 a few time which "confirms" the character of the key.

All of this is to say...... if one puts on these type of analytical filters (not saying thats the correct thing to do.....just want you to ponder)
drum roll please....the 8 measures of all the C-fmi6, and also Fmaj7, Cmaj7........is just one chord.

In both Riemann and Heinrich Schenker (another German out to prove the superiority of german art) the term "elaboration" is used.

Or to say another way that's more common around here (although he doesn't really use the term in this way. It seems more of an orchestration critique) it all "vertical development"

It's the C# that moves us out of the sonority.

I've gone on too long....and it's really just trivia.

But let me end with this.

If any of the above made sense, and you kind of get thinking behind it, then if we are fascinated by half diminished (min7b5) chords
AND

Then --- for the love of God --- spend time each day for the next 10 days listening to the Wagner I posted.
Don't turn into a Nazi, but really everything you are getting influenced by was influenced by Wagner and German art theory. (I am including all the great German jewish musicians too)
(the French, Brits and Russians put their own very important spin on this)
(Debussy felt Parsifal was a watershed moment in music, and the greatest work ever. He railed against Wagner and Germans but it's clear he was heartbroken. There are Urban myths of him traveling for a week to meet Brahms who refused to come to the door because he was French. It's unclear what happened factually)

Seriously, try ---- as much as you can stand and according to your schedule - transcribe as much as Tristan and Isolde as possible.

It could be interesting to trying to do this, but not worry about the pitches. Only.....say it with me.....rhythm and meter.

Always be true to your own artistic voice, but I assert that film scores lead one to be very heavy on the down beats of 1 and tend to hit this each measure.
It's kind of akin to aspiring film composers "Cartooning" or "Mickey Mousing" action cues. Back in the day, when I had aspirations of film composing, that was Chris Young's biggest critique of an action cue I wrote.
It took a while to get my head around why I would not want drums and brass when the car exploded.

As you know, I am more classical and concert music oriented in heart. So you adjust - or ignore- as you wish. Just trying to give you new things to ponder, and you can discover or dismiss as you please

Again it's not that one is inherently "better" it's more like getting a 5th gear for your car or a 6th sense.

While he does not specifically talk about meter and heavy down beats, he does talk about the process and part of the reason why film music does this more than concert music