Music Write Now

Composition Study Results: “Music for Strings, Percussion & Celesta” by Bela Bartok

Analysis Written by Julian Lage

For my first composition study, I worked with the third movement of Bela Bartok’s “Music for Strings, Percussion, & Celesta.” What a badass piece….this movement is just shy of 7:00 minutes in length and has a unique sense of forward movement. It is always developing but at any giving point in the piece, it sounds like the music is standing still, like you’re witnessing this slowly moving musical realm revolve around an axis that is, on the surface, unknown.

here are some observations as well as questions that came up:

Technical Observations:
1. The piece begins with a clearly stated pulse that gradually speeds up and slows down. This establishes a sense of organic movement from the beginning and avoids making the piece sound too fixed or obvious from the start. Next, Bartok writes a drum roll in the timpani part that lasts for the first quarter of the piece, all the while developing melodies and counterpoint on top. The effect is a build of incredible tension that doesn’t quite get released until about 4 minutes in.
2. The melodic content seems to be very much based on an exploration of intervals. The main themes all utilize the major/minor seconds and minor thirds. In the longer melodic fragments, this allegiance to two relatively close intervals allows for a kind of loopy development where the line is constantly progressing but never repeating itself.  Upon doing some research about Bartok’s style, I learned that this relationship to intervals stems from Bartok’s deep interest and fascination with the Golden Ratio and how it relates to all areas of music, especially with intervals and form.
3. Regarding orchestration, I especially loved how whenever a theme was represented, it was similar to the themes already under way, but just different enough to let it stand in it’s own space. The feeling I got from listening to this piece was that each instrument really had it’s own independent musical path and that rather than writing for everybody to play the same harmonies, rhythms, or melodies, Bartok takes advantages of multiple musical ideas occurring simultaneously. It’s as though the instruments aren’t obligated to agree with each other…they are simply allowed to coexist.

Questions:
1. Bartok creates an entire sonic world that is at times both light and dark, aggressive and gentle, mysterious and extremely clear, yet it doesn’t seem to based in one tonal center or scale. How does he achieve this?

2. The form flows so naturally and organically, yet it doesn’t seem to be based on a set form, such as a sonata or rondo form. How does he make a form that is clearly structured but sounds almost improvised?

3. From what perspective does the piece unfold? It doesn’t seem like there is one instrument driving the composition forward, but rather like 4-5 combinations of orchestration that take turns being in the for front. For me, I’m used to writing withe the guitar as the clear leader, or perhaps cello or sax. How do you achieve this democratic style of writing while style maintaining a forward motion and edge?

#15: Composition Study - 45 minutes

Recently, I had the pleasure of sitting down with my band and listening to a whole bunch of music, with one questions in mind: what do we like about this? At first, it seemed like a topical kind of question, however, I quickly found that I haven’t spent all that much time considering this question seriously with certain styles of music. For example, we began listening to Bela Bartok’s wonderful “Music for Strings, Percussion, and Celesta,” and though I had heard this piece before and loved it, I never really analyzed what make it sound so special. As we began exploring the piece, I discovered how much new and fresh and vocabulary lived within, especially within the world of tonality and form. Bartok uses techniques and approaches that, though may sound familiar, are completely foreign to me on a technical level. So, naturally, this got me excited….How can I learn to do that?

I realized that as important as it is to compose new material, it’s also equally important to study the masters on a consistant basis. And for me right now, I’m especially fascinated by composers like Bartok, Ligeti, and Messiaen. They all have such beautiful diverse musical resources at there disposal and rather than continuing to admire them from afar, I’m ready to jump in and try to learn what they are up to.

So for today’s challenge, I’m going to spend 45 minutes with a piece of music that I admire, and take notes about what I noticed, both generally speaking and specifically, as well as any questions that may arise. I’ll post the results in the comments. 

Would anyone care to join me? All music is welcomed and I would love to hear what you discover!

Question: How Do You Go About Finishing Songs?

Ok, so in my last post, I laid out a handful of songs that I liked most from my 30 day writing assignment, and have set out to flush them out and turn them into completely new set’s worth of music. However, as I’ve started this process, I feel kind of overwhelmed by all the ways these songs could be written, and am having trouble really diving in. Also, with the 30 day assignment, I had a clear goal of starting a piece every day, and limiting myself to 30 minutes which was pretty clear. I would write every day until the timer went off, and I’d be done. I suppose I didn’t dwell too long because I knew I would have time to do that later….but now the time has come, and I’m totally procrastinating. With 14 or so songs, I don’t know how to structure the time, as I feel I could easily hang out on one song for a week or so and never get through all of them in time for my original due date of May 2.

So I’m coming to you, all of my wonderful friends in the community with this question:

How would you recommend going about completing these pieces? What has worked well for you? I’d love to hear all of your ideas and sincerely looking forward to exploring this together…

Thank you all so much!

#14 Development

Hello All,

Well, despite some severe procrastination, I am ready to take on the task of picking my favorite songs from the 30 day assignment and developing them into a new sets worth of music. My intention is to write the music with my trio (Jorge and Tupac) in mind as we have a couple of trio performances coming up and I’d love to have some new music that is designed for that particular instrumentation. Also, it is my hope that these songs will work as solo guitar pieces as well.

So the incentive for me is to pick 8-10 songs, or however many songs it takes to fill an hour long set, and develop them into fully flushed out pieces. My deadline is my trio’s show at Blues Alley in Washington, D.C. on May 2nd. Below, I’ve posted the songs I’ve decided to pursue.

Will post more soon!

Music to Develop (Top 14) by julianlage

Month of Music #1: The results!

Well my friends, I am so excited to share with you the complete results of my month of writing! This exercise was the best push in writing that I’ve had recently. I found it most interesting how different every day felt. Some days I was really eager to write something new, and others I would find myself kind of at a loss for any musical ideas that felt worth pursing. However, I think that is the best part about it. Though at the time I may have felt like what I was writing was totally terrible, when I listen back now, I hear the potential within each piece, and I think that is the lesson in all of this for me. Don’t let your judgements of the work stop you from throwing yourself into the process completely. You never know what might be uncovered!

How did it go for you? What worked well and what slowed you down? I’m so curious to hear other people’s thoughts and experiences with the process so please send in your comments!

Now that I have this batch of musical seeds, it’s time to compile my top 10 or so pieces sand develop them into music for my group. I’m going to work on this idea a little and then I’ll post an incentive up here real soon.

In the meantime, here are my mini-tunes.

Monthly of Music: All Songs by julianlage

Month of Music: Week #1

Well, I am one week into the month long writing spree and it has so far been an amazing educational experience. Everyday, I feel like I discover new things about my process as a writer and what I want to strengthen and also what I went to let go.

The number one challenge this week has been how to develop a motif! I find myself writing more complex themes but then not really knowing what to do with them. So I hope that in the coming weeks, I’ll begin to explore how to start with a simple theme and develop it further. Do you think Beethoven gives lessons?

Anywho, here are my first seven writing examples as well as the pieces I’ve received from fellow musicians.

Month of Music: Week #1 by julianlage

Music From The Month Highlights by julianlage

#13 - A Month Of Music!

Hello my friends!

At last, I’m posting the “official” post that I mentioned on facebook the other day. My dear friend Margaret Glaspy has proposed an incentive challenge to me that I would like to share with you. The idea is to write a song a day for a month, amounting to 30 new songs. It’s such a great idea but knowing the way I work (and by work, I mean procrastinate) I would probably not be able to keep this up unless I had certain parameters.

So here is what I’m going to go for:

1. Write a song, or at least a sketch of a song in a 30-minute time frame as soon as I wakeup each day. Since the day tends to get away from me pretty quickly, I’ve decided to make it the first thing I do.

2. After the 30 minutes is up, I want to make a recording of it and write a rough chart. 

3. At the end of the month, I will go back and choose, anywhere from 6-15 songs, enough for a new set of music, and spend another week just flushing out and developing those songs. So it’s kind of like a two-step process: write some ideas, and then develop them.

Overall, my biggest hang up lately has been that when I get together with other musicians to play, I want to bring new music but since I primarily use recording as my means of documenting my songs, I never have any charts, so I end up not playing my new music. So my goal is to get in the habit of writing everything down as I go so that it’ll be easier to share.

How does all this sound to you? Would you like to join? Margaret and I started writing a few days ago so we’re today is song #4 and our deadline is April 8th, 2011. Please feel free to start whenever works for you and send along any sketches that you especially like and I’ll post them as we go. 

This is all so exciting and I’m so grateful to get into this process together!

Thank you!

Send me your sounds

#12: A New Start - 30 Minutes

Hello All,

Well, it’s been far too long since my last post, and my writing chops are getting rustier by the minute, so I thought I would update the blog with a simple, old fashion 30 minute writing exercise. I’ve been feeling pretty out of the writing loop over the last month as I have been finishing up my group’s new record but now that it is pretty much all done, I’m eager to get my practice going again, and stop making excuses!

Tomorrow, I’ll hopefully add a post that is a little more in depth and address my current desire to be more prolific, but I thought today I would try to write a song in 30 minutes in post the results.

Would you like to join? Please send your music by bedtime and I’d love to put it up! Thanks!

Send me your sounds

Julian Lage: A New Start by julianlage

#11.2: In Three Parts

Well, my piece is starting to take shape and I’m really enjoying this process. At this stage, I feel like I have good rough structure but feel like I need to input everything into Sibelius and play with cleaning up some of the counterpoint, adjusting rhythms and pitches so they line up in a more refined way. So now I am going to embark on two final step before I bring the music to my band.

1. Listen to the recording and make notes about the overall flow. Where could sections be longer? Where could they be shorter? 

2. Then, I’ll create a Sibelius score of the parts with the added measures where I want to add music or vice versa. Then I’ll input all the notes, make any adjustments and then print out the parts for my group’s gigs later this week!

I’m finding that it’s really cool to work on a piece in three time blocks. First, spend an hour writing the song. Second, expand the piece. Third, refine the piece so it’s ready to be played. It’s kind of like the process of writing an essay where you go into it knowing you will be doing multiple drafts. Makes so much sense!

I’m heading to rehearsal now, but it’s my plan to try to complete all this in another 90 minute time block this evening.  I’ll try to post the PDF of the score if I can….

Thank you!!

Jules

p.s. the past two photos have been of the incredible artist, Myuong Ho Lee. Aren’t they amazing?

#11: Natural Evolution - 90 Minutes

Hello All,

Well, I have to say the last counterpoint exercise was really so inspiring for me and it was such a pleasure listening to all the wonderful entries. It got me thinking about how many pieces I start that I kind of like that use a new technique, but then never develop. And since the counterpoint exercise got me writing in more of the style I have been wanting to explore with my group, I figure I should try to develop my 16 bars into a full piece.

So what I’d like to do is take the original 16 bars, and sketch out the shape I’d like the piece to take. Roughly how long, what kind of sections, how many sections, etc. Then I want to try to execute it. All total, I want to allow for 90 minutes. After that, I’ll post whatever development I have.

Would you like to join me?

Deadline is tomorrow, Wednesday, by bedtime.

Send me your sounds