Emotional, Cerebral, and Spiritual Aspects of Composition

Listening to Beethoven's late string quartets has gotten me thinking about various qualities that are embodied in, or expressed through, musical composition. After some reflection, I decided to apply three labels: Emotional, cerebral, and spiritual. This seems cleaner and less pretentious than, say, expressionism, intellectualism, and spiritualism, and has the added advantages of not relating to any particular trends of any given era, plus the words don't end with "-ism", which always arouses suspicion in me anyway.

Obviously, any good composition will have elements of all three of these factors present to a greater or lesser degree, and it is precisely the relative degree that I wish to ponder. Admittedly, what I am going to talk about is subjective, and there will certainly be room for dissagreement with the examples I bring up, but the idea here is to offer food for thought, as well as to give me an oportunity to work through this issue for myself. In the great composers, some sort of balance was achieved, but the particular aspect that is most prominant varies from man to man.

Since it is a question of relative degree that I am addressing, I have decided to use as examples composers as opposed to speciffic compositions of theirs, which I believe will offer a better chance for consensus and will also help me to avoid getting bogged down in minutae. This may wind up being an epic post in any event.

For me, the most sublimely spiritual composer of all time is Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina (1525-1594). As a composer of counter-reformation works for the Catholic Church, this is natural. From what I have learned about him over the years, apart from his music, it would seem that Palestrina's music was very much a reflection of Palestrina the man: He gave all appearances of being a classical conservative, and seems to have been well grounded and eminently practical in his approach to life and living. This practicality, however, was a reflection of his profoundly deep and secure faith as a Christian and a Catholic. The security he derived from his faith evidently allowed him to go about his daily business with complete confidence that while he was in the world, the world was nonetheless no threat to him because he was not of the world. Obviously, this peaceful overall outlook is perfectly reflected in his music, as is the conviction of his internal spirituality, and all to devastating effect for listeners who share his faith, as I do (If not his denomination).

It is important to note that a composer's temperament may or may not be overtly reflected in his work, and one of the things I am trying to decide is if it is advantageous to be particularly expressive, or if it is not. Speaking only for myself, I can say that my internal emotional life is quite highly-strung and in many ways discordant. That is one of the reasons this subject is interesting to me: I find that I have nothing in common personality-wise with a man like Palestrina, and yet I hold his compositional style up as one of my main ideals of perfection. Some may argue that I am allowing historical simplifications to reduce my view of Palestrina to something that it is not, but I don't think so. I believe that he and I are diametrically opposite types of personalities.

It goes without saying (But, I'm going to say it anyway) that Palestrina's music has a super-high degree of the cerebral in it, loaded as it is with contrapuntal machinations an intricacies, but these "mind games" never usurp the overall spiritual goals of the music. To the contrary, the contrapuntal devices that Palestrina employs seem to always and profoundly enhance the spiritual nature of his work. Listening to Palestrina leads me to a peaceful, introspective, and contemplative place where I can ponder the sublimnity of God and creation, and I believe the seamless and highly ordered musical universe that he creates out of music's potential for chaos is his homage to God's creation of the universe in which we live (If you haven't already noticed, fractal self-similarity and the theory that there are boundaries of chaos which are actually highly ordered are inextricably linked, and I believe these theories have profound implications for musical composition). Bringing this seamless, peaceful order out of chaos is also the main thrust, and end result, of the teachings of Jesus of course.

Perhaps it may seem needless to some readers, but needful to others, that I mention that there is simply no way for me to address these subjects without puting at least a modicum of my own faith on display here. I share the outlook of Thomas Jefferson, who was loath to share his faith, and always replied to inquiries with something along the lines of, "It is between me and God and no living man." That is exactly how I feel about it, but in this instance there is just no escaping the issue.

Also a truism is the fact that music that moves us spiritually will also move us emotionally, but in the music of Palestrina these emotions - while they may be profoundly deep and affecting - do not swing wildly to and fro. Just the opposite effect is achieved, as Palestrina elicits deep, steady-state moods that seem to vary more in depth than in character. I believe that this is an important point to note: Depth of a certain speciffic emotion (Or, a few similar emotive states) rather than a contrast of emotions with radically different characteristics.

So, Palestrina's music achieved a balance between the emotional, the cerebral, and the spiritual, but it is the spiritual aspect that predominates in him and in his music.

At the opposite end of the spectrum of balance (Versus imbalance, which I'll cover later), there is Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827). If listening to Palestrina is like sitting back and riding a gigantic inter-gallactic Ferris wheel, listening to Beethoven is like strapping yourself in for a sometimes terrifying, and sometimes hilarious rollercoaster ride that has as it's footprint the entire cosmos. As I mentioned in the previous post, Beethoven's juxtapositions of wildly contrasting elicitations of emotion constantly amuse me.

Interestingly (To me, anyway), Beethoven was also a Catholic, but only nominally so (Just as I am an LCMS Lutheran, though I don't agree 100% with all of their doctrines). Beethoven and I (And Jefferson) share a much more populist view of the Christian religion, and I'll just leave it at that. The important thing to note is that Beethoven had definite spiritual convictions, historical revisionists be damned (But, at least, Beethoven's faith has not suffered the indignities that Mozart's faith has, through that brilliant-but-libelous movie Amadeus (I met Tom Hulce once, and complimented him on his brilliant performance, and he is a genuinely cool guy who took keyboard lessons for months to prepare for the role, and I do like the movie as entertainment, but it sucks as history)).

Personally I can relate to Beethoven the man more than I can relate to Palestrina. Though I am not burdened with anywhere near the challenges that confronted Beethoven, I nonetheless recognize the internal turmoil that he experienced, as - like I said - my personal internal life is also plenty chaotic and unbalanced. It was this very recognition that inspired this post: If I am personality-wise much closer to Beethoven than to Palestrina, why are my musical ideals of expression more like Palestrina's than Beethoven's? I can't answer that yet.

Though Beethoven's spiritual expression was far less doctrinaire than Palestrina's (He wasn't writing music for the Church, after all), he nonetheless had a cerebral aspect to his music that was just as deep. However, Beethoven's intellectual constructions had less to do with the mechanics of counterpoint - for the most part - and more to do with long-term and lage-form implications of harmonic practice, which did not even exist in Palestrina's time.

I believe that it is arguable that the harmonic idiom is inherantly more emotionally expressive than the contrapuntal idiom is, and even if you disagree with that you may at least agree that it is easier to be emotionally expressive in a harmonic idiom than in a purely contrapuntal one. That is not to say that it is impossible to be emotionally expressive through counterpoint of course, as the very existance of Beethoven's late quartets would demolish that notion convincingly. Even in fugue Beethoven managed to be expressive and emotionally evocative, but it must be admitted that he was a peculiar phenomenon and no other composer has ever achieved such a thing to such a degree. Far beyond these issues though, Beethoven's particular bent, as a man and as a composer, was vastly more emotion-driven than was Palestrina's.

Nevertheless, Beethoven too managed to achieve a trancendent balance between the emotional, the cerebral, and the spiritual aspects of musical expression, though it is weighted at the opposite end of the spectrum from Palestrina's equalibrium.

For the balanced cerebral composer, there is no better example, in my opinion, than Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750). Bach, as a product of The Age of Reason, slips into this niche very comfortably. Beethoven was a product of The Age of Enlightenment, and these different philosophical life-outlooks - which permeated the societies in which these men lived - obviously played a part in the differences between them.

Bach, like Palestrina, was a Church musician, but Bach was a Lutheran and not a Catholic. Obviously there is a huge aspect of the spiritual in Bach's music, and he was a devout man of clear and unequivocal Christian convictions. But unlike Palestrina, Bach often played "mind games" with music that were blatently of paramount importance: Above even that of his constant spiritual declamations. His obsession with canon and musical riddles attest to this clearly enough. That he was able to elicit both spiritual and emotional responses using these seemingly dry and highly technical approaches to music is nothing less than trancendental.

Bach's music also has a much broader range of emotion, and more emotional contrast than that of Palestrina, but in that regard he is still much closer to the introspective nature of Palestrina than to the widly extroverted Beethoven, who is peerless in that regard (Among composers who I judge to have achieved a perfection of balance, that is).

As a person, I find Bach to be difficult to reconcile. He was a family man, married more than once (As was and did Palestrina), and seems to have been a fairly stable human being. On the other hand, he was not above arguing with his superiors, and appears to have "not known his place" - in the terms of the time - with respect to minor royalty and functionaries above him in the Church heirarchy. He obviously knew he was superior to them in objective terms as an intellectual, and it seems as if he had more than a few pent-up frustrations in that regard. These outbursts lead him to be jailed at least once, that I am aware of.

Of the three mentioned so far, I believe that Bach achieved the most even balance between our three aspects of musical expression, but if only... if only Mozart had lived into his fifties or sixties he would have taken this honor (But then, Beethoven's career may not have been possible with Mozart looming over him. On the other hand, Wagner may never have seen the light of day if Mozart had lived, and that would have been excellent. Difficult choice to make. ;^)).

In lieu of Mozart, I nominate Franz Joseph Haydn (1732-1809) as the most balanced and versitile composer of all time. Haydn is too often lost in the shuffle between Bach, Mozart, and Beethoven, in my opinion, but Mozart and Beethoven would not have been possible without him. The older I get, the more I appreciate him. His output was so staggering that many of his works remain unpublished according to the biography I linked to. He composed music with wit, charm, and grace, and there is as much emotional, cerebral, and spiritual depth in it, though many conclude that it is not as deep as the others aforementioned here. The more I listen to him, the less I am inclined to agree with that. Haydn achieved the balance he displays through subtlty, and not through overly overt displays (Which would have been inappropriate for his intended audience, though he managed to slip a lot past them, which is a testament to his genius). He is a composer for those of advanced and discriminating taste, in my opinion.

Johannes Brahms (1833-1897) deserves an honorable mention as a composer who achieved a good balance weighted toward the emotive side, and his violin concerto is one of my all-time favorite works. Since he was decidedly of a romantic bent, and of the Romantic era, this bias of his comes as no surprise.

I find it baffling that so many people today find his music unapproachable. It seems like the most logical extension of the precedent set by Beethoven that anyone has ever achieved. He was a master of both harmony and counterpoint, and his music runs the gamut from the emotional, through the cerebral, and well into the spiritual realm.

Last but not least, a Romantic (Russian, no less!) who achieved a good balance is one of my personal favorites, Sergi Ivanovich Taneiev. This brilliant student of Tchaikovsky is much ignored in the west, which is a shame. His fourth symphony is as good as any by Brahms, and he was the greatest master of counterpoint of all time. As such, he had a deeply cerebral streak, but was nonetheless more emotive in the contrapuntal idiom than anyone other than Beethoven. If you haven't heard him, you should.

Now. Lack of balance. I will refrain from naming names, but will confine myself to compositional schools, so as not to offend. And, I may actually like this music - love it even - but I think it appeals to a smaller audience because of these imbalances.

Some of the old Dutch contrapuntists were, in my opinion, overly cerebral. While I personally delight in little more than I do in contrapuntal intracacies, it can be taken too far to the detriment of the emotive and spiritual aspects of the music. I believe some of those guys were guilty of that.

Likewise, some of the Romantics were overly heart-on-sleeve emotional, and the cerebral aspects of some of that music were... trash as a result. There is often a sort of faux spiritualism present, but it's a cheap immitation of the real thing in my opinion.

Associated with the Romantics were some of the great virtuosos of the nineteenth century, who sacrificed content in all three categories for "flash and glitter" as I've heard it referred to. Though, in his old age, Franz Liszt trancended his earlier virtuosic bent, and wrote some incredible choral music, as well as some of the most sublime, religious, and deeply introspective solo organ works I've ever heard. Amazing stuff. I think Liszt is unfairly dismissed by many who have only a cursory understanding of his total output.

Where does this leave me? Well, I continue to be amused that my personality type is probably somewhere in between those of Bach and Beethoven (Probably closer to Bach), but my favorite compositional mode of expression is probably between those of Bach and Palestrina (Again, probably closer to Bach). I'm not sure if this is a problem or not. I just find it interesting.

Pardon the navel-gazing.



"What's wrong with a little navel-gazing?"

Er... Nothing... But I'd rather be gazing at yours than mine.

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Heavy Listening: The Late Beethoven String Quartets

The Emerson String Quartet


I go through stages in my listening, and I purposefully avoid listening to some of my favorite music - sometimes for years on end - to be able to return to it with fresh and more mature ears. Such is the case with the late Beethoven string quartets: With the exception of a couple of listens to Op. 131 in the string choir version conducted by Leonard Bernstein, I have not listened to these works since the late 1980's! Why? Because I was positively addicted to them, and I lived on a steady diet of nothing else for almost a year in 1987 (This is after Berklee and before I returned to school for my master's degree): Enough is enough, as they say. I went through similar stages with the Ninth (Which is one of the reasons I have not been able to finish my analysis of it: Just not "ready" for it again yet) back in 1983 when I was touring Europe.

Major aside: When I visited the Eiffel Tower in 1983 I was listening to the Ninth on my Sony Pro Walkman (Very high-tech for that time), and the elevators were out of service. You should have heard the old tourists bitching and griping. It was sadly hilarious. Since I had run in the Boston Marathon just a few weeks previously, I simply climbed the stairs to the top level... while listening to the symphony. Various 180 degree panorammas of Paris will forever be recollected whenever I listen to the Ninth now. Needless to say, there were very few people in the tower that day, and they were all young (As I was back then - sigh), and we sat around smoking hash in handrolled cigarettes and generally enjoying each other's company. It was a magical day. One of the most magical days of my life, in fact. It's a great memory to have associated with my favorite of all symphonies.

Anyway...

When I'm in a phase of writing, I also purposefully listen to nothing other than popular music and jazz. The most recent writing flourish for the most part behind me, I decided it was time to return to these old favorites (iTunes is playing them again in the background as I write).

It was important to me to aquire new versions as well: Versions I had not heard before. My choice - after a bit of research - were the versions recorded by the Emerson String Quartet as a part of their cycle of the complete string quartets of Beethoven from 1997. This epic and ambitious recording is a seven disk set, and won the Grammy Award for Best Chamber Music Performance that year (Or in 1998).

The Emerson Quartet is, quite simply, one of the best chamber music groups of all time. Having played together for over a quarter of a century now, their musicianship, musical communication, and conveyance of musical idea are autumnal and deeply mature. Unsurpassibly sublime, even.

These recordings are stunning, and I can't, at the moment, fathom how they could be any better. In the very best of musical interpretations, I am fond of saying, "It's as if the composer himself is playing his own works", and these recordings certainly deserve that accolade. In spades. Not only that, but the space they were recorded in is suitibly live, but not overly so: There is just enough natural reverberation to create a broad stereo field without interfering with the intelligibility of the individual lines, which is especially crucial for this music.

Beethoven's music spans such a wide swath of emotion that it seems to encompass the whole of the human experience. This is especially true with these late quartets, as they represent not only the most mature and musically adventurous Beethoven, but they in fact include the very last composition he ever completed. I had forgotten just how capricious the humor of Beethoven was as exhibited in these quartets, and how suddenly he could juxtapose that humor with the deepest expressions of pathos: The humor part of the equation is especially poignant when you stop to consider the abject nature of Beethoven's life those last few years; Deaf, isolated, in a precarious financial situation, and contending with ridiculous life-issues such as those created especially for his distraction by his worthless nephew Karl (What a complete dumbass that jerkoff was. And I'm restraining myself from employing what I consider to be much more apropos expletives).

The pathos is, obviously, easy to understand given those circumstances, but the sheer unplumbable depth of it has never ever again been approached by any other composer, in my opinion. Through it all though, there is an amazing sense of hope that permiates everything. It conveys to me that Beethoven is saying, as he did in the Finale of the Ninth (But far less effectively through the medium of the vioce combined with Schiller's poetry of questionable worth), that "Yes, life has it's ups and downs, and some of the downs are deeply painful, but it is the humor, beauty and love you remember best in the end": No other music conveys the life experience as profoundly to me as does Beethoven's. Bach isn't even close. Nevermind not being in the same ballpark, Bach isn't even in the same universe as Beethoven in this regard.

It's like meeting an old friend again: A friend that you know so well that you just comfortably and naturally "take up where you left off" with despite the passage of time, but on a new and deeper level. I love Beethoven. I absolutely, positively love the dude.



Who knew?

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Taking a Breather

OK. I managed to survive last week: Gigs on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday evenings, plus a second Thursday afternoon gig. Performing solo classical guitar for over 4 hours in a single day is exhausting. My fingertips were literally burning by the end of the night, and I had "nothing left" for Friday. It was tortuous. This week will return to some semblance of normalcy, but then Christmas season will begin, and that will be capped off with a wedding on New Year's Eve. Ugh. I guess I shouldn't complain, but it is interfering with some blogging I'd like to do.

Then, of course, I've been obsessed with my new axe. It may not seem like a big deal, but the pressure required to fret a course of two strings versus a single string leads to a much increased output of effort. No doubt but that this will lead to much more solid technique for me down the road, but playing the eleven-string is quite tiring at the moment. The courses being wider means buzzing against the flesh of neighboring fingers is more of a problem too, so my fretting accuracy should also improve with time as well. It's interesting, that's for sure.

In other news, I have had over seven-hundred people visit my FileShare Page to take a look/listen to my music! I'm fully expecting that the next time I go to a GFA event I'll hear someone playing some of my guitar pieces. LOL! To make it easier for visitors, I have re-named the files to make it easier to know what you are looking at and/or downloading, and I have also made the files more Windows-friendly by making sure the proper file extensions are apendeded to each one. This ought to eliminate any problems for the non-Mac crowd (Philistines!).


For the guitar pieces, there are:


1) Axial Studies (18 of them)

These are open string studies in a two voiced countrapuntal texture, with the open strings being the zero axes of the melodies, in Schillinger-speak. Since the zero axis can be the root, third, or fifth of a tonic major or minor triad, that makes six studies each for the E-Axis Studies, B-Axis Studies, and G-Axis studies, for the total of eighteen. They were inspired by the fugue from Bach's (?) (There seems to be some question of authorship here) Tocatta and Fugue in D minor, but they are not immitative.

2) Figuration Preludes (12 of them)

These are five-voice harmonic studies that progress around the circle of thirds starting in A minor and ending in B major. They employ the "c" finger, as I've always used my "c", and have some nice contemporary harmonies a la Pat Metheny and Leo Brouwer. I am currently writing the second set backwards around the circle from F major to E-flat minor, but have not posted them yet.

3) Irreducible Sonatina (Four movements)

This is a catch-all for some nice small pieces I have written over the years. There is a Sonatina in A minor, a Menuetto in B minor, a Sonatina in C major, and Six Variations in A minor.

4) Sonata Zero (Three movements, soon to be four)

This is the set I blogged on earlier and includes a Sonata in A minor, a Scherzo in B minor, and the Fugue in A minor. It requires a slow piece in C, and I'm tossing ideas around for that right now.

5) Lineal Studies (Three so far)

These are Schillinger patterned root progression studies which cannot be played on the guitar any other way than linearly due to range considerations. They're kind of weird, but cool. No fingerings in them yet though, so you're on your own there if you want to play them.


Then, there are some miscelaneous non-guitar pieces:


1) A fugue for Wind Trio. This is the fugue with the serial subject I blogged about.

2) A fugue for String Quartet. This is the homage to Bach's Art of Fugue and Musical Offering style.

3) A five-voice perpetual canon for String Choir. I blogged about this earlier as well.

4) A fugato for orchestra, which exists as a sketch for string choir currently.

5) An orchestrated version of the string quartet fugue.


As I've said before, feel free to use these as you wish, but if you are going to perform them for money or publish them in any form, please contact me and we'll work something out. It's an "honor system" thing (Someone - I can't remember who - published one of my Axial Studies in a method book once, and all I asked for was a credit).


When this season is behind me I'm going fly fishing next spring. Sorry if I insense anyone, but I'm not a "catch-and-realease" fisherman, I'm a "catch-and-EAT" fisherman!

Bet you can't guess what my favorite fly is called (Yes, I tie my own).



Yup. It's called "A Redhead", natch.

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Godin Glissentar w/Custom Ed Reynolds Fretted Neck

WOW! After many years of wishing I had some sort of twelve-string nylon string guitar, all of my wishes and dreams have been wildly exceeded.

When I first learned of the Godin Glissentar, I pretty much freaked out. Since I play Godin's exclusively in my performing career, I wanted one in the worst POSSIBLE way. The problem, of course, is that the Glissentar only comes as as... a fretless instrument (What were they thinking?!). Godin would not custom make one with frets for me, but I bought it anyway. The thing about Godin's lineup of electric nylon string guitars that made this possible is that they have bolt-on necks (The only time in my life I've ever been thankful for that feature).

My original idea was to have someone add frets to the stock neck. I told my friend Mark Pollock of Transpecos Guitars what I wanted to do, and he graciously hooked me up with Eric Johnson's luthier Ed Reynolds (No website) in Austin.

Now, Ed is an old school perfectionist (And quite a character, as well as an all around hilarious human being), so we spent an inordinate amount of time on the phone working all of this out. The Glissentar's stock neck has a 1 7/8" nut width, and a standard classical guitar has a 2" nut, so we quickly went from fretting the stock neck to making a whole new one. Then, as a bonus, I got the neck cross section and profile I've always wanted, but have never had (This evolved over the course of several months).

The results are stunning.



Above is the Glissentar to the right of my Godin Multiac Grand Concert Synth Access guitar for comparison, with the stock fretless neck in between. The glissentar has a slightly smaller body, and the neck joins the body at the fifteenth fret versus the SA's twelveth fret (Which is standard for acoustic classical's as well). Since I have decades of playing electric steel string guitars under my belt, this is easy enough to adapt to. The Glissentar also has twenty-two frets as opposed to the SA's ninteen (Also standard for acoustic classicals), which is a little weirder to come to grips with, but it obviously offers some new possibilities.



Above is a rear view of the two guitars, and now you can see a little of Ed's amazing work: The new neck is a five-piece laminate, and the gold anodized tuning machines are by Sperzel, and are custom ordered lower profile versions of those used on the Parker Nylon Fly guitar. Ed is so forward-thinking that he ordered two extras in case one ever gets broken.



Here's a pic of just the Glissentar.



And here's a closer look at the neck. Unfortunately, my ancient PowerShot A10 won't get the details of Ed's amazing craftsmanship, or even the beautiful grain of the rosewood overlay on the headstock. Let it suffice to say that there are no worthy superlatives.

I had agonized over how much time it might take me to adapt my technique to it, but - stupifyingly - I picked it up and started playing it right away! I'll probably work it into my set gradually - and I do want to do some experimentation with strings (The Glissentar uses ball-end strings and has wound G's, which are great for fretless, but have very thin windings and will wear through quickly with frets under them) - but I was amazed that it was not more difficult to adapt to.

It sounds like an electric lute through my large venue rig, which is exactly what I wanted.

It feels awesome, it looks awesome, and it sounds awesome: It's AWESOME!!!

And yes, the new neck cost much more than the Glissentar did originally. So what. It was worth it. It's the sexiest thing in the world... er... well... almost.

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Fugue on a Serial Subject for Wind Trio

I abandoned the idea of writing this fugue for solo guitar, as the subject's stretto possibilities could not be realized in that restrictive of an idiom (Among other things). In one of those many "I was right the first time" episodes we all have, I returned it to the wind trio, which is the idiom in which I originally concieved this subject.

In case you have not crossed this thread before: This fugue subject is a twelve tone row (All twelve tones of the equally tempered chromatic system in a speciffic order with no repetitions) - Classic Serial Technique - but it establishes definite pitch axes and can easily be interpreted tonally.

The tessitura of the subject landed the fugue in D minor, and please note that this is a Concert Pitch Score: The clarinet part is not transposed (I have a hard enough time reading scores without that added complexity, which MIDI thankfully makes unnecessary).

Because of the inherantly chromatic nature of the subject - which is much more avant garde than any other subject I've ever come up with - the resulting fugue is in a very colorful style that is quite unlike anything else I've ever written. It is still quite conservative by atonalist standards, but I would be lying if I indicated anything other than that this piece is reactionary in nature: I am an anti-atonalist, and I don't mind "stealing" serial tech to give a "pie in the face" nod to that style. If you are an atonalist, please don't take that personally, as it is meant as a bit of good natured and humorous ribbing.



The clarinet is given the first statement of the tone row, and the flute get's the answer, which must necessarily be real to acurately reproduce the tone row on the dominant level. The bassoon comes in with the final thematic statement of the subject, and note it is at the same pitch level as the lowesd D that the clarinet had in measure eight (After which it leaps up an octave): This provides a nice effect of the chalmeau register of the clarinet versus the midrange tone of the bassoon and "spins off" the final thematic statement of the exposition.

I composed the countersubjects and counter-answers using my usual approach, which is more seventeenth century modal tech than eighteenth century tonal tech: The voice leading produces the harmonic effects while I think in a primarily contrapuntal fashion.

It is difficult to explain the balancing act I do with this approach, as it would be a mistake to assume that I am not totally atuned to, and aware of, each and every vertical sonority, but I get to them through multi-linear thinking. If you did a statistical comparison between my counterpoint and Bach's, I believe that you would find about 50% more stepwise motion in my fugues, which would probably be a lot closer to the music of Palestrina in that regard. One of the few criticisms I have about Bach's style is that he leaps around too much to get harmonic colors and effects, and through that sacrifices the purity of line that Palestrina exhibits in his work. And, the further down this path I get, the more I think that Palestrina was the epitome of contrapuntal purity of stylistic integrity (Easily on par with Mozart's style, which I addressed previously).

One of the things I did was to work up to a surface continuity of eighth notes, which is occasionally interrupted by the dotted-eighth/sixteenth figure that ends the subject, and which is also occasionally adorned with a few consecutive sixteenths (In the cumulative rhythm). Another is that I pull the piece back and forth from a primarily simple tripple meter feel and a compound duple meter feel: You can see this in the flute part from measures nine to twelve. It's a neat effect that fits in perfectly with the chromatic nature of the piece.



The first episode is non-modulatory, and introduces a feature of augmented sixths/diminished tenths that I will return to several times over the course of the fugue.

The first middle entry introduces an elaborated version of countersubject one, and tcountersubject two, which the flute had in the lead previously, is now in the bass with the bassoon: This is the primary arrangement of these elements, and the rest of the middle entries will simply display their invertible nature.

The second episode modulates to the dominant region, where another arrangement of the elements may be displayed. Though the elements are varied from the first episode, the augmented sixth element is still present. I love the slightly "wacky" feel of these passages.



The second middle entry at measure twenty-three displays a different inversion of the first countersubject set, now on the dominant level. Since this is a tone row, it cannot be translated to the major mode, so the middle entries simply cycle back and forth between the dominant and tonic levels.

Episode three is unique, and it just "happened" intuitively, but it sounds quite idiomatic for the wind trio and does not violate the style of the piece at all. In fact, it is a welcome variation being that the first two episodes are so similar.

The third middle entry displays the second countersubject set in a new inversion.



Episode four returns to the feel of the first two episodes, and modulates back to the dominant level.

The fourth middle entry exposes the second countersubject set in the original arrangement, but now on the dominant level, and with the lower voice moved up versus down in range, so it's tightened up overall range wise.

Episode five is of the same feel as one, two, and four, and returns us to the tonic level.



The fifth "middle entry" is unique in that the subject is varied: It is intervallically expanded, and the tail is modified. The "countersubjects" are also unique, and this passage almost feels like an extension of the previous episode in some ways. It's quite a nice lick.

Since we are already on the tonic level, episode six does not need to modulate, as we are approaching the recap. The overal decending nature of the episode tips the listener off to the fact that this is going to come to the final thematic statements of the piece.

The recapitulation itself was difficult to arrive at: The subject and answer work in stretto at one measure of distance with the answer below the subject, but the answer and subject only work at three measures delay with the subject above, which might seem anti-climactic. But, by giving the flute a soaring arch of a counterpoint to the initial stretto, I was able to set up a really cool bass counterpoint for the final combination that more than mitigates against that possibility.



As you can see, I was able to use the answer's tail figure - first in sequence, then in inversion - to extrapolate a bass counterpoint to the final statement of the subject. Combined with the clarinet's accellerating decending chromatic line in the middle, this gives rise to a quite exciting effect. The subject's tail then takes over this self-similar fractal process in measure fifty-eight, and into the tiny codetta that begins in measure fifty-nine.

Note that the outside voices arrive at their final resolution into measure sixty via an augmented sixth in the outer voices in keeping with the style of the rest of the piece. Finally, the clarinet gets in on the action with it's final flourish in measure sixty, and humorously feigns an end on the minor third just before introducing the final measure's tierce de Picardie in the final measure.

And yes, I noticed that the piece being sixty-one measures long and in tripple time means that at 61 beats-per-minute it would be "The Three Minute Fugue": I'll probably use that in keeping with my overall convivial approach to the piece as a whole.

I really like this little thing, and I get the distinct impression that it may foreshadow a more chromatic development in my integrated-modal style of counterpoint.

God forbid that I may be approaching the haut coture of contemporary mucic though!



"Huc, you make serialism sound as good as I make this goofy dress look!"

Thank you, Clinta.

This is now on my FileShare page as S_TRIO_3VOX_SERIAL_FUGUE.pdf/.mid if you want to take a listen.

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Discovery and Application: Guitar Fugue Redux

No Tim, not "applicability", LOL!

BTW: I have added a link to Tim Rutherford-Johnson's excelent blog "Johnson's Rambler" to my sidebar blog list, so check him out (But frankly, if you frequent music blogs and you haven't found his place already, I'd be surprised). "Listen" is also there now, and it's great as well.

This topic has been rattling around in my cranium for a while, but I needed an example to "mature" before I could address it. Well, now I have one, so here we go.

What got this started for me was the recollection of a comment I heard someone make years ago (Can't recall who, exactly) that basically was critical of Mozart for recycling material: "It all sounds too much the same." At the time, I believe I nodded in agreement, believe it or not.

Well, the more I get into analyzing aspects of stylistic development, and developing approaches of my own to style, the more I come to realize that statement was ignorant, as was my dunderheaded agreement with it.

In a lot of the guitar music I write, I "discover" things: Harmonic structures, chord progressions, contrapuntal sequences and combinations, etc. In fact, I pretty sure that every piece I've ever written has had a discovery of one sort or another in it. However, as I look at pieces I've written more recently, I find that I am now applying elaborated versions of those previous discoveries alongside of new ones I'm making: This is an aspect of stylistic development I don't recall ever hearing anyone address before (Though, no doubt, UMI probably has, like, a gazillion dissertations on this or related topics).

My view of Mozart is complex: I admire the unity and integrity of his style more and more, but the actual music is a bit on the light side for my taste. That is not to say I don't recognize the trancendent genius of it, just that it moves me less than say Bach, Beethoven, or... Haydn. I don't want to digress too far on this path because it is only tangentally related to what I want to address today, so suffice it to say that the music of the other three simply speaks to me on a deeper, "heavier" level, but I believe Mozart achieved an unprecidented unity and clarity of stylistic integrity.

I believe Mozart achieved this stylistic unity through the process of discovery and application, as do all successful composers, but to a previously and subsequently unmatched degree (Though, I wouldn't disagree if you think Bach was as good or even better).

In the old days, I never analyzed my work retrospectively: The piece was finished, I liked it, so "Next!" As time went on, however, I found myself increasingly saying to myself things like, "What was it I did back in that B minor prelude?", and so I started taking a closer look at my stuff. I think this is useful for developing style, and not just because you get to solidify processes, but because in analyzing your own work, you will make further discoveries of things you did intuitively, and you'll be able to internalize those things as well.

This little guitar fugue is a good example of this. I've come to the conclusion that it is by far the best piece I've ever written for the guitar as pure music, but a lot of the features that make it special I did intuitively and discovered retrospectively.



I'm not a big fan of Schenker - Though I own Free Composition and the Five Graphic Music Analyses and have "Schenked" my share of pieces. The reason has always been that I considered it a great analysis technique, but I thought the results were achieved through intuition and the natural tendency of voices to decend in strong root progressions: I didn't see how you could start with a "Schenker Line" and get a piece out of it... until now.

One of the first things I noticed was that my fugue subject is merely a very slightly decorated and primordial "5, 4, 3, 2, 1" in Schenker-speak! And, of course, the entire piece is also a 5 to 1. Talk about a seminal discovery!

Another thing that I wondered about was why did the fugue "want" me to come to a brief repose at cadential points versus having elisions at those points? Well, if you take a look at the progression of the piece toward a surface continuity of eighth notes - which was where I thought this was headed initially, you'll notice that it never "gets there": The tail figure of the subject has a dotted-eight followed by a sixteenth, and so the progress toward constant eighth notes is thwarted.

During the second thematic statement of the answer and counter-answer starting at measure five, the eighth notes are brought back from the tail figure by one beat in measure seven, and then in the third thematic statement of the subject and it's countersubjects, the eighths are brought back two beats from the tail in measure eleven. This process is then interrupted by the first episode beginning in measure thirteen, and that entire episode has the rhythm of the tail figure, so the process does not come to completion there either.



That is why it is not only OK to come to a brief repose at the cadence into measure sixteen, but it is actually more effective to do that than to try to cram some sort of elision figure in there: The subsequent entry of the subject over a perfect fourth is more effective this way.

You may notice that I've eliminated the ties in the 4-3 suspension/resolution chains, and that is because it's much easier to finger - and more idiomatic to the guitar - if I do it that way. As someone who performs his own stuff, I'm very aware of the "cost/benefit" factor: Is keeping the ties in there worth the extra effort? Is the "payoff" worth it? I decided not.

As you can see, the constant eighth note surface rhythm is only missing in the measure with the tail figure now, and the second episode, being a variation of the first, is again of no "help" in the effort: All subsequent cadential points during this counterexposition are properly elided, but still a constant eighth note presence is not achieved.



As a result, the lack of an elision into measure 32 is not only not percieved as a fault, it is actually an inevitability that continues the established overall rhythmic scheme, and it again makes the entrance of the subject under the major second far more effective. The fact that the resolutiuon from the V/V to the I of the relative is a deceptive one further facilitates this effect.

Throughout this series of middle entries, I have added a further sixteenth note to the ultimate measures with the tail figure, but the second eighth note of those measures still never appears. Even in measure forty-seven, where I launch into the constant sixteenths that will make up the third and climactic episode, that second eighth note is still absent.



If you've seen the previous entries about this fugue, you already know that the third episode is a harmonized version of the theme in augmentation: It starts out as the answer in the dominant region, and throughout it's modulation ends up the subject on the tonic level. Though the texture is constant sixteenth notes, the tail figure's rhythm is nowhere to be found (Except in augmentation, and even then it is disguized by the arpeggiation pattern), so when the cadence to the tonic is not elided, it's perfectly natural and inevitable.

It is also worth noting that the third episode, because it presents the augmented subject starting in the dominant region, is another big "5, 4, 3, 2, 1" line, complete with a harmonically achieved modulation.

You probably notice that I don't put harmonic analyses in my counterpoint pieces. I do this for a reason: I prefer the purity of the modal style, so I use that approach in a tonal context and let the harmonies happen "intuitively" except for at cadence points, or in modulatory episodes such as the climactic one here.

Anyway, the return to the tonic sets up a unique stretto where every voice gets the subject starting on the same pitch level. This has a fabulous closing effect for the fugue. I mean, it absolutely, positively puts the piece to bed. During this recapitulation, the tail figure still has no second eighth note until the penultimate measure where I'm reprising the 4-3 suspension/resolution chain, and that leads to a final constant sixteenth note flourish at the final cadence. Of course, a ritardando is definitely required here. And, it's three consecutive and interlocking "5, 4, 3, 2, 1" Schenker lines.

Another thing is the four voice chord that ends the piece. A perfect triad has four tones: Root, third, fifth, and a root doubling at the octave. This is also prefigured and built up to. At measure fourty-eight - over the dominant pedal, I first introduce a four voiced triad, but it is not in close position, and the octave doubling is not on the outside. Note that it is a brief sixteenth note's duration. The fugue goes into a kind of "free-voiced-ness" during the third episode, as the arpeggiation pattern hints alternately at four voices and then three voices, with the four voiced texture having the edge (It could even be considered incipient five/four voiced texture with the pedal point included).

So, the second four voiced triad at measure fifty-five, over the tonic pedal, is natural and inevitable. Note that it also is not in close position, and does not have the octave doubling at the outer extremes, so it is far from being a "perfect" triad. Then, it is a quarter note's duration, which matches up with the earlier reposes, and it is four times longer than the previous four note triad in sixteenth notes.

As a result, the third and final four note triad that is in close position and is perfect with it's exterior octave doubling also has a final inevitability to it, and is not just "there" to more convincingly end the piece. And, though it is notated in half notes, with the ritardando it is virtually in whole notes: Four times the previous four note triad's duration.

Other proportional things I noticed: The first episode is three measures long, the second is four measures long, and the third is seven measures long. 3 + 4= 7. In the MIDI version, where I programmed in the riatrdandos and accelerandos in, the pitch climax in measure forty-seven falls at... the 67% point. There are fourteen thematic statements including the harmonized version in the third episode. Number thirteen (Betrayal) enters early and starts the stretto. The first episode is 25% as long as it's preceeding entries, the second episode is 33% as long as it's preceeding entries, and the third episode is 44% as long as it's previous entries: This, as 8 + 11, is very close to the Fibonacci series' 8 +13, and in the temporal climate of the music is just as effective.

As you can see, analyzing your intuition can be a fruitful venture. Now that I've discovered that I do these things in my best pieces, I can more consistantly apply them in the future.

I need sleep. As usual, the piece is on my FileShare page



"What!?"

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Reducing Music to Numbers

Music is vulnerable to math. As a system which can objectively be viewed simply as a set of twelve pitches - and, therefore numbers - music can have a virtually limitless variety of mathematical algorithms applied to it: The musical elements themselves do not prevent it. Or, even protest.

So much twentieth-century music is praised for it's arithmetical, mathematical, and geometrical exactitude. Why then, don't I like it? You can find unabridged aspects of math literally permiating the music of every great composer throughout all of music history; so why then does only the twentieth-century "atonal" stuff sound so abjectly lame to me?

Simple, really. In the music of the great composers whom I love, math was in the service of music: In the twentieth century, math started to rule over music. Math ruling over music is fundamentally... wrong.

Music has math in it - it's a kind of pure math in sound, in fact - but it's a math that is peculiar to music and other music-related natural phenomena. (Wait for it... here it comes!) The math that is directly related to the harmonic overtone series is the math of music and the music of math. We are dealing with a pre-existing mathematical system based on natural harmonic ratios: 1:1, 2:1, 3:2, 4:3, etc.

There are countless non-musical arithmetical and mathematical systems out there, and foisting them brutishly onto music can have almost no other possible result than to produce bad music. Non-music, even, in my view. No mater how robust the defense of whatever system is imposed on the musical elements, the end result must be... musical. The intellectual test for this is simple: If the system involved is within the sphere of the math that is directly related to the nature of sound, then there is a chance that the result will be musical, if not, no chance. But the acid test is even simpler: How does it sound? Eddie Van Halen said, "If it sounds right, it is right." I think this is overly simplistic on the one hand, but exactly correct on the other. I personally am willing to give composers the benefit of the doubt if they are incorporating the math of music, even if the piece does not speak to me individually. Hey, there are plenty of wildly popular and significant works from the common practice eras which do not speak to me, so who am I - pimple on the posterior of music that I am - to dismiss works that may be plenty communicative to some, and are based on musical mathematics, and yet don't say anything that I particularly want to hear? This goes back to my arguement that the now cannot ever hope to objectively predict it's place in history: Only history can do that after years of retrospect.

It seems to me that, for the most part, the objections of listeners to the majority of twentieth-century serialism has been shown to be sufficiently justified, and yet I think we are still far too close to the events time-wise to make any ultimate judgement on it. And, to be fair, asside from writing a serial fugue subject (Albeit one with obvious tonal implications), I also find that some aspects of atonality can be used as an effective resource within an overal tonal/modal context to suspend tonality, and to good effect. In fact, to far better effect than uncompromising and persistent atonality gives. The roots of this approach, by the way, go back to extended episodes of symmetrical structures like diminished seventh chords and augmented triads. That would be to at least the early Baroque, if not even further back.

Music has it's own will, and it's own agenda. In order to come to an understanding of it, you have to meet up with it on it's home turf and on it's own terms. The composer is the disciple, and music is the master. If you don't get that, you can't even get to square one, in this monk's humble opinion.

That certainly sounds hopelessly old fashioned and - perish the thought - Romantic, I'm sure, but this is what I have come to the conclusion is the actual, unvarnished truth of the matter.

When I hear contemporary critical reviews of music that describe the work under scrutiny as "uncompromising", I infer from that statement that the music is sadly saddled with some non-musical mathematical system or construct. I may not always be right, but experience has taught me that I more often than not... am. When I perilously assume that I won't like said "uncompromising" piece, my rate of accuracy approaches 100%.

Worse still, to me, is the old canard that says something to the effect of, "In the twentieth century, composers left the audience behind." Please. From my point of view, twentieth-century composers abandoned an audience that was still plenty hungry for new and different styles of music. The acceptance of increasingly "uncompromising" styles of jazz during the same time period would seem to me to qualify as solid anecdotal evidence of this.

Shillinger said that music with a "neutral pitch distribution" (Music that does not establish a pitch heirarchy and/or pitch axes) was objected to because it was fundamentally unnatural: "Audiences usually object to such music, and they are right to do so" (Quoting from memory, but I'm sure I have this essentially right). Now, Schillinger was lightyears ahead of me as a musical futurist, of that their can be no doubt, but the vast majority of his concepts - even if I wouldn't consider them for my own music - seem quite logical from a musical mathematics standpoint. I think this is key. At least a key, if not the key.

Yes, yes. Hoplessly old-fashioned. But, being a little old fashioned isn't always such a bad thing, is it Julianne?



"Not at all: I like old fashioned guys."

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