New Found Music

My favorite time of the year (or at least one of them)has come and passed, the newfound music festival. I don't know why I love it so much, I guess because I am able to witness different innovations and new processes that different composers use in creating new music. It really is a shame that music students aren't exposed to more of this kind of thing.
The biggest highlight of the festival for me were the first two sessions in the P.C. Hall, Andrew Staniland with his presentation on loopin and Max MSP, and Derek Charke's presentation on his composition.
I am a huge fan of manipulating live sounds. I am always trying to make new sounds with the use of technology (electric guitar/keyboards & using different effect pedals) and the computer program that Staniland presented seemed to give him total control of the way that he was able to manipulate the sounds made in the microphone. This was my first real brush with electro-acoustic music.
I was also really blown away by Derek Charke's composition with the influence of inuit throat songs. The amount of energy created by the extended techniques he uses in the quartet is absolutley incredible. It was funny to see how his inspirations for some of his composition doesn't come from say Debussy or Stravinsky, rather he found something that has never been done before, (maybe bartok is more the inspiration for this kind of thing).
It was really fun to hear these innovations performed in the concert on the second night. Hearing Charke's disturbances of carcadian rhythm was really cool. The way he incorperated the electroacoutic element to establish a mood was totally effective.
It was also really nice to hear other modern composers, two of our own, and the way in which it is all music from the past ten years, yet the styles were vastly different. This year the new found music festival made me feel very appreciative that I live in the time that I do, with the freedom to be totally creative and so many different tools and ressources right at my fingertips.

New Directions

Last week I was very fortunate to get a composition lesson with Derek Charke. It couldn't have happened at a better time because for my second piece, I was stuck. I had all the ideas that I wanted, but presentation of my ideas was really sloppy, directionless and I had only gotten so far with them.

One of the biggest things that I took away from this lesson was the idea of a line. In the section that I felt lacked the most direction, dr. Charke pointed out that there was little direction in it because each of the notes kind of floated around, and to give it direction he suggested that I put in a descending line in the bass. This gives a paticular line for the audience to hold on to and it gives a very clear direction. A very simple solution, yet it's something that I haven't really thought about.

Another big thing I took away was the amount of times I am allowing things to repeat. It's something I'm very concious of this semester, however I cannot tell how much is too much, therefor he suggested to repeat things, but just use truncated versions of a paticular motive and develop that motivic idea, or just move on from that.

Very simple ideas and straight forward advice, but I appreciate it because it's not exactly obvious.