alas nothing for solo harp yet lol! if you enjoyed this, you should check out this piece by tom morrison for harp and electronics - ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-Jhz42f9UH1s.html&ab_channel=ParkerRamsay
i studied composition at the late 90's and decided to get a career as a clarinet player later on as after my PhD I needed to support myself and couldn't quite make living off composing... so please read these as friendly comments and not trolling of some sort... I thought that a couple of pauses for more drama and breath won't harm...these full textures are only effective in relation to thinner ones... I also have a feeling upon lookin at your work that you compose directly into the notation software... no sketching by hand, am I wrong? I say that because when one writes by hand they immediately reflect on their work and don't compose endless streams rather "maniacally"... it's not bad just not a sighn for maturity... the difficult thing in composition is to make it light, not full...to emphasize the chamberness of those smaller ensembles...not to create bombastic textures... what do you think?
those are really good takes! thanks for the thoughts! i will say when i began this piece that i wanted to write something short, forward-moving, and intense - though because of that, it definitely comes off a bit maniacal hahaha. i admit that i'm generally very attracted to pulling as large a sound as possible out of chamber ensembles i write for, though i agree that transparency and lightness can be signs of patience and maturity (lol things i lack)! thanks again for your thoughts - i'm currently working on another string quartet, and i'm hoping to try something a bit different from this one!
@bobbycge I believe that among the advanced contemporary music lovers, those bigger sounds can only become significant due their context and what preceeded them, not due to their inherent glimmer or thrill... that is the true challenge of composing... to convince the audience that nothing is extra and all that there is could only be organized in a particular way, rather thoughtfully and not only craftfully...
Always using these playing techniques in wonderfully musical ways....the 1812 overture and other works and their recombinations are so much fun...this creates an ethereal fantasy kind of world...a kind of surreal musical collage....as if perhaps Schnittke and Ives got gene spliced in a teleportation machine.
thanks a bunch! yeah, i'm really attracted to humor, absurdity, and surrealism, and i thought it'd be fun to try to create something really surprising and wild with this one. glad you enjoyed - love the comparisons to ives and schnittke hahaha.
profoundly trippy! Love the imagination and color in this piece. The combination of the sort of "found" material is delightfully chaotic and fun, and all that fun belies what is clearly a very thoughtful and carefully constructed piece.
thanks a ton! yeah, the whole thing is built around the idea of how everyone (whether they realize it or not) is inspired by something that's come before, so i thought to try and make it a tad more explicit here (and a tad more irreverent).
Really love it ❤love the well deserved dramatic arch. I love how kind ironic the climax sounds and how it is really a mixture between silly and dramatic love it❤(I use silly as at most care and use always as a highest praise❤)
lol thank you so much! no it definitely is silly, and that was a big part of the point hahaha i think silliness is very underrated in classical music : P
@@bobbycge sameeeeeeee I believe that silliness adds so much more drama that people consider. I found that for my taste in classical music it depends so much on the possibility of the composer to Humor themself, not in the hihi haha sense, but most likely that the music has this kind of ecstatic feeling to it
At 6 minutes in, I was starting to feel like the piece could be a bit shorter... Then came this ridiculous (in a good way) ending, and I was like "You know what, nvm, It definitely needed that" 😂 Great piece as always man, love your work! ❤ You are a great inspiration ^^
hahahahaha i am glad! yeah, to be honest, i do think the pacing drags a little bit around the same point - but happy to hear the ending felt earned! the final two minutes or so are probably my favorite part of the piece lol
This is absolutely amazing and such an inspiration!!!! You depicted how a PhD student in composition at Princeton should sound like!!! As a student preparing for his portfolio I am so very grateful of this, and I sincerely wish you the best on your academic and composition journey!
lol thanks a ton! i should say my colleagues here are all wonderful and have very different (though equally impressive) soundworlds! i'd highly recommend checking out the music of christian quinones, if you liked this piece; he's a truly fantastic composer with a much more impressive command of electronics and such. best of luck with your applications - phd apps are such a drag lol
@@bobbycge thanks so much for your reply! Just one question, how would you define the musical ‘ism’ of this piece?(like electronic, neoclassicism smth like that)
@@15tatt hmm i actually have no idea! i guess i'm not especially preoccupied with classifying my own music or trying to fit into existing aesthetics... i just like writing what's exciting to me! i suppose this could maybe fall into some kind of poststructuralist critique of popular entertainment? idk lol
@@bobbycge AAAHA! thats what I figured lmao I definitely appreciate and love this attitude towards composing, thank you so much for answering! Ill take a look on the musics by christian quinones! thanks again!
hahaha that's what i asked my percussionist! we ended up working out a solution where the glockenspiel was right next to them and they could just turn and play the glock/drums with the same sticks/mallets if needed.
i think i heard that in a piece by christopher cerrone - i'm forgetting which one off the top of my head, but he has some really, really lovely percussion writing in pieces like 'don't look down,' 'meander, spiral, explode,' and 'goldbeater's skin.'
It is like 80 s Pop Jazz sound destabilized by durational incosistency/proportional notation and timbral string writing. It surely works formally. Though I would maybe prefer a more clear cut structure resembling to conventional one instead of one movement concerto form (which is quite contemporary in my perspective), and some extended techniques in Piano part also to create contrasts. But somehow this music maintains it's energy and the flow is quite attractive. I have been following your channel occcasionally I should admit inspiring works you load here
@@merenarin1579 lol wow thanks for the take! yeah, i would love to write a more conventional large-scale concerto sometime - this short one had more to do with the restrictions on the commission than my actual artistic interest. cool that you found those connections with 80s pop jazz - i definitely wasn't thinking of that, but i hope you enjoyed!
Beautiful music! Just a quick question :D --what did you do as a composer before your college years (as a high school composer)? what tips would you give to a high school composer whose goal is to get their music known and performed? thanks!!
thank you! honestly, in high school, i wasn't really much of a composer - mostly i just listened to a ton of music! i truly do think that's maybe one of the best things anyone can do at any point, as getting to know and love a wide variety of music helps you keep an open mind and broadens the kinds of techniques you're familiar with. i attempted to transcribe some of the music i really loved in high school (mainly film music at the time), and that in retrospect was very handy! and obv if you have friends who are musicians, it might also be really fun to make music for/with them. i didn't really get to hear anything i wrote performed until college, but that was mainly because my high school didn't have a real music program. hope that helps!
Really interesting, the opening has some notes which sound exactly like a reversed recording. Not a sound I knew could be achieved live, let alone on a saxophone! I believe these are the "flair dramatically! sharp cutoff" notes - was there any additional technical instruction you gave to the players for that?
lol yeah, good ears! i'm a huge fan of that 'reversed piano hit' sound, and i use it maybe a little too much in my music haha. i didn't need to say any much more than the instructions i gave - i think one thing that helps is that flared crescendo, where the hairpin has those outward curves at the very end that emphasize how dramatic the sound should be. turns out it's a really easy sound to accomplish on a lot of instruments - sounds really great on brass too!
