Whole+Tone+-+Diminished+Pinao+Etude+with+Pedal+Point


 * PRE-COMPOSITION.** Pre-composition is an area of the compositional craft that involves gathering of initial ideas for a piece, along with initial ideas for how they might be organized. I find this part of the process to be very valuable.

Pre-Composition is a lot of things, but in general it is that time you set aside BEFORE beginning to write a piece in earnest. Here are some of the things I do in PRE-COMPOSITION: 1. Improvising both at the piano and in concept in my mind ("audiating" or singing ideas and rhythmic schemes to myself) to "discover materials that interest me. I also often sing ideas into a recorder (later jotting them into my sketch book). 2. Sketching initial melodic and/or harmonic ideas that emerge out of the above, and deciding which of these ideas belong together in a project (rejecting some altogether and saving some for other projects). 3. Improvising with these ideas to devise a variety of ways to "set" them (harmonies, accompaniment patterns, contrapuntal treatments, even imagining instruments I'd use). 4. Thinking through at least an INITIAL plan for the shape (form?) of the piece. This always changes and transforms when I actually write the piece, but it helps to get you going rather than be paralyzed with indecision!

I'd like you to try to use as much of the above process as feels right in the weeks ahead and see if it yields results for you as a composer.


 * RULES FOSTERING FREEDOM:** Your podcast listening for the week. For next week I'd like you to listen to and reflect on Episode 12: When Rules Foster Freedom: (http://psdweb.parklandsd.org/watson/WMM2M/WMM2M%2C%2012.mp3)

This podcast, along with the one on PEDAL POINT, sets up what I'd like you to take on for the next few weeks. Listen to the podcast, then engage in PRE-COMPOSITION TASKS in pursuit of the following project, for which I am going to impose several creative parameters (or rules):

TYPE OF WORK: Piano miniature or etude. LENGTH: One-to-two pages. CHARACTER/MOOD/TEMPO: Anything that interests you! FORM: A - B - A HARMONIC FRAMEWORK: Use ONE of these scales - either the WHOLE TONE or DIMINISHED (also called "octatonic") - exclusively (or at least primarily) for both A sections. Use the other of the scales - either DIMINISHED or WHOLE TONE - exclusively (or at least primarily) for the B section. PROMINENT FEATURE: Include an architecturally prominent PEDAL POINT in the A section. Doesn't have to be the entire A section, but should be more than a few measures. This pedal will return when the A section returns.

If you don't know (or remember) what the WHOLE TONE and DIMINISHED scales are (two fabricated scales used by many 20th-century composers), this will give you something to work with in pre-composition. Learn the notes of the scales and fool around with them at the piano, improvising various combinations of chords that can be formed from their notes. Perhaps even write out on manuscript and in an organized fashion all the various chords that can be formed from any particular DIMINISHED (or or WHOLE TONE) scale.

For this week, don't worry about actually writing the piece. I'd rather you improvise, sketch, sing to your self, sketch some more, fool around with various combinations of notes and chords and rhythms at the piano, sketch some more, create textural figurations between right and left hand, explore possibilities and potential for the ideas you develop, and edit out ideas that don't seem as interesting. Before you start writing the actual piece, I want you to have a feeling of confident readiness, a ripening of ideas, so that the writing becomes more of an arranging of pieces you've already been toying with.

Depending on how much time you have, the PRE-COMPOSITION could take TWO WEEKS.....don't feel bad about this. I'd like to see your pre-composition efforts: You can share with me your PRE-COMPOSITION WORK in a number of ways if we are unable to meet face-to-face:

1. You could jot/sketch ideas you improvise/discover/develop with pencil on manuscript paper, scan these, and send to me with a short narrative about the ideas (i.e. "I think the three-chord motive at the top of the first page may develop into the main "germ" of the piece. On the middle of page two you'll see a rhythmic ostinato - I think I'd like to use that rhythm in the piano R.H. on the "pedal" while the L.H. plays more sustained chords derived (and varied) from the "germ" progression," etc., etc.)

2. You could typeset your sketch book ideas in Finale and send to me as you have. You could also use Noteflight. This is a little more tech-hip and allows you to hear the sound your ideas w/playback, but adds an extra step (the typesetting). If you do this, I want to caution you not to get too married to what you typeset; remember, this is still PRE-COMPOSITION.

BTW, to get you in the mood for piano music such as the etude you will be composing, I recommend you listen to some of Bartok's MIKROKOSMOS 6, such as this:

@http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jrjs4ETzUgU

It uses a repeated rhythmic gesture over and over (efficiently using a "germ"), has several prominent pedal points (rapidly repeated mid-range note), and uses the diminished scale among other things.