7.) Ante Meridiem June 19, 2013

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As I've made use of Messiaen's modes of limited transpositions both in this project and prior to it, I've noticed that their use alone does not guarantee my work to sound like Messiaen's.  I'm happy about that.  But I'm also curious as to what makes his music sound like it does.  It seems to have a radiant, gleaming quality to it, while I've found that many of my pieces sound dark.   I think Messiaen's harmonic choices have a lot to do with it, but his rhythmic choices must not be overlooked either.  Often times he wrote successions of chords in the middle-high register of the piano with faster rhythm that leave me hearing and feeling the mode and its overtones in totality.   Ante Meridiem is an attempt at lightening my work a shade or two.  

In The Technique of My Musical Language there is a chapter about added notes, meaning notes that he added to more traditional chords.  And in the chapter about the modes themselves, he gives each mode as a scale, and then shows a harmonized scale (the harmony being composed of notes in the mode).  Many of these harmonized scales feature chords with added notes.   The harmonization of mode two is an alternating between a major triad with an added augmented fourth, and a dominant seventh chord with the fifth being replaced with the sixth.  I used both of these chords in Ante Meridiem, especially the major plus augmented fourth, which has a shimmering quality in my opinion.  I also attempted to use a faster harmonic rhythm to bring some lightness, while keeping in mind that I had to learn to play this piece in just a few days.

The pitch material is entirely from the seventh mode of limited transposition, first transposition.   It's essentially a chromatic scale without an E-natural, or B-flat.  I first came up with the melody, which fit the scale, and then harmonized each note with chords of mode seven.  It was actually quite challenging to avoid Es and B-flats, and I kept finding mistakes throughout the whole process.  I think I fixed all of them.  But there was a considerable effort on my part to limit my harmonic spectrum even further than the mode did naturally.  There were a number of chords that I used and transposed to different keys.  Most of them ended up being a triad with an added note.

Things will get interesting and perhaps challenging now because I am heading out of town.  For four weeks I will be teaching jazz piano at the New York Summer Music Festival.   I'm hopeful that my schedule will not interrupt this project.  However I will be without some of the technology I use for it at home, so it might not be as easy.  Although I've got a plan to make it work, the recording quality and the quality of the scoring may suffer a bit.  And I really am not sure how intense my teaching schedule will be.   After NYSMF, I will be in and out of town for the rest of the summer.  But again, I'm hopeful that I'll be able to maintain the project.  I'm committed to getting fifty-two pieces written, but you'll have to cut me a little slack if a couple of them are posted late this summer.

6.) Saturated June 10, 2013

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A few years ago I was shopping at the Downtown Music Gallery, which is an amazing place to find recordings of all kinds of creative music.  As I was browsing, they were playing a recording that I found extremely interesting.  It was a solo piano composition that featured repeated chords at a very slow tempo.  Every so often,= one of the notes would be different.  And every so often a chord would be rolled.  But what blew my mind about it was that it didn't change for the whole twenty minutes that I was in there.  I kept thinking, "Okay, this has to go somewhere else soon.  It has to develop into something else."  But it didn't.  It turned out to be Tyshawn Sorey's first record, entitled That/Not.  The piece playing was Permutations for Solo Piano, which is actually about forty-five minutes long!  The owner of the store, Bruce said that it was Tyshawn's tribute to Morton Feldman.

The twenty minutes I spent in that store that day were a turning point.  It completely changed my perception of the piano.  Naturally I bought the record, listened to it, and then immediately began checking out Morton Feldman's music.  I began hearing the piano in a different way.  There are so many interesting sounds happening in the sustain of a good piano, or even a bad piano.  It's especially brought to light by repetition of short phrases with the sustain pedal held down, because it allows the listener a chance to hear beyond the fundamental pitches and pay attention to the overtones.  I supposed we could always be listening in that way, but it seems like upon first hearing a phrase, we're paying more attention to basic pitch and rhythm material.

I also learned a great deal about memory from Feldman's music.  He often repeats a short phrase several times,  which creates expectations in the listener.  I begin to expect these pitches that are coming up, and enjoy them when they happen.  Quite often Feldman will use rhythmic augmentation for later repetitions, which delays the arrival of these pitches that I so look forward to, making the expectation and enjoyment even more intense.  Check out his String Quartet No. 2 to hear what I'm talking about.  The solo piano piece For Bunita Marcus also used this.

I've emulated this sort of thing in some of my previous work.  Time Canvas I recorded with my trio on the record Magnolia.  There is a piece from my previous weekly composition project called Commune.

Saturated began with me dropping my hands on the keyboard.  I landed on a chord that I liked, and I examined it to see if it would fall into any of Messiaen's modes.  It fell into mode 7, but that mode is almost a chromatic scale, I and wanted to find a mode that would limit my pitch choices a little more.  So I changed one note and found that the chord fit perfectly into mode 4.  This chord is the one you see in measure five if you look at the score.

After I found this chord, I began repeating it and then changing notes, while staying within mode 4.  I found that it worked nicely to create melodies with the inner voices.  At that moment, the piece was basically composed.  It was just a matter of getting it out.  After getting it out, I revised it a bit, adding the single notes before each written section, adding the textural diminution (boy am I proud I just wrote that ) at the end.  I also changed some of the melodic phrases so that they were not all four measure repetitions.

We've had some rain lately.  A lot of it actually.  And more is coming today.  The monotony of Saturated seems to fit with this weather.

5.) Grandiflora June 6, 2013

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Grandiflora is a layering of two transpositions of Messiaen's mode two, also known as the diminished or octatonic scale.  The treble staff melody is composted entirely of the third transposition, while the left hand chords are entirely derived out of the second transposition, assuming I didn't make any mistakes.  I love the sound of these modes together.  Combined they contain all twelve pitches of the chromatic scale, so technically I could have created any kind of harmony with this combination.  But there's something about the strength of each of them alone.  The chords are so interesting to me, and so are the melodic shapes found within the scale.  So I rarely thought about the melody adding a different quality to the chord.   Rather, the melody seemed to float over the strength of the harmony.  In fact, for the second half of the piece, I simply took the phrases from the first half and transposed them up or down in minor thirds so that the intervals remained the same and the pitches were still from the same mode.  That resulted in some unusual notes, but I thought they still worked nicely.  I also employed Messiean's technique of non-retrogradable rhythms in the rhythm of the chords.

The title refers to the variety of many of the roses that are planted in our yard.  They are beautiful this time of year with fresh blooms and minimal disease and insect damage.  In fact the whole garden is looking pretty happy right now.  June is good.

4.) Raison d'être May 31, 2013

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Continued experimentation with a few of Messiaen's techniques.  The three voices are composed of three transpositions of the fifth mode of limited transposition.   Then there are three repetitions of this theme that make use of rhythmic augmentation, followed by a recapitulation of the original statement.  In each of the middle repetitions, I added the same amount of total value to each voice, so that the voices would stagger, and then line up together again at the end.  I'm not sure how crazy I am about the result, but I am satisfied with the experiment.

I put space for improvisation between each repetition, creating a rondo form of sorts.  I've done this before in other pieces and the challenge is to make it flow as a whole.  Sometimes this kind of form sounds chopped up, but it seemed natural to give it a try again here.  

Raison d'être means "Reason to Be", and that's something that I always seem to think about this time of year.  I think people generally use this phrase in reference to their muse.  I'm thinking about it in terms of my life's purpose.   Spring is a lovely time, but it can also hang you up the most.  Ever year I find myself wondering if I'm doing the right thing, and if I'm on the right path, probably because it seems difficult to work this time of year.   I'm ready to relax, ready to travel a bit, and I'm definitely ready for the ocean.  But nonetheless, forward I must go.  

3.) Corps sans gluten du Christ (May 23, 2013)

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This piece sounds a little more like Messiaen.  After working through some different ideas and failing, I half-heartedly decided to allow this to happen.  Again it's not my intention to recreate Messiaen's music, but I think some imitation is acceptable, especially for a project such as this.

The piece exclusively uses the third transposition of Messiaen's third mode, which is very enjoyable.  On a worksheet I extracted many commonly used chords; major triads, minor triads, many varieties of seventh chords, and fourth structures.  What's remarkable is how these common chords relate to each other within this scale.  I enjoyed writing combinations of chords.  But it's interesting that although I only used this mode, many of the chords do not sound Messiaenic.  Some of them really do, others send a red flag up: This isn't Messiaen.

Also, in reading The Technique of My Music Language, I've learned a lot about Messiaen's melodic choices.  There is a chapter on melodic cadence.  In it he explains how the descending tritone and descending sixth are natural and useful.  I was not hearing these intervals much as I composed this piece, but the phrases in which I used them do sound more like Messiaen's phrases.  And I've noticed in listening to his music how often these intervals, especially the tritone, are used melodically.

For my improvisation I chose to stick with the same scale, which was not yet easy.  Hopefully throughout the course of the project, it will become easier and easier to improvise with the modes of limited transposition.

Last weekend I played a jazz church service with some friends of mine.  On the program it said that for communion the pastor's station will be gluten-free.  I found this interesting.  This was not a catholic church, but having been raised catholic, I couldn't help pondering the situation.  It becomes a little funny when you consider the transubstantiation idea.  So I thought since my piece kind of sounded like Messiaen on a off day, I could use a title that is a poor imitation of his also.

2.) Tides (May 16, 2013)

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This week I began a complete reading of Messiaen's book The Technique of My Musical Language.  It filled me with ideas I'm eager to try.  So far it's mainly dealt with rhythm, and I decided to use some of those techniques this week.  After a few failed attempts, I ended up with Tides, which is a superimposition of two non-retrogradable rhythm sequences.  The treble staff is a rhythm that is seventeen eighth notes in duration, while the bass staff rhythm is twenty eighth notes in total duration.  Therefore, they begin together, and then are staggered as the keep repeating.  It worked out that the piece needed to be forty two and a half measures long to allow all relationships between the two rhythms to occur.  Following that, the rhythms would line up as they did at the beginning.

The oddest things about the rhythm of Tides are the rests and the duration of the last notes of the phrases.  For example, beat three in the first measure would naturally be written as a quarter note followed by a single sixteenth rest on beat four.  It would make it easier to read and wouldn't be much different in sound.  But I decided to stay true to my rhythm sequences.

The pitch material of Tides also uses some of Messiaen's techniques.  The treble staff melody is composed of one of the transpositions of Messiaen's mode two, which is the diminished, or octotonic scale.  The bass staff is composed of one of the transpositions of Messiaen's mode one, which is the whole-tone scale.  He says that this mode should be avoided because of Debussy's extensive use of it.  However, he says it's tolerable when used alongside other modes and techniques, which is what I did.

The problem with Tides is the playing and recording of it.  This was not easy.  I'm not happy with my recording.  I'd like it to be faster and mistake free, and I failed to play all the rests accurately.  But again I ran out of time.  It will have to suffice.  I didn't improvise on this recording.  I figured it was enough without it.

I'm happy with the fact that although I used Messiaen's techniques for every aspect of this piece, it really doesn't sound like Messiaen.  I find that encouraging.  More experimentation with superimposed rhythms will no doubt be happening.  Hopefully something easier to play will result.

I leave you with a quote from The Technique of My Musical Language:

Let us think now of the hearer of our modal and rhythmic music; he will not have time at the concert to inspect the nontranspositions and the nonretrogradations, and, at that moment, these questions will not interest him further; to be charmed will be his only desire.   And that is precisely what will happen; in spite of himself he will submit to the strange charm of impossibilities : a certain effect of tonal ubiquity in the nontransposition, a certain unity of movement (where beginning and end are confused because identical) in the non retrogradation, all things which will lead him progressively to that sort of theological rainbow which the musical language, of which we seek edification and theory, attempts to be.

Inspiration

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