Uncle Dave

Pieter, Thanks for your commendation of my humble effort. And I do get that response from a fair number of pianists in regard to simpler pieces; I like it, but I won't play it. I wonder if Bart

Indeed, I lost my glasses and if it looks like a word, my spell checker won't catch it.

It would be Tail of Three Kitties. Sorry.

This is intended as no more than a simple, short piano piece. In July, my car Buttercup had four kittens, and we decided to keep one, but couldn't get rid of the rest. At this point things became so hectic around here that we figured the rest had to go the Animal Shelter. It was a very sad business, and I decided to write something short as a kind of a diary entry of the experience. It's not all sad, as there were definitely things about the kitties I liked and will remember, so a little of that is worked into it as well. Uncle Dave Lewis Location of mp3 Audio: Tale of Three Kitties.mp3 - File Shared from Box.net - Free Online File Storage Kitties.pdf

12 celli also sounds real nice also; ergo Shauna Rolston's disc "Dreamscape" allmusic [Dreamscape] Uncle Dave

Oh no Nordreise, you can't mean this. I'm surprised that I didn't notice this statement before. There has never been any "shift" from "primarily monophonic to primarily polyphonic music" around the 1600s or at any other time. I have no idea where you got this idea. It was merely a question of notation - polyphonic music CERTAINLY existed before the first attempts to write it down came in the tenth century - we know about the use of psalm tones, parallel harmonies, organs and other ways to harmonize monophonic chant going back at least to the fifth century, and that's just what we know - there were doubtless other methods about which we know little or nothing. Even though successful, fully readable polyphonic music can be found from the late twelfth century, monophonic chant composition continued right up until the eighteenth, though along the way the church gradually restricted the kinds of texts you could set and by the seventeenth-century practically eliminated the composition of new sequences. It only stopped as so many monasteries were dissolved in the chaos stirred up by the French Revolution, and resumed in the mid-nineteenth - only until the Editio Vaticana appeared in 1903 did Gregorian chant arrived at a fixed form, and in some aspects it's still fluid. By the early eighteenth century, manuscript sources of instrumental and folk music recorded in monophonic notation become really common, though scant examples of that activity can be found back in the thirteenth. Of course, polyphony is on the map in a big way by the fourteenth-century, and even a lot of monophonically notated music has harmonic implications. Look at the fiddle tunes printed by James Oswald in the 1740s; they're just tunes, but any cello or harpsichord player with half a brain can harmonize them. In other words, then as now, you use the notation that you need to write down what you need to record. There is no shift or progression as far as that's concerned, historically or practically, and I personally would be very angry with whomever told you that. Uncle Dave Lewis

First off I apologize for answering a comment made early on in this thread - a "golden oldie" - that resulted in a post that didn't seem relevant to the topic. My bad. I've read through this string and I must say that, generally, I'm surprised about all the confusion here. I'm not sure I have the stomach to pick through all of these posts again and find the various things that caught my attention, so let me answer, in a sense, severally: To the poster who complained that contemporary music was only covered in the fourth year of their music education, I would agree that is cause for concern, although even if so I hope you at least paid attention to the first three. It isn't like you can't find books on such topics; the Leibowitz and Perle volumes on serialism, Jim Tenney and Allen Strange's books on other techniques, Cowell's "New Musical Resources" et al. I had to do the same thing in reverse; long after school I needed to get a book on music copying to get the skinny on things like proper stem direction and score order -- techniques not covered in my "new music" education of the 70s-80s. The person who recalled their professor talking about their 80s music education is correct; that's exactly how it was -- there was no going back to tonality and no real reason to study it, so we got tonal music theory only, but were actively discouraged from tonal composition. I feel that my education was a ripoff and have had to do a lot of homework to get through to the language I speak now. So you should be thankful that, even though you went to an "avant-garde" university that you did get a thorough grounding in the other stuff. To the poster who put up Haydn as an example of a composer whose "innovations" came only late in life, I appreciate that you had something nice to say about Haydn, but you are wrong. This is a common misconception - his "sturm and drang" symphonies (roughly nos. 44-64, check out no. 49 for a good example) come from the middle of this career, and the first string quartets, which - outside Telemann's "Quadri" of 1730, are the first classical string quartets of any kind - come from the very start. His creative freedom tended to wax and wane depending on the changing tastes at the Court of Esterh

This is a standard argument in music history classes that couldn't be more wrong, but is relatively easy to grasp, so it is still taught. That, and Charles Rosen's assertion that the only worthwhile music from the Classical Era is that of Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven, makes short work of a crucial 75 year period in Western music -- certainly these three composers taken together wrote so much music that it would take the ordinary listener a matter of months to hear it all, listening to one piece after another. Who has the time? The Classical approach to form was adopted mainly so that composers could write longer, more substantial compositions without having to string them together out of very short movements. J.S. Bach's organic and mathematically derived sense of development was unique and the long, continuous movements in the Mass in B Minor highly exceptional. The norm, as exemplified by a Telemann oratorio or Handel opera, was a work built out of more than a hundred short bits. Formal development schemes helped cure that, but it wasn't the only thing that happened in the eighteenth century. The whole period was oriented towards genre, almost more than any other historical period in music; since abstract titles and forms were used to contain and identify the music, the genres are not familiar to us, but were to audiences then. A lot of the music produced in the 18th is also highly eccentric, quirky and aggressive; particularly composers who subscribed to the "sturm und drang" ethos -- Kraus and Beck, for example -- and C. P. E. Bach's music hardly seems phoned in. Even though Joseph Haydn was one of principal advocates of formal schemes, he tended to break the rules just as often as he adhered to them; his genius is in the great variety of ideas that he tried. The Classical period is Western music's best kept secret; C. P. E. Bach --whose music is restless, exploratory, sometimes murky and always challenging -- is the dominant figure left out in a triumvirate view of the era. Through him, a deeper understanding of Haydn, contrasting the work of Johann Christian Bach with Mozart, and a grasp of genre and the political and literary makeup of the period, one sees not the enternal triad of Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, but C. P. E. Bach running in a straight line from his father to Beethoven. Not to mention dozens of other interesting figures too numerous to mention here. To miss out on the rediscovery of the classical period would mean not to experience the most exciting developments in scholarship today. Uncle Dave

The first gesture is a little like the signature progression in Burt Bacharach's "This Guys in Love with You" although don't be afraid to use it, as even Bacharach lifted it from eighteenth century music. I was rather surprised to find the same progression in a Hugo Distler work from 1940 recently -- no one copied him, as that piece had been sitting in a cabinet, unperformed, until 2004. Don't be afraid of the familiar; your audiences will thank you for it. That said, the rhythmic profile of the string chords is a little too blocky and strident; you need to vary the rhythm and texture a little to keep it from falling flat. The second chord in measure 8 is rather awkward; you may want to opt for three voices rather than four. And I hope you plan to embellish that figure in the primo a bit more; the two half notes is a little too barren an answer to what you open with. Uncle Dave

Salonen's early Finnish compositions are well cobbled, but rather sterile IMHO. However, after his arrival in Los Angeles, things started to come into focus. I attended the premiere of "LA Variations," which was good, but the recording of "Wing on Wing" is great, with strong writing for the two solo sopranos. Esa-Pekka might be of a different mind about it incidentally; he might well feel that his earlier work is his best. Nevertheless, there is a new disc of Gloria Cheng playing music of Salonen dating from 1985, 1999-2000 and 2005 that I will listen to today, and it will be interesting to see what kind of stylistic progression there is. I've met Boulez, and I must say there is not a more confident musician on the planet. At the time, I worked for Tower Records, and had with me a "Classical Pulse!" with a bad review in it of something he'd done. As I handed it to him, his eyes just beamed -- he was thrilled that people were still bothering to write negative criticism about him, and seems to have trained himself long ago to respond positively to negative evaluations of his work. Interesting. Uncle Dave Lewis

ferkungamabooboo is definitely on the right track - the texture is weak and you are trying to build something grand and ominous. I would tighten the "hole" - bring the two ends of it a little closer together, and perhaps stick an element like a bass clarinet arpeggio in there. It's okay to pull back on the reins a little bit in an introduction to provide the second part of it with a bit more punch, but you don't want it to drop through the floor. Also, the bare fifths get to be a bit monotonous the second time around; perhaps move the upper partials to other instruments, double them elsewhere, or thicken the harmony generally, just to avoid these intervals from sounding too samey in regard to the earlier passage. You will need a lead to whatever it is you are introducing, but if this intro works at all that transitional tag should be apparent to your ears -- I wouldn't fuss about that detail until you are done here. uncle dave

This is a setting of an English early 19th century Broadside, written for a friend who is a singer as a birthday present. The spindly, skeletal and slightly dissonant nature of the accompaniment is deliberate, as it reflects my interest in early American published music which do have very minimal kinds of accompaniments, sometimes with "wrong notes" littering the landscape owing to the vagaries of early music printing in this country. Nevertheless, there are some serious problems with the song. There are some undesirable conflicts of voice and harmony in mm. 38, 52 and 79-80. And the closing measures, 91 to the end, are not functional -- this was a deal killer in terms of my friend performing the song. :( So I am open to any fixes that would be suggested, within reason. The tempo as marked is a little too slow; the audio file below runs at 90mm. Ivy Green.mp3 - File Shared from Box.net - Free Online File Storage Finale 2003a - [Ivy Green.pdf

> it appears there really wasn't one even in the sixteenth century sorry, meant seventeenth

Agreed - some kind of audio would be helpful. It looks like you have some interesting textures; I would like to hear it. I would suggest use of the title/genre designation "Ricercare" is not a desirable one in the twenty-first century, as there is no standard agreement to what it means, and it appears there really wasn't one even in the sixteenth century. It means "to seek out" and is distantly related to the English word "research." J. S. Bach used it to designate works in the "Musical Offering" to designate works that are essentially fugues, though not in a strict style. "Fugato" is a more readily accepted term for that sort of thing. I remember back in my long ago schooling that I got into some serious trouble by suggesting, in class, that the Ricercare was a historic step along the way to the fugue - my music history teacher bawled me out, and then he told my composition professor about it and he bawled me out some more. And lo and behold, it is right, and I knew it was right at the time because I had read that in some article by Manfred Bukofzer just shortly before. They were really concerned that I not pass on inaccurate information to my fellow students. Phooey! I have only written one Ricercare, in 1978, and I've been trying to fix what's wrong with the thing for thirty years. Indeed, in the 20th century Menotti, Louis Karchin and Bohuslav Martinu have written works with this designation. But you will not find it between that time and J.S. Bach's, and I really wouldn't use the designation; something about it in the current context just screams "student composition." Uncle Dave

One reason I wanted to comment on this thread was that I didn't think the suggestions for "jazz" were at all useful as they were too limiting. The 1950s were a watershed era for the remnants of bebop, hard bop, cool and the beginning of free. Pardon the pun, but "so what?" It has a history that stretches into at least the 1890s and continues, though as an ailing form, yet today. I didn't think that designbox' piece got a fair hearing, especially if it was held up to the standard of Miles Davis or Charlie Parker. If I were teaching someone Jazz who was unfamiliar with it, I'd start with King Oliver and Jelly Roll Morton. That said, designbox I don't think you're going to be able to convert this idea into jazz specifically, but I like the basic germ of it -- it's a high kicking, joyous little idea. Depending on you handle it, it could be a show tune, a music hall styled number, or even a sort of old fashioned, Western type barroom tune. About as close as it will get to being jazz is that you could convert it into a folk rag, like "Harlem Rag" by Tom Turpin, which is a completely respectable form of composition, though not jazz. The first thing is that you would need to get rid of the rolling, Alberti like bass; it's not well realized and drags the energy of the melody down. In bar 8, roll the chord at the beginning of the measure, and replace the four sixteenths at the end. Use two beats to lead back rather than one, on four eighths, the first silent and the remaining three leading upward towards the tonic, not downward as you have it. For a new accompaniment you might want to try a simple march beat and to rescore the piece in 2/4; thst will give it more lift and buoyancy. As to the tune, you lose your way at the end of measure seven; the tied over triplet is awkward and the rest doesn't make sense. Take what you started with and don't be afraid to reshape it into something that develops as a consistent pattern -- simple is okay, and it doesn't need to be "jazz." Uncle Dave

Thanks Palestrina. I think I have figured out how to better represent myself in terms of the audio for next time, whenever that is.

I've heard several of her things, and they really don't do very much for me. But one of my co-workers is nuts for her music. So I figure perhaps it's not written for my ears, and there are plenty of composers who fall into that category who are awful damn good, including Boulez (throws hands over head to protect from flying rocks and bottles.) Uncle Dave

Definitely The Rite of Spring; The Bart

I invite you to check out my birthday tribute to American composer Raymond Scott (1908-1994). He was a wonderful composer and inventive genius whom I had the pleasure of meeting at the end of his years. My tribute is at the All Music Blog at: allmusic Here's the direct link, in case it moves off the front page: The Allmusic Blog Happy 100th Birthday Raymond Scott If you have never heard of Raymond or his work, here is a way to become acquainted. Folks with especially weird tastes will enjoy the film clip of "Limbo: The Organized Mind" by Jim Henson and scored by Scott. Uncle Dave Lewis

When I was a kid, before I got a musical education, I used to figure out a whole piece under my hands before I wrote it down. A lot of my music was melodically driven, so it was a matter of developing a frame for a nice melodic idea, spice it up here and there and then writing it down -- getting it onto paper was so difficult for me, being self-taught, that it was a completely seperate operation with it's own challenges. After I was educated, I changed my technique to using small ideas - cells - for development. It was an easier and more organic process, allowed me to expand on my ideas more efficiently and creatively, and altogether improved my ability to push that pencil and come up with the right result. It even helps to think of a melody as a combination of related cells, rather than a period consisting of certain pitches and rhythms. However, there are times when I wish I was still na

One thing I do like about it is that it has a choral refrain; a great many popular songs from the nineteenth-century have them, even some that are performed without them now, particularly works of Stephen Foster and the like. However, your text is so short that you aren't able to bring it all around again. Nothing wrong with that, mind you. But if you had to, would you want to hear it all again? (rhetorical question) That's one hell of a baritone that can sing all the way from low F to the D above middle C. I'd say that if he can get down to F, then he's a bass. Even good basses have a hard time getting up to the D, and if its a true baritone he might not be able to project 29-31very well, even if he stays in tune. I have several problems with this passage - one, it's a lot of long note values to take with no breath, it starts even at 27, and by 30 you're asking for a rallentando - he'll already be turned blue by the time he gets there. Two, is going down into the basement what kind of text painting you think fits the word "folly"? Admittedly, for some folks it would, ;) Three, even if you went forward with this line and said "shut up Uncle Dave,' I still say you should score that melisma on the "o" of "folly' rather than "ll-y." "lly" should appear - God forbid - on the last whole note you've given this poor baritone after all that stuff in 27-30. I would do the same thing at the end; "fah" is a much stronger vowel than "lee." "ll" isn't a very easy thing to sing with it's own note value by the way -- unless you're Welsh. :) Also the two half notes held between m. 5-6: do they need to be held the whole duration? Consider a half held to a dotted quarter with an eighth rest, to give the singer a short breath there. He might take it anyway whether you write it in or not. The little interruption should not disturb the line as much as the pitch variability of a singer who's running out of breath will tend. Do not be afraid to break up the line some; it also assists enunciation of the text, though it seems as though you are matching text to a melodic line rather than the other way around. Both approaches are viable, but the latter - at least to me - seems more organic. Apart from these things, I like the chorus a bit more than the solo, and all of the guitar writing seems assured. It reminds me of the kinds of Elizabethan settings that you might hear from John Renbourn, Fairport Convention or The Incredible String Band; intended as a compliment, though if you do not take such comparisons that way, I apologize in advance. Uncle Dave Lewis

Thank you smallercomma, for your kind words. I couldn't find a way to upload a regular mp3 for the audio in this case, and I was afraid the inhouse MIDI would make mincemeat out of it! But I guess what virtues it mave have comes through anyway. And I really appreciate the comments. Uncle Dave Lewis

I'm impressed by that choice - Achron has several other pieces worth knowing as well, three violin concerti and the "Golem" Suite: My biography of Achron: allmusic ((( Joseph Achron > Biography ))) Uncle Dave Lewis

Ives and Mussorgsky.

How about "The Bridge to Nowhere"? I don't see any reason a decent high school ensemble couldn't do this. "Lincolnshire Posy" is done all the time, and that's full of crazy rhythmic stuff. It's well scored and solidly crafted. Well done. My feeling is that the 7/8 pattern needs to be varied somewhere; I was getting a little impatient with the insistence of it. Also the piece lacks a strong theme; the ostinato ends up being the main foreground element because the intended foreground doesn't really step up to the plate. But I don't see any reason why you couldn't go forward with it as it is; it is lively, and short enough that you're not likely to bore your audience. Uncle Dave