May/June 2008 Monthly Competition Rules/Signup/Submission Thread

I'll judge too.

damn, now I have to start making more interesting viola lines ...

Ha ha ha.

Count me in please.... I just found this wicked Bass Marimba part a few weeks ago...

~Kal

Wikipedia - Epilepsy

Epilepsy should not be understood as a single disorder, but rather as a group of syndromes with vastly divergent symptoms but all involving episodic abnormal electrical activity in the brain.

This is basically what I try to depict in my piece, Epilepsy.
So, as you'll notice, it follows no real structure or form, like an epileptic seizure. It uses harsh sounds, and there is actually a place where I, in an attempt to get the ugliest sound possible, place notes randomly on staves. A section uses multimetres, and there is an extensive use of ostinato almost throughout the piece. This is all in an attempt to keep it exciting, frantic, and unpredictable like a seizure.

It's for 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, and 2 bassoons. The second bassoon doubles on contrabassoon for the majority of the piece, however.

Here:

Okay, here is my submission. It is scored for 2 Flutes, 2 Oboes and 2 Clarinets in Bb.
It is entitled flow. The text that I used is Robert Frost's Neither Out Far Nor In Deep


Neither Out Far Nor In Deep
by Robert Frost

The people along the sand
All turn and look one way.
They turn their back on the land.
They look at the sea all day.

As long as it takes to pass
A ship keeps raising its hull;
The wetter ground like glass
Reflects a standing gull.

The land may vary more;
But wherever the truth may be---
The water comes ashore,
And the people look at the sea.

They cannot look out far.
They cannot look in deep.
But when was that ever a bar
To any watch they keep?




When writing this piece, I tried to create that image of the ocean, when it is neither stormy or especially calm. It just is. That is the main idea of flow. I suppose it is rather minimalistic, focusing not so much on theme and development, but rather creating rich textures and "soundscapes" with some dissonance in some places.

Thanks for listening!


Here is the .mp3

I'm afraid once again I have failed spectacularly - though less spectacularly than last time. This time I have some music! I've finished two movements of my planned five and will post them along with an analysis and my plans for the others. If you choose to discount from the competition due to it being incomplete that's fine, I just wanted to post what I had

The text I used was 'Dulce et Decorum est' by Wilfred Owen. The instrumentation 2 Trumpets in Bb, 2 Horns in F and 2 Trombones. The score is in concert pitch because I'm lazy.

The Poem:

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.

Gas! Gas! Quick, boys!–An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime...
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,–
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.

The first movement is based on the title, 'Dulce et Decorum est'. At the time this poem was written that was an often quoted saying in favour of the war, translating as "what a wonderful thing it is". Reflecting this I used the hymn 'Eternal Father Strong to Save' as my theme, because of its military implications, and this became my first movement.

The second movement sadly doesn't exist, but I plan for it to be based on the first stanza, in the minor mode, with a long slow melody based on motifs from the theme. I haven't quite decided on the orchestration and other details yet, but there will be a slow ritenuto to portray the idea of the sludge slowing the men down.

The third movement, also sadly doesn't exist - this will be based on the second stanza and I intend to convey the drama and terror of the gas attack with continually changing time signatures (irregular ones too ) and metrically irregular dissonant stabs with muted trumpets (straight mutes).

The fourth movement does exist, by some freak accident I can only assume. It's short, very short. This is because it's based o nthe third stanza, which is only to lines long. I've abandoned tonal harmony altogether; which was very scary for me. The intention of this movement was to try and replicate the immediacy of Owen's third stanza and serve as a transition between the third and fourth movements.

The final movement is where I intend to get across Owen's real message which in my opinion is all to do with the irony of the title. It is restated at the end of the stanza leaving the reading in no doubt that war is decidedly shit, and most certainly not wonderful. To convey this I will restate the theme in its entirely, but reduced to three parts (one for each type of instrument) which the second of each instrument doubles the first at the interval of a second. This I hope will leave the theme recognisable, but ugly, dissonant, and most importantly corrupted.

I intend to finish this in the near future, so although it may not qualify for the competition (though I hope it does, I'd love to hear the judges comments, even if I have no hope of winning) I will hopefully be posting the finished product in chamber works soon

Here is my submission for the June 2008 competition. It is written for
2 violins I, 2 violins II, 2 violas, 1 cello and 1 contrabass and is based
on the following text:

"A day will come when there will be no battlefields, but markets opening
to commerce and minds opening to ideas. A day will come when the bullets
and bombs are replaced by votes, by universal suffrage, by the venerable
arbitration of a great supreme senate which will be to Europe what Parliament
is to England, the Diet to Germany, and the Legislative Assembly to France.

A day will come when a cannon will be a museum-piece, as instruments
of torture are today. And we will be amazed to think that these things
once existed!

A day will come when we shall see those two immense groups, the United
States of America and the United States of Europe, facing one another,
stretching out their hands across the sea, exchanging their products, their
arts, their works of genius, clearing up the globe, making deserts fruitful,
ameliorating creation under the eyes of the Creator, and joining together,
to reap the well-being of all, these two infinite forces, the fraternity
of men and the power of God."

--Victor Hugo, Opening address, Peace Congress (1849-08-21)

The three sections of the piece reflect the three paragraphs of this text:

The opening shows an idea in the inner voices which is supposed to emerge
above the others: the first instance in the second violins, the second one
in the violas. Follows a passage which contains dissonances (bullets and
bombs) and a varied version of the opening is presented, to dissolve that,
in effect "replacing" the dissonant context by a more consonant one.

The middle section highly contrasts with the opening. The melody consists
mostly of harmonic tones whereas the other voices adopt a repetitive texture
and the tonality is shifted to D minor (homonym tonality). The music then
evolves to the Dorian mode (a thing of the past) before returning smoothly
to a tonal construction. Isn't it amazing these things (modes) once
existed?

The final section is a fugato on a subject derived from the opening one.
We are back to D major but the subject and the answer will flow from one
voice to another, mimicking the exchanges between the two states. The
episodes are not contrapuntal however and so this is not a strict fugal
development. Instead the first few bars of the American Anthem and of the
European Anthem are used, to illustrate that the exchanges are made between
America and Europe. The final stretto is the "joining together" leading
to the pure harmonic conclusion of the piece.

Innovation: this is the first time I introduce a modal component in my
work (D dorian modulating to A dorian). Until now, I have written things that
were exclusively tonal. I do not count the bar change from C to 3/4 as
innovation because it is purely incidental to the use of the American
Anthem here.

For the American Anthem, I retained only the soprano and bass from the
original, the inner voices are mine. Likewise for the European Anthem, the
middle voice is mine and not Beethoven's. I hope the Master will forgive me.

You can find the PDF, the MIDI and the MP3 realization here:
Index of /music/competitions/june-2008

Keep in mind the free software I use (LilyPond) is not able to insert realization
of ornamentation in the MIDI. Sorry.

I, like Mark, have unfortunately not finished my piece, but will be posting what I have anyway. Technically there was nothing in the rules about the piece being finished ...


Anyway, here's the text and picture, from Dr. Seuss's Oh, the THINKS you can think!:

(ok, so I based a lot on the picture, but the piece was certainly inspired by the text)

Instrumentation: (large) String Orchestra...a pretty big one, too, as I have a lot of divisi.

Structure:
The piece will have three sections, an introduction of the scene, the person-who-meets-the-Jibboo meandering about the town, and then the Jibboo comes. Thanks to my incessant perfectionist crap I could not get past the beginning of the second section, after the scene had been set.

For the first section I started with some polytonal chords and lines, and having the harmonies, melodies, and meters not quite set (in keeping with Dr. Seuss's characteristic imaginative landscape(s) which seem to defy normal, logical thought).There is an obvious motif in the piece that goes with the setting, as well...

After the introduction has built up and resolved, the "hero" of the 2 pages is introduced, and I began with that motif transformed into his wanderings...after the first line of this part I was out of time. I planned to move it throughout the voices, violas next, perhaps, thinning the texture out and adding more lines as would be appropriate...and then...

The meeting of the Jibboo: I plan to use a variety of extended techniques to describe its coming, like random col legno and pizz. notes, percussion effects, sul ponticello, etc. I'm going for surreal, broken, and an eerie, hair-raising meeting...shivers up the spine of the one who meets it . It's drawn rather disjointed, and I would try to portray that in the music.

I am still undecided on whether or not the piece will resolve after the meeting of the Jibboo, if it becomes friendly (as indicated by it's little wave) or evil or whatever.

Other comments...:
I wish I could've finished this in time for this competition, but I want this to be a big, well thought out piece (the idea of it took quite a hold on me)....better to refine it over a longer period of time than to rush it for a competition, I'd say. Still, perhaps the judges can judge what I have so far....

Oh, and though it's only two pages, it's a largo tempo and very textural/atmospheric, so though there aren't a lot of notes that doesn't mean I didn't take a lot of time to write them

MP3 of EWQL recording

(please don't base it too much off the EWQL recording, a lot of the dynamics and crap are screwed up...this piece really works best with a live orchestra)


(Finale file's 08)

[quote=Mitchell;235018This is all in an attempt to keep it exciting, frantic, and unpredictable like a seizure.

Here:[/QUOTE]

Nothing "exciting" about one of those.
Believe me.