Inventions - Movement 4 - Morse Code

This is the fourth movement of a composition being composed as a result of a brass trio commissioning consortium. The title "Inventions' has a double meaning as a musical invention is a short contrapuntal composition that is usually based on a single theme. The second meaning is that each movement represents a significant invention. There will be five movements.

I had fun trying to work out a scientific approach to composing this movement and having it sound musical. My goal was to create a simple rondo form where the A sections would spell out in Morse code the words "brass trio" and the B sections would spell out the names of the three brass instruments. Eighth notes were used for the dots and quarter notes for the dashes. Eighth or quarter rests were used for the spaces between the letters.

The first part of the A section is homophonic and in the second part, each instrument plays their own line in canon with entrances a quarter note apart. The dashes at the end of the tailing instruments were elongated so that the instruments could end together. The harmony is a mixture of gentle tone clusters and triads.

The B sections are either monophonic in texture as each instrument plays its name or contrapuntal as the lines overlap.

To make this work, I used a lot of dynamic changes for variety and adjusted the ends of the sections to create cadences.

The form is ABA'B'AB''A''Coda. The Coda spells out the words "The End."

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

Dr. B

Inventions - Movement 3 - The Periscope

This is the third movement of a composition being composed as a result of a brass trio commissioning consortium. The title "Inventions' has a double meaning as a musical invention is a short contrapuntal composition that is usually based on a single theme. The second meaning is that each movement represents a significant invention. There will be five movements.

It may seem like I am posting these movements very rapidly and one may wonder how I can compose this fast. First of all, the ideas for these movements are coming quite easily, something I don't always experience. Secondly, I am composing 4-5 hours per day. With that amount of time, it is very possible to complete two minutes of music for three brass instruments. I often complete the movement in one day, but I like to let the music sit for at least a day before reviewing it. I find that while composing, I am too close to the details of the music and by coming back to it a day later, I can have a broader perspective.

The way I decided to represent the periscope is to create a scenario. A submarine is lurking under water (Section A). That is represented by the dark colors in a slow 6/8. The melodic lines swell and recede representing the undulations of the ocean. Ominous sounds accompany the rising of the periscope and the scanning of the horizon for destroyers and for prey (Section B). The ascending staccato sixteenth notes represent the periscope going up and when the sixteenth notes descend, the periscope is being lowered. The half-step repeated figure is the periscope scanning the horizon.

The movement is in an ABA'B' form. Subtle variations in instrumentation, melody, harmony, and dynamics created the differences in the repeated A and B sections.

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

Dr. B

Inventions - Movement 2 - The Metronome

This is the second movement of a composition being composed as a result of a brass trio commissioning consortium. The title "Inventions' has a double meaning as a musical invention is a short contrapuntal composition that is usually based on a single theme. The second meaning is that each movement represents a significant invention. There will be five movements.

This second movement represents the metronome. Please keep in mind that the music in this movement represents the mechanical, wind-up metronome that is very different than the modern-day digital metronome. Because it uses a pendulum, the metronome is very sensitive to the surface it is on. If it is slightly uneven, the ticks of the metronome will be erratic. Tempo was determined by the position of the weight on the pendulum. Since the metronome was wound using a spring mechanism, it tended to get slower as the spring tension decreased.

The music of the section that goes through measure 37 represents metronome practice. This section consists of constant eighth notes for 33 measures. While the rhythm is static, being in 2/4 with an occasional 3/4, the tempo, melodic line, harmony, and dynamics are varied. Imagine someone practicing a passage with a metronome and gradually increasing the tempo until the tempo gets so fast, the musicians goofs up. Measures 34-37 represent the frustration of the musician when he/she can't keep up with the metronome.

At measure 38, the musician goes back to practicing slower, but as he/she practices, the metronome begins to wind down and get slower. At measure 62, the tempo is so slow that the uneven surface the metronome is on begins to make the metronome beat unsteadily. The movement ends with the metronome stopping completely.

In keeping with the double meaning of the word invention, there are sections of tight imitation. An example would be measure 23-24 where the trombone lead is followed by the Horn a fifth above an eighth note later and then the trumpet at the octave an eighth note later than the Horn.

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

Dr. B

Inventions - Movement 1 - The Wheel

This is the first movement of a composition being composed as a result of a brass trio commissioning consortium. The title "Inventions' has a double meaning as a musical invention is a short contrapuntal composition that is usually based on a single theme. The second meaning is that each movement represents a significant invention. There will be five movements.

This first movement represents the wheel and is a perpetual motion in a fast 6/8 meter. It contains many sections of imitation. There are only two melodies in the movement and the rest consists of short motives. The first melody occurs divided between the trombone and trumpet from measure 3 - 11 and is extended and re-orchestrated in measures 12 - 22. Several motives appear in this section as well. One is the arpeggiated diminished seventh chord in even eighth notes that opens the composition. The second is a chromatic line in quarters and eighths that becomes straight eighths as an accompanying figure.

The second melody first appears in the trumpet at measure 32. It begins with a dotted rhythm that makes it distinctive. These two melodies and motives are combined and developed in different ways. The diminished seventh motive occurs with different articulations, for example. Dynamics are used to create variety. The ideas are used imitatively throughout most of the movement.

If one would try to analyze the harmony, one would have a difficult time because the movement is conceived linearly. Various modes are used for the melodies. The diminished seventh chord and chromaticism create a vague tonality. The ideas sometimes create a polytonality. The few chords that are used are basically quintal in structure.

The form of the movement is free, but sections do repeat with some variation. If one thinks of the first melody section as A and the second melody section as B, the form would be A transition B transition A' transition B' transition B'' transition B''' Coda.

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

Dr. B

Three Desert Pictures Movement 3 - Monsoon

I am composing Three Desert Pictures for Frequency 49, a marvelous group of musicians from the San Francisco Bay Area. The combination of woodwind quintet and piano provides a wonderful palette of colors to represent a Haboob, Virga, and a Monsoon, which are the titles of the three movements of this work.

When I first moved to Arizona and discovered that we have a monsoon season, I was very surprised. I always thought that a monsoon was a period when it never stops raining. But after reading a definition, I discovered that it is any change in a weather pattern that brings excessive moisture to an area. That is what Arizona has during the summer when moisture in drawn into the desert from the Gulf of Mexico. It creates dramatic afternoon and evening thunderstorms with high winds, heavy rain, and thunder and lightning, bringing the desert much needed rain.

My vision for this movement was to create sections that would represent wind, thunder and lightning, and heavy rain. It is as if one were looking at a painting of an Arizona monsoon storm where one sees the entire picture and then begins to concentrate on sections of the painting that represent each of these.

The movement begins with a representation of wind by having a three-note motif in 6/8 time travel from low to high and back down in the winds and also simultaneously creating a crescendo-decrescendo effect. The motif consists of consecutive fourths where one of the fourths is augmented. The piano plays the fourths as a chord on each beat. After eight measures, the piano has the wind idea and the winds play the chord on the beat.

To represent lightning, I use a chromatic scale in the flute and oboe and a high trill in the piano. Thunder immediately follows in the form of a loud augmented chord with descending whole steps and fades away in the form of a low trill in the piano.

Heavy rain is represented by repeated staccato notes in 2/4 time, sometimes in canon and other times in rhythmic unison. Once again fourths are used both melodically and harmonically.

These three ideas are combined and developed in different ways throughout the movement, building to a climax near the end. Then the storm fades away before the movement ends with a flash of lightning.

Your comments are always welcomed and appreciated.

Dr. B

Three Desert Pictures Movement 2 - Virga

I am composing Three Desert Pictures for Frequency 49, a marvelous group of musicians from the San Francisco Bay Area. The combination of woodwind quintet and piano provides a wonderful palette of colors to represent a Haboob, Virga, and a Monsoon, which are the titles of the three movements of this work.

Virga is rainfall that evaporates before it reaches the ground. In the desert, Virga clouds can be present when other parts of the sky are clear. When sunlight reflects off of Virga, the visual effects are very ethereal. Here is a short video of Virga taken in 2010 that I found on YouTube:

There are two things that unify this movement. The first is the use of major 7th chords that are sometimes varied by substituting an augmented fifth or adding a ninth. These chords give an ethereal beauty to the movement. The second is the descending staccato sextuplets that diminuendo representing the falling rain evaporating.

The form of the movement is loosely A A'. Within each section, the musical material is varied through use of different motifs, instrumentation, and texture.

Your comments about this blog post are always appreciated.

Dr. B

Three Desert Pictures Movement 1 - Haboob

I am composing Three Desert Pictures for Frequency 49, a marvelous group of musicians from the San Francisco Bay Area. The combination of woodwind quintet and piano provides a wonderful palette of colors to represent a Haboob, Virga, and a Monsoon, which are the titles of the three movements of this work.

A haboob is caused by a downdraft of air in a thunderstorm that blows a huge amount of dust as it moves across a desert area. Here is time-lapse video of a haboob in the Phoenix area in 2011.

  

The Haboob movement is in ABA form. It begins quietly with a diminished fifth in the left hand of the piano that represents foreboding. This low diminished fifth is present throughout the A section, sometimes occurring in the Horn and bassoon as well. A swirling dust motif is introduced first as just three notes and then expanding as the section progresses. Trills also represent swirling dust. The A section builds in intensity leading into the B section that represents the Haboob itself. 

The B section is in 2/4 except for one 3/8 measure. It begins with a wall of sound in the form of a diminished 7th chord. In fact, all the material of this section is derived from the diminished 7th chord. There are three elements to the section. The first is the wall of sound that represents the wall of dust. It appears in all instruments at various times and becomes syncopated as the section progresses. The second is the swirling dust motifs that are similar to the first section. Lastly, there is the staccato eighth note ostinato that represents people scurrying to the safety of indoors.

The last section is essentially a reverse of the opening section where it moves from intensity to quietude as the dust storm winds down. The low diminished fifth interval takes on a different meaning than when it occurs in the first section. Here it represents the devastation that was left behind by the haboob.

Your comments about this blog post are always appreciated.

Dr. B