Piece Progression

This week in the lecture we spent a lot of time discussing how a piece progresses musically. It came about because the majority of the pieces played in the lecture were a series of episodes rather than a fluid, flowing composition. This is a topic that, in my opinion, must be addressed in order to create a high standard of composition.

The conclusion reached in the lecture is that a good piece flows from section to section seamlessly and does not stutter when changing musical direction. This does not necessarily mean that a piece cannot have a break or stop in it, as this can sometimes work very effectively, the point is that a piece should flow. Taking the listener on a journey, evolving themes within it and having a point of interest that flow from idea to idea, section to section without the listener having to be particularly aware that the sections haver changed. This is my view anyway, feel free to leave me a comment with your views on piece progression. 

« what’s the concept?

what’s the concept?

This week in our Laptop Musicianship workshop we discussed the idea of having a concept to a piece. Quite rightly, we are required to give our two pieces some sort of concept and idea that is explored within the music. It is a very rare thing for a piece not to contain some sort of idea and directing concept, as was pointed out it would be unlikely for a band to go on stage at Hyde Park and say ‘here are just some chords we think our nice.’ It wouldn’t happen.

As a result, within our group we are going to need to firstly think up a concept for both pieces and then make them correspond and relate to the music. Our first piece already has a vague one, where at the time when we composed it, we agreed that the piece had a sound that was like two monsters in a battle. When we polish the piece off I would like this idea to be embellished to a greater degree so that a listener can pick up where the concept comes from and I think this will also help round off the piece and give it greater direction.

For the second piece it is a little more tricky. The piece is a very busy one and we are still not too sure as to what the concept will be. The fact that it is so busy, perhaps, could give us scope to have the concept of a storm or a battle scene but I am sure we will work it out over the coming week in order to play it to the class and get some all important feedback before completion. 

Piece Progression »« Speaker Placement: The open debate

Speaker Placement: The open debate

In this week’s performance to the class, as a group we thought we should try out experimenting with the speakers and their placement. For the first performance we randomly placed each others speakers around each other to see what effect this might have on the performance. After the performance Julio suggested that instead of simply randomly placing them, but without going back to the usual of keeping our own speakers next to our own laptops, we could try strategically placing the speakers to get the best sound. We placed the two subwoofers together because their placement does not really effect the music, but with the smaller speakers we placed them in pairs, spread as far apart as they would reach (i.e one of my small speakers with one of Ben’s, one of mine with one of Chris’s etc.) This, in my opinion had an instant improvement on the piece. It is something that I would like to discuss again in class or as a debate on the blogs though. Does anyone think that speakers are best kept next to the laptop (as it is an ‘instrument’) or does it enhance an overall group performance to have them spread as we did in class?   

what’s the concept? »« Using Scales and Tonality

Using Scales and Tonality

Last week in the Tuesday lecture we were given a greater insight into how to use and incorporate scales and have a better sense of tonality to our pieces. In the lesson we listened to a piece by another group which was based completely in a tonal sense and we all agreed that as listeners from a western culture we all found it more ‘pleasing’ to the ear and that we could relate to the piece in a way that, perhaps, we haven’t in the ‘noise’ based compositions. In the coming lectures and group rehearsals I would like our group to try and incorporate a greater sense of tonality into the pieces. However, unlike the other group I would still like to keep the experimental ‘noise-based’ aspects also.

Speaker Placement: The open debate »« A couple of good points picked up from the LM lecture:

A couple of good points picked up from the LM lecture:

1.An interesting idea I felt we were discussing in the lecture this week was about musical expectation. It is the idea that as a listener we have an expectation for what is about to come in the music. So as we hear, for example a typical pop chord progression of G to C repeated, we become used to hearing this and we expect it to happen. This makes us recognize the music and in most cases like hearing it. It is from this discussion that I have learnt that we should incorporate this within our SuperCollider group as we compose. One book that I have ordered on Amazon to learn more about this subject is David Huron’s: ‘Sweet Anticipation: Music and the Psychology of Music. 

www.amazon.com/Sweet-Anticipation-Psychology-Expectation-Bradford/dp/0262083450+book+on+musical+expectation&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=uk  

2. The next composition learning point from this weeks lecture is to think of composing for the SuperCollider group/orchestra as one would a classical orchestra. In a classical orchestra it is unusual for every instrument to be playing all of the time. This can (and in my opinion should) also be the case in a laptop orchestra. So far within the group I am in we have often been all playing at the same time, which can cause too full a texture. This is something I hope we can address over the next few weeks, to give our compositions more clarity and an improved style.   

Using Scales and Tonality »« Functions and curly brackets

Functions and curly brackets

Hi all, 

As I am getting to know the gigantic program of SuperCollider, I delved into the help files to pick up a basic learning on FUNCTIONS.

In SuperCollider a curly bracket shows that it is a function. Functions result their last line of code.

The help files have shown me a very useful way in which to understand functions. They should be thought of as a machine like a calculator. it receives input, (in SClang these are called arguments) and can output  a value, which is the overall result of the performed tasks. The function , as mentioned in the helpfile can then be ‘thought of as the building of the calculator; once built the calculator does nothing until the person using it requests it to work (on a macbook laptop that is to press fn + return)

As I am still having problems uploading pictures and images onto my blog, there is a really useful picture on the help file ‘functions’.

Cheerio

A couple of good points picked up from the LM lecture: »« SuperCollider: helpful shortcuts

SuperCollider: helpful shortcuts

As with all Mac programs there are useful keyboard shortcuts within SuperCollider that help to move around the program quickly and efficiently. Here are some I have picked up so far:

cmd-shift-c= clears the post window

cmd-d= help files

cmd-k= reboots the whole of SC

cmd-s= save

cmd z= undo

cmd .= stop everything that is playing

cmd ‘= separates categories of words into colors

I will add to this shortcut list as I find new shortcuts to use.

Functions and curly brackets »« SuperCollider: getting to know some basics.

SuperCollider: getting to know some basics.

SuperCollider is a very complex and expressive music program. The official SuperCollider website described it as: an environment and programming language for real time audio synthesis and algorithmic composition. It provides an interpreted object-oriented language which functions as a network client to a state of the art, realtime sound synthesis server.\

During my first few weeks at Anglia I have been working towards getting to know the basics of the program and its language. 

A few basics that I have learnt are:

Objects always have capitals, everything else is in lower case.

SuperCollider has two servers: Local (internal) and Internal (external)

The SuperCollider program language is called SClang.

the { bracket means it is a function

the [] brackets creates a list

the help files can be activated by pressing cmd-D when the thing you want to find out about is highlighted.

SuperCollider: helpful shortcuts »« 14th October: week four

14th October: week four

Hi everyone,

My name is Alex Johnstone and I am a first year Student studying Creative Music Technology at Anglia Ruskin College in Cambridge. Feel free to subscribe to my blog and invite me to subscribe to yours if I haven’t already. I will be using this blog to track what I learn and any new discoveries I find relating to my course, so enjoy. 

SuperCollider: getting to know some basics. »