Welcome to my blog

I have created this site in order to provide performers, listeners and composers with a description of a composer's experiences with the creative process. The posts will provide discussions of the inspirations, challenges, and successes of a composer from the inception of the piece to the culmination in performance. I will provide a link to where you can see and hear the works in progress. Comments and questions are always welcomed. They will not posted unless you grant me permission.

Monday, June 27, 2016

Lexicon No. 1 - 1st Movement - Rambunctious

This the first movement of four of a composition for SATB Saxophone Quartet and Piano. It is commissioned by Louis Sinoff. I am calling the composition Lexicon No. 1 because each movement will be a musical definition of an interesting word. I envision that there will be many more "Lexicon" compositions in my future.

The word for the first movement is Rambunctious. Its definition is "difficult to control and wildly boisterous." To represent this definition musically, I chose a Vivace tempo in duple meter. The meter changes frequently and contains a lot of syncopation and hemiola, as if the music can't contain itself to a meter pattern.

The movement has a relentless energy and is mostly at a forte dynamic. While I can delineate a form (ABCAB), the contrast is more of mood and texture instead of musical material. Motifs are used freely between sections and develop symphonically, thus making them the same but different. The canonic middle section (C) is wildly boisterous because of the five imitative lines over an ostinato bass.

After composing this movement, I decided to create a poem to go along with it. Here it is:

Rambunctious is a scrumptious word
That rolls around my tongue
Rapscallion sounds are often heard
And playful tunes are sung

Scampering chords set the mood
Syncopated rhythms abound
Down and up the melody feuds
Playful turbulence all around

An instigator emerges from the pack
Others begin to follow
Maybe the leader should be on Prozac
To control the urge to wallow

Scampering chords and syncopated rhythms
Become more boisterous and wild
Wondering what can be done with him
How to control this unruly child

Below is the transposed score and sampled sounds in video format. Your comments are always welcomed.

Dr. B


No comments: