Lee Sanders: Weekend Provocation — Now with Extra Homework
Aug 12th, 2009 | Category: Articles
Time to take Weekend Provocation up a notch. Your mission, should you choose to accept it:
Write a one-minute cue—but the only pitch you can use is C. Any rhythm, any instrumentation, any style, any non-pitch components, etc. that you like. But if there is a pitch played anywhere in the cue, it must be a C.
My point here is this: Most of the composers I’ve had the privilege to teach have found their greatest strengths to be melody and harmony. It makes sense: we begin our musical learning and development with these aspects (and rhythm, of course, but rhythm is more an inherent function, at least at first).
So let’s strip away the thing we’re most familiar with and take a wild ride out to the very edge of our Comfort Zone. Not quite so far out that we’re in the Panic Zone—after all, it’s only a minute of music, and there are plenty of ways to create points of access for a listener using other musical elements.
Your task is to dive into those other elements and come up with a game plan for conveying something meaningful (your choice what that should be)… and then executing on that plan. This is an assignment I may have mentioned here before on SCOREcast, but now I’m making it (semi-) official.
Let us know how it comes out… and if you like this idea, you can give yourself other, similar assignments with different constraints (only duration=whole notes! Only instruments made of wood! No notes in the middle two octaves of the keyboard!).
Think of it as a musical version of Lars von Trier’s The Five Obstructions. Again, we won’t play for keeps… yet. Just for respect. And maybe some fun.
Update:
Well, crap. I intended to post this on the weekend (hence the name). Blame it on pure boneheaded pilot error… but what the hell. It’s up now, and it gives everyone a couple extra days to try out the assignment and see where it takes them.
Sorry to bump Houston’s very good and important article down one slot—you should go read it right now. Seriously.
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Wow!
WAAAAAAAYYYY more difficult than I ever thought it would be! A major challenge for me. This *really* took me long time because no matter what I did, I felt like I could not go anywhere with it (I guess that's the point, right!). Very tough!
Here is “C Horses”…
http://deaneogden.com/MP3/scorecast/c-horses_xm...
And just for my own damned sanity ;o) … here's the frickin' melody!
http://deaneogden.com/MP3/scorecast/c-horses_me...
I SWEAR a famous composition professor or composer had his students challenge him to do something exactly like this. The story is sitting in the back of my brain with a neon light flashing…but I can't seem to pull up the context, class, textbook, etc. where I first heard it. I even vaguely remember listening to the finished piece.
…somewhere in those foggy years of music school.
Oh…and are you folks are familiar with Giacinto Scelsi? Apparently he was well known for this kind of stuff:
http://www.classical.net/music/comp.lst/acc/sce...
OK, people—here's a quick mix of my own version of this thing: “C-Through.”
http://www.sandersmusic.net/SandersMusic/Blog/E...
I'm gonna give a listen to everyone's cues tomorrow and comment (though my comment will mostly be THANK YOU for getting involved—and I hope it was a valuable experience!).
Very diggable and slightly off-kilter in the best kind of way. Is the phrase “aleatoric rhythm” a true oxymoron? Regardless, this cue has it – and I love it. Very well done.
Dammit!! The more I listen to you guys, the more I wanna re-do mine! LOL
Dude, seriously, from a percussionist's POV, this is a dream. Not to mention perfect use of electronics to augment the organic orchestral vibe with the chimes and low strings.
Awesome. Period. That's all.
Thanks, guys—I posted above about how I sort of failed at allowing there to be silence… anyone else find a tendency (good, bad or surprising) that sort of came to the surface while doing this thing?
Hey, Mike—thanks for the link to Scelsi (I'd never heard of him, and now I want to check out his work!). This idea is certainly not original with me, btw… my undergraduate composition professor hit me with this thing after I'd started to get (ahem) a little lazy with the sequencing in the synth lab back in the day.
It was a much-needed kick in the pants back then, and, as I learned tonight, it's still valuable as a focus tool and a provocation.
Once things settle down here at the studio I'm considering doing this assignment maybe five more times, or as many times as I feel I'm still getting something out of it. Or until I throw something at my computer screen. :-)
Hahaha I Haven't even listened yet and I'm busting up. I almost had to post “the rest” of mine too… resisted. That's awesome. okay I'll take a listen now.
Very nice Deane. And thanks for the melody version. I could see this as the basis for a “real” cue somewhere. Then we could say “Hey I remember he started this cue for that SC challenge way back when!”
Easy to answer for me. I found compelled, since I was restricted to “C”, to put in more stuff. If that makes sense. I guess sort of like since I was restricted in one way, I wanted to overdo it in another way.
Maybe my next personal assignment: something to do with silence! Like “At least 10 seconds of the minute long cue must be silent.” Or “x seconds” whatever seems best.
You know what I like about this article? It shows we're not just sitting around talking. This is the first time I've ever got to really listen to a “vertical” of you all. Anyone mind if I put all this on my iPod for my own personal use?
James, Lee must have know this as he is the only one with art work
LOL
We haven't talked about copyrights here (part of a topic for another month… stay tuned, SCOREcasters!), but I don't have a problem with that at all for this cue.
Very nice work, Deane! I listened to your original before you posted the melody version and I was thinking it was just begging for it…not that it isn't interesting all on its own!
He's just a Photoshop addict :)
Killer cue, Lee! Frikkin' sweet.
By the way…dude, I TOTALLY didn't even hear this cue 'til several hours after posting mine, so I guess we were both on the same wavelength, so to speak, on those octave chimes! I personally love that sound.
Is true.
A great mind thinks alike. :-)
Jeez everyone. These are awesome!
ok, here's my jump into the water ( bad pun intended )
C-sick : http://www.blueorbmusic.com/listen/cSick.mp3