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Post by David Unger on Oct 2, 2017 15:00:47 GMT
I have found that I get a lot more done and compose a lot easier when I have planned a "work" consisting of several pieces or movements than when I just sit down to write a "piece" that is supposed to stand on it's own.
I have also found that I get a lot more anxiety when writing these "works" since their accumulated size and rather more pretentious character this brings to them make me feel that I have to do better in these to make them defend their existence.
A double-edged sword therefore.
Have you eperienced something similar and what does it do with/for you positively or negatively?
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Post by fuguestate on Oct 2, 2017 17:04:50 GMT
Unfortunately, while I have attempted multi-movement pieces (works?) before, I have not been able to complete them to my satisfaction. There is one multi-movement piece/work I've completed, but it's not of the quality that I'd be willing to share publicly. In general, I've had a rather low success rate with preplanned pieces. In the past, my best works were those that came pretty much "spontaneously" to me, either at the piano, or in my mind, and were completed within a short period of time. More recently, I've had some success with roughly-sketched pieces, but not with meticulously-planned pieces. Usually, the way they finally turn out in the end is quite different from my original plans for them. The Threnody I wrote a few years ago, for example, began as a set of sketches of several alternative approaches to Gav's Fireworks contest on the Other Site. It was stuck in the planning stages for a long time, because I couldn't decide on which plan to follow. Eventually, one day I just sat down and just began writing, not knowing where I was going. As I went, a plan slowly formed from what was written, and then I began to steer the music roughly according to one of the alternative plans that roughly resembled what was taking form. Eventually, said plan was heavily modified before the piece took its final form. So was it a preplanned piece, or was it an inspirational piece? Hard to say. Perhaps it was a balance somewhere between the two, a delicate interplay between the music "following its own nose" and me, the composer, nudging it ever so gently in the "right" direction. My C# minor fugue also began as just a subject, and it basically unfolded itself as I went along. At certain junctures I did decide to follow (or move in the general direction of) a plan I had thought of in some unrelated sketches, but again it was the music guiding the details, and the overall, final form didn't completely follow what I originally had in mind. The middle grand stretto section involved a lot of careful exploration of stretto possibilities, but even then, all the planning went nowhere until one day I just decided to start writing, and while I did draw heavily on my study of the stretto possibilities, the music pretty much dictated where it went, and its final form certainly was quite far off from my original conception of it. And Exuberance definitely did not go where I originally planned for it to go. I spent months trying to move it in the preplanned direction, but it was futile. Eventually, I just let the music go where it wanted, and it was only then the eventual idea of exploring the various permutations of the subject and countersubject emerged. Planning and me just don't seem to go well together. Although on the flip side, if I had no plan at all it wouldn't end up anywhere either -- inspiration has this annoying habit of evaporating in the middle of a piece, leaving me at a loss as to what to do next. So it seems my "sweet spot" lies somewhere in the nebulous realm between a preplanned piece and an improvisation. As for multi-movement pieces/works, I'm still struggling to produce a completed example. I have a lot of multi-movement sketches, but none of them has materialized just yet.
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Post by Bob Porter on Oct 2, 2017 17:14:19 GMT
For me, for the most part, "works" are far to pretentious (as you say), highbrow, serious, and otherwise way too far above my station. I find that any situation where one note has to follow another, to be as equally difficult to do as any other. And each movement of a work should somehow relate to the other movements. Heck, I have trouble making a movement relate to itself. Yet, I do sometimes get a burr under my saddle to do a more serious work. The problem is that it is more likley to go unfinished, than is a piece. Yes, a work carries an ominous responsibility, and not lightly undertaken.
On the other hand I get the chance to shuck it all and do a work if I so choose.
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Post by fuguestate on Oct 2, 2017 17:45:17 GMT
Bob Porter: Fugues are a great way for a movement to relate to itself.
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Post by David Unger on Oct 2, 2017 17:52:41 GMT
I think too, that it can be difficult to plan ahead too much, but find that, once a piece is finished, to write something in a similar vein is easier since I have gotten in "the mood" for that particular music and also discarded ideas that now have nowhere to go. Of course the first igniting spark is always the hardest but if I have a stucture or plan it is easier to develop that spark within a particular form. And since I do often use more or less knowingly the same material several pieces in sequence it somehow excuses me if I set it in a different form as a second movement or a piece to be connected with the first piece. Also I find that if I choose, say, five poems instead of one and plan a cycle out of these poems that I feel that I HAVE TO continue composing to make the cycle complete before feeling at ease. So in a way I think it is also a way of putting pressure on myself to create. Then again many pieces that were first in a larger environment are often discarded since all of them are not as good (as with my Allegro vivace for piano, which was initially a first movement of a sonatina and my Minuet for string quartet which was initially the third movement of a four movement work), but then I have a few pieces to choose from and can compare and pick out the best ones. Perhaps I also somewhere think that I will have a better chance of being performed if I can present a number of pieces at a time to a musician and let them choose which ones they like the most and that it will give them a better impression if these pieces are somehow presented as a whole work instead of just being random short pieces. But this is somewhat vain I admit and I am not really sure if it actually has that effect on them. (Although it has that effect on me, needless to say, impressed as I am of composers who can compose cycles and suites that really make the whole into more then just the sum of the entities)
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Post by Deleted on Oct 2, 2017 18:18:08 GMT
Bob Porter : Fugues are a great way for a movement to relate to itself. Leave Bob alone or.........make up your mind. there is a whole board here set aside for fugue related stuff but your still not sure about jumping ship are you?
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Post by Bob Porter on Oct 2, 2017 18:31:58 GMT
David, As far as the "works" that I have done go? I can't imagine discarding or rearranging the movements in any way. Each movement was written with the previous movement in mind, and would make even less sense if changed.
Yes, fugues. Many cogs that have to fit together.
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Post by fuguestate on Oct 2, 2017 21:15:43 GMT
The reason I said fugues, besides my current obsession with them, is because they force you to explore the subject in as many ways as you can. The permeation of the subject throughout the entire piece ensures a certain amount of internal consistency and inter-relationships between the parts. In one sense it's a very constricted way to compose, but in another sense it grants you freedom to explore very diverse settings to display the subject in, while being confident that no matter how wildly you diverge, the subject entry will still confer a certain level of consistency with everything else. (If you're willing to venture past the fences of Bach's garden of classical fugues, that is. I don't think anyone has the skill to beat Bach at his own game; but the scope of fugues go far beyond him, and there is plenty of room for new ideas out there.)
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Post by driscollmusick on Oct 19, 2017 11:27:04 GMT
The reason I said fugues, besides my current obsession with them, is because they force you to explore the subject in as many ways as you can. The permeation of the subject throughout the entire piece ensures a certain amount of internal consistency and inter-relationships between the parts. In one sense it's a very constricted way to compose, but in another sense it grants you freedom to explore very diverse settings to display the subject in, while being confident that no matter how wildly you diverge, the subject entry will still confer a certain level of consistency with everything else. (If you're willing to venture past the fences of Bach's garden of classical fugues, that is. I don't think anyone has the skill to beat Bach at his own game; but the scope of fugues go far beyond him, and there is plenty of room for new ideas out there.) FS, I disagree with this. At least if you are following anything close to the "standard" fugue rules, the structure is super limited, especially with regard to subject development. That's why it's such a difficult exercise. You can explore "very diverse settings" of a theme in ANY form. Fugue, however, has a bunch of other expectations thrown on top (e.g., those expectations prompting some debate on the last forum as to whether or not a piano piece by Mike was actually a fugue). The first movement of Beethoven's 5th is a textbook example of subject development, but imagine how much less expressive the movement would be if Beethoven had limited himself to a fugal structure? Or any basically any theme and variations piece written over the past couple hundred years?
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Post by fuguestate on Oct 19, 2017 14:03:43 GMT
I don't care for the "standard" fugue rules or "textbook" fugues, which are lame ivory tower constructs only good to be imposed upon composition students. You know something is wrong when even Bach, ostensibly the master of fugues, needs "justifications" and "exceptions" from these so-called "rules". I like what Mr. Olroyd points out in his book on the spirit of fugue, that the so-called "irregularities" in Bach are actually perfectly normal when viewed in the right historical context. He also points out places where Bach "broke" the rules of proper harmony in preference for the melodicity of the lines.
Blind adherence to the supposed "rules", which are in reality merely imperfect generalizations of actual musical pieces at the time, is shortsighted, and IMNSHO foolish. I care for the spirit of fugue, the letter be damned.
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Post by fuguestate on Oct 19, 2017 14:24:10 GMT
To reply more specifically to the points you raised: who says fugues have to be limited in the kind of subject development "permitted"? Who laid down those "rules" anyway? And why indeed limit ourselves to historical practice? I have no problem at all in fugues that develop the subject in ways not attested in "traditional" fugues. It is when the spirit of fugue becomes imprisoned in an artificial set of supposed rules that the fugal art began to die.
As for theme with variations: fugues are far more flexible than that! There are so many more ways you can develop the subject fugally than boring repetitions merely with some minor variations in accompaniment or melodic elaboration. You can play with the subject in many more ways usually not used in a T&V piece. The counterpoint, at the very least, adds a whole new level of interest, if done sincerely rather than merely doing lip service to the "rules".
Now, if your definition of fugue is the textbook one, then I agree with you. But there is more, so much more, to fugal writing than that. Even historically, fugues encompass far more than what has come to be the lame duck modern day "definition" of fugue. Just as a trivial example, the I-V key scheme of subject and answer in the textbook definition is but one of MANY possibilities, attested even as early as Pachelbel. Look up Pachelbel's fugue's in Magnificat sometime. You'll see all kinds of key schemes for subject and answer, far beyond what the straitjacketed textbook model would suggest. And in modern times, who's to say we can't expand on the harmonic language employed?
Just as in business, the moment you stop developing is the moment your business starts dying. The fugue is dead the moment you artificially constrict it to some arbitrary set of "rules". But it continues to live, and I would even say, thrive, once you break out of this artificial straitjacket and realize it's only a mental block, not a real obstacle.
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Post by Bob Porter on Oct 19, 2017 14:26:33 GMT
I think the main problem with fugues is that you have to be good to write one. And it has to start with a great subject. And you have to be organized and focused. Limiting is not a word I would use. Talented enough to work within the structure is paramount. This is why I don't write them. I start one and 15 measures later, I'm out.
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Post by fuguestate on Oct 19, 2017 14:38:21 GMT
Bob, it is the challenge that will cause you to grow as a composer. I have written my fair share of failed fugues and non-starters. But I don't give up. That's how I learned to do it, if I might say so myself, somewhat well. I couldn't do this 2 years ago. But the process of trying to write a good fugue caused me to learn many things about fugal writing, and also composition in general. It forced me to learn counterpoint for real, not just the "wing-it" hack I used to pass as counterpoint before. It taught me how to write a theme that has developmental potential. It taught me how to listen for potential developments in the music that I would have missed before. And many other things. It's because of fugues that what I am today as a composer is much different from what I was 2 years ago. I don't recall having improved so much in such a short time before this.
The fact that fugues are so hard to write can be taken as a bad thing or a good thing. It all depends on your attitude.
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Post by pantonal on Nov 9, 2017 18:44:28 GMT
Great Topic!! So much to comment on.
To the OP, yes big pieces require a higher degree of diligence (and anxiety). I have written a number of them (I think I'm still in single digits). You can't just write a lot and wrap it up with a bow. There has to be a plan, but plans can change. Reading through fuguestate's challenges with composing fugues I noted (and agree) that the music will determine where it goes and very often that's a different direction than was initially anticipated. Still a long piece demands a big finish, you have to justify taking a long time and multiple movements to express yourself. It doesn't have to be a big loud finish, but it has to be evocative and take the listener to a different place and happy for the journey.
Fuguestate also commented (briefly) on variations. My first set of variations was exactly what he suggested "boring repetitions merely with some minor variations in accompaniment or melodic elaboration." Then I remembered Bach's Goldberg Variations and Passacaglia in c minor, Beethoven's Diabelli Variations, Brahms finale to the 4th Symphony, Rachmaninov Variations on a Theme of Paganini and I realized I'd been lazy. Taking a theme and composing variations is an excellent way to build composing chops. The first few variations will be obvious, you can throw them out if you prefer (walking bass line, embellishment). That's when you have to start being creative and stretch and in this regard composing variations is similar to composing fugues, because the challenge in both cases is to keep the music interesting.
Bob's comment about being "organized and focused" is absolutely on target for both fugues and variations, it is required. Fuguestate mentioned sketching strettos and inversions and yet that practice merely informed the music actually composed. I agree vehemently with Fuguestate about the limitations of fugue form, there are almost none. The "Academic fugue" was a product of the 19th century as a means to teach fugal writing, not as a prescription of the form. The fact is whether one is composing a fugue or variations or a multi-movement work one needs to be organized and focused, and yet open to following the music where it will go.
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Post by fuguestate on Nov 14, 2017 19:34:35 GMT
pantonal: I'll be frank: Brahms' finale to his 4th symphony isn't among my favorites, simply because the strict adherence to the canon form and also the choice of subject constricted the musical development a little too much, IMNSHO. As a result, I didn't find the ending a satisfying-enough close to what is otherwise an excellent symphony. Having said that, though, the breadth of what Brahms did accomplish within the confines of the canon on the chosen subject, is indisputably breathtaking. That he was able to express such a broad range of emotions and dramatic structures, such as the contemplative middle section contrasting with the dramatic outer sections, and many other such details, all within the strictures of the canon form, is nothing short of amazing. It's unfortunate that the music couldn't break free, esp. harmonically, at the end to yield a truly satisfying conclusion.
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