The City Under Different Eyes

Hi all!

I just can't help it and want to share it with you!

A little bit before I provide links, etc.

First of all this music is part of a bigger project, which is far from being complete! It is complicated and really can't explain right now. It is for my PhD in composition, but score and music are not the last bits, but only the beginning!

I hope that the mp3 won't go far away really from here (a bizzare thing to say, but the project is simply not complete). As for the score I've painted it with a huge blue "REVIEW" in every page. There is a reason for that as well.

I hope you can forgive these little quirks from me, for the first time! :)

http://www.nikolas-sideris.com/stuff/CUDE.pdf (The score, 13 pages, 1.64 MB)

http://www.nikolas-sideris.com/stuff/CUDE.mp3 (The music, 11:26, 15.8 MB)

The piece is written for solo piano, plus bits and pieces... :P

In my opinion it should feel, exciting, coherent but also broken to small parts, if you will and also a tiny bit random as far as harmony is concerned. Some things may seem impossible to be performed, but don't be alarmed. It is because they are exactly, impossible to be performed. This piece is not composed to be performed live in front of an audience, by a normal pianist, as a concert hall piece. It is a non concert hall piece, it is recorded music, it is written to take advantage of the studio techniques.

But I don't want to rumble any further.

Please enjoy.

Nikolas

EDIT: Files are back up for anyone to hear/view/analyse

Interesting -- there was a note at the bottom of an early page mentioning Messiaen's Vingt Regards.... what was that for? There certainly is a heavy Messiaen influence on the piece..also spot some Boulez etc.

There are parts are really like, but also lots of bits to which I am indifferent - the style doesn't say much to me. Of course I would prefer a whole piece made of the 'interesting' (to me) bits, but then that's Daniel, not Nikolas (and maybe that's not what they want for a PhD?)

Anyway, it's good -- a couple of places of harmonic incoherence though. The piano simulation is very accurate, but its tone isn't actually all that good. And some of the jumps between sections felt a bit incoherent too.

Anyway, it's obviously well written, and probably took ages to write. Well done.

Daniel,

The messiaen comment on that page, refers to the specific bar, because it's a direct copy from his work. It's a quote, sort of saying. A way of saying thanks and pay my respect to the guy! :) There is also a bit of Boulez, I agree.

Style is a personal choice, I actually enjoy this style very much, so... And no a Phd doesn't need to be "ugly", it can be 'interesting' and beautiful in any terms.

It can be incoherent at places, because, believe it or not, this piece, of 11 minutes can be divided into 43 different places, to 44 smaller audio files. This is done on purpose and involves the completion of the project I speak of in the first post (which I can't speak of, right now). So, on the one hand I had to make sure the audio can be speperated later on , and on the other hand make it coherent. Difficult task. In addition to that, while there are a few patterns and there is a block which is repeated, in general terms there is very little material (melodic for example) to use and follow, harmony is non repeated (to my usually trick and habbit, I guess) and there is an effort to make it 'easy' to alter the performance little by little, without having to refer to past parts, or previous pages. In a Bach piece, if you alter the tempo, it will show, in a Beethoven piece if you play a theme differently the first and the second time it will show, here there is an effort to avoid this. One can pick up a part of the score, play it and don't really care what's going before and afterwards (up to a point of course).

The piano simulation had a simple problem: It's a complicated score which barely has a 4/4 in as a time signature (btw, time signatures are not shown in score) and the tempo has 10-20 alterations per bar, to make it more realistic. Pianoteq would not give me the pleasure of having it's best preset, or alter the preset to my liking. My computer is 4 years old and simply too old! The preset I used is a lite preset.

Thanks for your comments mate!

Thanks Mike ! :)

Nikolas -

I applaud the work you have done and love the idea of moveable start and endpoints -- what a challenge (as well as the technical audio work, I don't know if I would have the patience!).

My favorite parts were around measures 90 - 110 or so and th last 24 or so bars. Question - do you think the piano simulation captured the sound you aimed for with the silently depressed notes and pedal toward the end? I am not sure if I heard what you wanted.

Also, this is playable as a two piano piece and definitely worth looking into making such a version.

I have just two quibbles

Your comment that there is very little material to follow -- the falling 4th/tritones seems to be a recurring motive and recurring quartal harmony seem somewhat prevalent in this piece. Now maybe this was not intentional but I heard some of it and saw some of it in the score.

The other quibble is your comment about recognition of Bach pieces and Beethoven. Wouldn't you think that is more a matter of performance practice and cultural indoctrination? I mean let us assume Beethoven's works are forgotten for several hundred years or more. Would the person who finds a Beethoven score be able to even decipher what the tones are to be played? Recall that such a proposition is not so far fetched when, as you know, what little we know about the music from ancient Greece despite the many advances in this branch of music or the exact practice of musica ficta in some bodies of late medieval and Renaissance works. Maybe I misunderstood your remark, please clarify if you can.

Nikolas -

I applaud the work you have done and love the idea of moveable start and endpoints -- what a challenge (as well as the technical audio work, I don't know if I would have the patience!).

Thank you!

It didn't take THAT long to finish the audio, around 8-10 hours. But I wrote the piece so I knew what I was after. Didn't have to study the score myself...

My favorite parts were around measures 90 - 110 or so and th last 24 or so bars. Question - do you think the piano simulation captured the sound you aimed for with the silently depressed notes and pedal toward the end? I am not sure if I heard what you wanted.

Yes this was the general idea.

In the recording I didn't use any reverb, on purpose, and due to computer limitations I couldn't use a better preset from pianoteq. The ending and the silently depressed notes has exactly that idea. The first part, the four notes are ringing like there was a pedal, and the rest remain staccatto, getting out only the overtones. At the last 2 bars, it was exactly that, the overtones remaining.

Only that the overtones were a bit soft and if I started tweaking pianoteq I was getting CPU spikes, so I couldn't work it anymore. Thus it remains like this.

Also, this is playable as a two piano piece and definitely worth looking into making such a version.

Current version, yes it can be played. It could also be played but an excellent pianist, loads of patience and editing out a "few things"! :D So, indeed this is an idea.

But as I mention, it's not ready yet, and it will change drastically as the idea evolves. Please don't hate me for not saying out loud the idea, it needs to remain inside for now, until everything is organised and ready. ;)

Your comment that there is very little material to follow -- the falling 4th/tritones seems to be a recurring motive and recurring quartal harmony seem somewhat prevalent in this piece. Now maybe this was not intentional but I heard some of it and saw some of it in the score.

All chords came from a big 3 page chart of all possible chords with non repeated intervals, spreading 2 chords! :w00t: There wasn't the purpose of quartal harmony, just... came out this way (I admit I liked it, so I did tweak a few chords and made sure that the chords next to each other sound "nice"). There is something to follow, but it is transforming and the tempo, the pulse changes very regularly. In the fast movement you start with a pulse of a dotted 8th, which then is a 4th and then a bit larger (5/16ths). So while material remains simmilar, one could get away with a different performance in different parts.

The other quibble is your comment about recognition of Bach pieces and Beethoven. Wouldn't you think that is more a matter of performance practice and cultural indoctrination? I mean let us assume Beethoven's works are forgotten for several hundred years or more. Would the person who finds a Beethoven score be able to even decipher what the tones are to be played? Recall that such a proposition is not so far fetched when, as you know, what little we know about the music from ancient Greece despite the many advances in this branch of music or the exact practice of musica ficta in some bodies of late medieval and Renaissance works. Maybe I misunderstood your remark, please clarify if you can.

Very, very intersting, not what I mean, but it's worth to discuss I think! (even if it's going off topic).

I seem to recall from the top of my head some Beriln Philharmonic playing in the old days (1930s?) a Brahms symphony. The conductor is getting rather annoyed by the arrogance of an old Hornist in the back, who seems to be co-directing, or at least handing out ideas to all the brass! So he takes it out on him, despite his old age! "Do you think you know better? I'm the conductor, blah blah... why? blah blah". And the hornist calmly replies "Well... Johannes himself told me to play it like this and he also said that...". The guy was alive to catch Brahms conduct!

(The above story could be 10% correct, but I really recall such a story happening somewhere and pretty sure it was a Hornist, probably with a Brahms work and not sure for the orchestra!)

I've also heard stories from a Greek pianist, who was having lessons in Paris and was arguing with his teacher about a piece of Ravel when the reply was "Ravel used to play it like this! (Now f*ck off and do as I say!)

I think that culture and past occurances are hugely important in classical music. I've no idea what would happen, but such schooling is invaluable through the times. Not to get confused with the personality of the performers though! (And CDs work greatly towards dimishing that).

I really could go forever about the above. It is very very interesting, and in it's own way also relavent to the work...

_______________________

But to answer your question:

What I mean is this. Imagine that you get 2 different pianists to play this work and a work by Bach. 2 performances from each work. In the same piano, same environement, same "sound" technically speaking.

Now I comment that if an audio engineer "switches" performances in my piece, it won't be notices, since performance is left to be somewhat free, with huge rubatos and plenty of things without direct governing from my behalf. So pianist A plays from 00:01 to 05:49 (for example) and pianist B from 05:50 to 09:70.

In the case of works by Bach, or Beethoven the change would be audible, visible and given away immediately due to the nature of the piece, the more direct and steady tempo that one needs to keep and the reoccurance of the "same" themes and reccuring stuff that come on and off all the time.

Hope I explained it better...

Thank you very much for listening, enjoying and posting. (and also got to know what quibble means! :D hehehe)

Love the anecdotes about the Horn player. I get your point now. But I still stand by my arguement that despite the freedom you allowed, you could still have the same scenario with your piece as with Bach and Beethoven. A performance practice will develop - eg there will be several outcomes preferred by your peers and the audience (for despite the incredible number of factors assigned to organized sound, the set of possibilities perceptible is finite, although the theoretical set of possibilities may be infinite). But I will stop because as you wrote, this really could be a whole topic or, at least, a subsection of aesthetics.

But do consider a two piano version when done --- maybe offer the performers subsections to play in whatever order they choose (excellent performers tend to love the pieces with freedoms such as this as they are secure in learning notes, rhythmns, articulations, phrasing and extramusical meaning but may not be so secure composing a new workl from scratch). Also, the overtones will be more perceptible on two resonant grand pianos (until the technology can match that).

like how you've written it specifically for the the studio...in fact I'm majoring with Music Production and Technology because my main interest's in composition are to incorporate the studio too

Steve: I can't understand the structure of your sentence... Sorry about this. Is there a part missing? :S

i was just complimenting on your intentions to intergrate studio techniques in your work...I too am interested in the studio's potential as a compositional tool, hence why I'll be majoring in Music Production and Technology this coming fall

In my opinion it should feel, exciting, coherent but also broken to small parts, if you will and also a tiny bit random as far as harmony is concerned.

At first glance, the score looks like it would sound like a couple of cats jumping on a piano keyboard, but in fact the sound is remarkably musical.

To me the piece does exactly what you intended - and very very enjoyable. :thumbsup:

Might I ask if there is a name for this type of atonality, a system, or do you just go with your intuition?

Herb

i was just complimenting on your intentions to intergrate studio techniques in your work...I too am interested in the studio's potential as a compositional tool, hence why I'll be majoring in Music Production and Technology this coming fall

Got it. Thanks...

without the capital "I" and a dot in the end of your sentence, plus the way you structured it, it really felt like an incomplete sentence. Like you tried to post but only half of it got through. Sorry for asking. :) And thanks...

At first glance, the score looks like it would sound like a couple of cats jumping on a piano keyboard, but in fact the sound is remarkably musical.

To me the piece does exactly what you intended - and very very enjoyable. :thumbsup:

Excellent! Glad to know that! Thanks. :) (cats jumping on the keyboard... hahaha :D)

Might I ask if there is a name for this type of atonality, a system, or do you just go with your intuition?

Herb

Herb, there is some kind of system, indeed. All chords have come out from a chart of all possible chords, stretching two octaves, which have no repeated intervals inside, on way or another. This is the chord structure that I used throughout the piece.

Primary chords (the broken ones in bars 1-4,5) give the melodic material, as well as the harmonic basis in some cases. The rest is what I think sounds good (I write in pencil and paper, no piano next to me. I don't try out what I write).

Ok, I've been looking at this score for a while Nikolas, and was wondering if you could explain the harmonies you create, preferably in the Lento section starting at bar 23. I love what you did here but have no clue how to describe it. :D

Vince

That part there, is mainly 2 voices, isn't it? If you group them in groups of 4 notes, you'll see that the pitches are repeated over and over again. There is no precise harmony in that part, but just the, slightly different every time, repeatition of the same 4 pitches (different pitches for the right and left hand, of course). :) The melody above is coming from previous part, or announces parts to come later on, in a different manner, of course, since I've tried to not have the same theme played twice! :) Hope it helps and sorry for not being more specific and for being late. I'm very busy this time of the year!

wow so amazing such precise writing

its so obvious you would never dare hock out one single random phrase

just perfect musical engineering

one diffrent note would ruin the structure of this flawless perfect piece

wow so amazing such precise writing

its so obvious you would never dare hock out one single random phrase

just perfect musical engineering

one diffrent note would ruin the structure of this flawless perfect piece

Can't be 100% sure, but why the sarcasm?

Nikolas! Your creativity never ceases to amaze me! It is an extremely beautiful movement. Thank you for posting it.

Thanks for listening Morgi! :)

Heh, I really have nothing to say here with the exception this is in my mp3 player with the rest of your pieces. I guess that already is telling you that I like what you do, eh?

Yes I know! :P When you said that I'm your favourite composer, and I said thanks, thus giving away that I google my name! :D:D:D LOL! (I'm a sucker, yes I am!)

bumpity bump: http://www.youngcomposers.com/forum/call-digital-performers-16408.html#post250042

I'm really sorry for deleting the links to the music and the scores. They have to go offline temporarily, but should be back further on in 2008.

For now, anyone able to help, please visit the above linked thread and see what you can do. Thank you!

hi

i want to listen your new music

dark-wish

you are one of the greatest composer in here

I am very curious of what you have done behind The City Under Different Eyes. I hope we will know soon. ;p

Dark angel: You should've been faster! ;) hehehe! (no I'm kidding). Thanks for the kind words. I hope to get it back online soon-ish (as soon as my coder, the license problems and the performers allow me). :) Thank you for following up on me!

Nyu: If you check on the linked thread (and in CGEmpire and Vi-control and in other places), you'll see that I'm looking for performers. So my plan should be partly revealed: I'm looking for people to perform (digitally, in their DAWs), this piece so as to get as many performances as possible. So this is the first stage! Can't reveal anything else! :)