Sil

Not enough wailing guitars!

If you're Canadian, or a frequent visitor of certain web forums that like to pull pranks, you've no doubt heard of the anthem contest the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) is holding. Why are they holding this contest? Well, you see, the old Hockey Night in Canada anthem (the theme Canadians have associated with hockey broadcasts since the beginning of time) is like our second national anthem. We love that theme. Mothers lull their children to sleep with that theme. Church services end with that theme. I don't even have to mention funeral processions. So CBC, in an effort to greatly reduce their overwhelmingly large viewership, decided not to renew the contract with the copyright holders of that anthem, and thus another network bought it for their own hockey broadcasts. Now 50% of our hockey is THEMELESS which is worse than any recession or war. Thankfully there is a contest being held to crown a new anthem. It's like Saturday Night Fever but instead of dancing, contestants will compose a new anthem for those occasions when you'd just like to sit back with a cold beer and watch the Leafs miss the playoffs. I've entered this contest, so why don't you? Oh yeah, it's for CANADIAN EYES ONLY. But everyone can vote, so why not vote for me? I know the competition is fierce but that doesn't mean I don't have a chance at that $100,000 grand prize. Oh yeah, and Derek helped me out too. He likes money. Here's my entry: http://anthemchallenge.cbc.ca/mediadetail/275711 Please vote 5 for me, and if any other ocremixers are entering, vote 5 for them too. We're all in this together. Well, not really, but if I say that I might get some much needed brownie points. Also, if you can overlook the fact I spelled "arena" wrong in the title and elsewhere, that would be great.

The waltz sounded very minimalist in places, jazzy, and even sometimes reminded me of the work of Alfred Schnittke when it picked up in tempo. It sounds good to me, but I didn't really detect any motivic interplay to hold on to throughout the work. In that respect I'm reminded of Ives, like your melody line is just one long passage that encompasses the entire piece. Something I'd work on in the future is breaking up your instruments so they can play off one another instead of playing in unison or with the same rhythmic character (polyphony instead of homophony.) Counterpoint is the main thing that seems missing. Modes of War is very similar to your waltz in terms of your style. Again, I don't detect a lot of motivic writing but instead long passages that segue into one after the other without cadence or closure. It's very minimalist in that respect. A lot of the rhythmic ideas sound really good, but there's nothing for the listeners to attach onto to keep them grounded. It's kind of free-form and similar to those long 20 minute jazz sets. If I had to guess, you wrote this as a kind of "stream of consciousness." Are you a composition student? Did you get graded on this? I think this piece is a good start to your development as a composer, so it might be helpful to do some new works heavy on contrapuntal lines and thematic continuity. If you like quartets, Shostakovich's 8th and Ravel's Quartet in F. I thought you referenced Shoshty's DSCH motif at around 15:38 and 17:00 in Modes of War, but I could be mistaken. Also, why didn't you compress these at 128 kbps? 120, 81, 61, and 31 are a bit weird for mp3 compressions. Most people tend to stick to the binary-friendly numbers like 64, 128, 256, 32, etc.

We need to send out more gift baskets and glamourshots with glitter.

You mean I could have just recorded the midis straight and people would still love me? Ohh, I've wasted my life...

You forgot the most obvious one! The final "rock" segment of Dancing Mad seems to be influenced by ELP's Tarkus.

Film Student: Hey Jeremy, can you give me a soundtrack like the one in Running Scared? Me: Sure, it's one of my favourites. Film Student: Thanks! Me: (note to self: rent Running Scared this weekend) True story.

Who are you to decide who and who isn't deserving of calling themselves a musician? Don't get me wrong, I know exactly what you're talking about, so my question is rhetorical. I too could cite several of the top composers in Hollywood as being undeserving of their glamorous careers while other, more talented composers get shafted, but to quote Good Will Hunting: "only a handful of people could tell the difference." If anything is to blame for the oversaturated market for composers, it is the general, all-embracing nature of society towards music where image sells, derivativeness sells, and everything else sells too. Remember that there is nothing you or I can do that anyone else can't do thanks to computers and technology. Sure, I could go on and on about how much better I am than everyone else at this or that, but in the end no one cares. No one can hear the difference. In a sense, technology leveled the playing field so anyone with a computer can be a marketable musician. But again, technology is not to blame. Society's inability to tell the difference is at fault here. Yep, it does suck, so you have to compensate somehow. You have to be extremely aggressive in how you advertise yourself and demand the phone numbers of anyone who might be able to land you work. People are not going to be knocking on your door looking for a composer, especially since it's likely they already know someone with a computer who dabbles in music, or worst case scenario, they think they themselves can write good music. Sometimes you also have to be prepared to talk down other composers competing for a position while talking yourself up. You might even have to lie. Is that something you're prepared to do?

Like I said earlier in the thread, Phantasmagoria did this a few years earlier. According to Wikipedia, the size of the chorus was 135 strong. It was just another Carmina Burana ripoff though.

Sounds like meantone temperament to me.

I have some, but maybe not what you're looking for exactly. What are you looking for? Did you have any examples in mind? Duration?

Disparity?

Not originally, no. I'm from Kingston, and actually went to Queen's there too because my clarinet teacher works there. I'm done with that now, so I got the hell out.

You and me both, dude. Keep at it, though, it's good practice.

My advice as a music grad: do not go into music unless you're serious about getting a career in music, and even then consider if the degree would actually help you get where you want to be. You do not need a degree in music to do anything, really, you just need to be a good musician with good connections. Some things you can only learn from studying at a high level. Some things you can learn in your free time. It's all about commitment and dedication.

Whew, for a second there I thought you were talking about film soundtracks. Oh shi

Didn't you read it? It's quite simple. To quote xRisingForce: xRisingForce, from now on talk like you would if you were in talking in person, face to face. That means no essays, straight to the point, as if you only had 5 seconds to get your ideas across. If you can't, then you need more time to sort out your thoughts before you press submit.

Well, he worked with Kanno insofar as to receive scores from her and then was given every opportunity to be totally interpretive of her music. Another quote from Inglis: "To be perfectly honest I have never had a composer tell me that my tempi are wrong either, which I have always thought to be pretty amazing." ...shows complete faith in the performer/conductor. Composers aren't as stuck up about their works as one might think. It seems to be that when it comes to OTHER people's work (dead people's work) that people get irritated over "wrong interpretations" as if there ever was such a thing. It's a stereotype to think that classical music isn't congenial at all.

Well, since you're so keen on using examples, take the Warsaw Philharmonic under the direction of Anthony Inglis He said in this interview: "I get no musical guidance from Kanno or any of the Japanese composers I have worked with." You might find it hard to believe, but like I've said, interpretation is only as important as how ever many dynamic markings the composer is willing to put down. I myself will trust the performers, or who I like to call, "the final authorities on interpretation."

You are making assumptions about the composer's intent. Maybe he doesn't think his interpretation of the notes he wrote down IS the most valid. Or else, why let anyone else hear it? They're either just going to "get" it semi-right, or totally wrong. Or is your intent as a composer that your listeners are only supposed to "get" it semi-right? That's a paradox. Because that would mean by only semi-"getting" it they "got" it completely right after all. You knew full well that would happen when you composed it. They "got" it because they didn't "get" it. The only real solution is that composers don't put rules or unrealistic expectations of how well someone interprets their music beyond the performance aspect, and even then the performer can interpret dynamic markings and tempo markings to his heart's content, because that's what performers do and composers KNOW this when they put those markings to paper. To expect someone to think a certain way about any art is just ludicrous. The mind doesn't obey your rules, man. It's like its own mind!

I'm beginning to think that xRisingForce isn't so much concerned with the performance interpretation as much as the intention that drives the performance interpretation: that if music meant to draw a perfect sphere in your mind draws an oval instead, you are only approximating the composer's intention in your performance. He's saying only the composer can draw a true sphere. He believes that only the composer can grasp the true meaning of his own work, and that alone therefore makes his interpretation the most valid, even if that interpretation turned out to be the most technically and artistically dissatisfying to all critical ears.

xRisingForce: Hold the bleep on there, buddy. You said that playing a flute line on clarinet is a cardinal sin.

I know what you're philosophy is. You think that if a piece meant for flute is played on clarinet, it's a bad interpretation. You think meaning is the be-all and end-all of why music exists. Meaning as an ends unto itself. In other words, the meaning is the meaning. I can play an E and then you can play an E and I can say "No, that isn't what I meant at all, you got it all wrong!" You're infusing sequences of sounds with the abstract and berating others who don't conjure the same emotions and images that you did when you sequenced them. Okay, if that's what you want to think, go right ahead. I will not stop you. But PLEASE never assume you or anyone else is the ultimate authority on what OTHER people have written. Just don't be so presumptuous to think that other composers CARE how well their music is interpreted, because they only CARE as much as they're willing to put down little extra bits of info to explain just what the hell is going on when they hand the music to another person.