Favourite Composition Devices

Why not try using no time signatures at all? I'm personally trying to move away from music restricted by time signatures. (this doesen't just require dropping the barlines, trust me.. I need to restructure my mind and.. bah *confused*)

I enjoy doing just the opposite of 920bpm: harmonizing a completely diatonic tonal bass line with completely chromatic and non-tonal upper voices.

That sounds most awesome, well, minus the non-tonal bit of course :) I must try that.

No time signature. That sounds, um, interesting and hard to play.

Colin Thomson

That sounds really cool! Would it just be normal music but with no barlines and a really free sense of rhythm? So it would impossible to fit the melody into any time signature. I'm suddenly intrigued :D It would be so FREEING to master that technique :) I can think of all the amazing "rubato" pieces. So, do you just start with one melody/line that's free of any traditional rhythmic structure?

That sounds really cool! Would it just be normal music but with no barlines and a really free sense of rhythm? So it would impossible to fit the melody into any time signature. I'm suddenly intrigued :D It would be so FREEING to master that technique :) I can think of all the amazing "rubato" pieces. So, do you just start with one melody/line that's free of any traditional rhythmic structure?

There's several ways to approach this.

• Time, no set signature - tempo is constant; rhythms are set; but there's no 1...
  
• Freely interpreted - rhythmically, giving pitches without stems allows the performer to dictate rhythms (open noteheads vs closed noteheads will steer them into holding some notes longer than others)
  
• Free - giving the performer pitches only, with no indications will garner surprising results. Though, not as modern a concept as you might think:
  

dig Louis Couperin's Unmeasured Preludes...

...

Why not just tell them to play some music, and then listen? :) Just kidding. It really is an intersting concept.

Colin Thomson

Just kidding.

*pokes Colin in the chest*

I hope so... :)

I base a good chunk of my entire musical concept on freedom and interpretation of open-ended stimuli.

oh, so it's really hard to do with a normal notation program. well, I'll get to work on penmanship :musicwhistle:

Thanks for the insight, Robin!

oh, so it's really hard to do with a normal notation program. well, I'll get to work on penmanship :P

Thanks for the insight, Robin!

Not so hard - Finale will do it easily: hiding measures, stems, key sigs, etc. ...spacing properly becomes a pain (score vs parts), but again not too complicated.

Fugues with subjects chromatically moving down from tonic to dominant

Passacagalias (all of my best compositions yet)

NOT motoric Bach-like continuous rhythms

Ending music on the dominant chord

Ending music on the dominant chord

:P

I enjoy:

-Odd time signatures, especially for variations on a theme

The augmented scale

-Harmonies in a minor piece that use both harmonic minor and natural minor (i.e. i - bVII - bVI - V)

-Altered dominant chords

-Modes of the major scale, as well as modes of harmonic minor, melodic minor, and harmonic major

-Polyrhythms

-Mixing harmonic minor and the blues scale

-Modulating up a half step by actually using a dominant chord, not just doing it randomly like every show tune ever

-When drummers fall and skin both their knees

-Enharmonic chords in harmonic minor (i.e. bvi, in which the diatonic natural 7 of the scale, which is really a #2 of the chord, functions as a b3; or V+, in which the diatonic b3 of the scale, which is really a b6 of the chord, functions as a +5)

When drummers fall and skin both their knees

:P

When drummers fall and skin both their knees

I like drummers...I've concluded that, in 90% modern art music, the difference between jazz and classical is a drummer.

Interesting thought.

I must say I disagree with your sig, violently.

Let me explain on what Igor meant with that (as the rumour has it at least).

when you imitate you never make something your own. You are not yourself but someone else.

When you steal, on the other hand, you take it and make it yours, you are no longer someone else, but yourself!

:P

I like drummers

So do I. I was just imagining the noise if he fell on top of his kit.:P

How do you get a drummer off your front doorstep?

Pay him for the pizza.

What did the drummer get on his IQ test?

Drool.

We could go on like this ad infinitum, but it could get tiring.

Don't scraggy on the drummers guys. They're your lifeline. They drive the bus and are the only band member capable of singlehandedly derailing entire performances...

that really makes a lot of sense :P

Originally Posted by Zetetic:

"I like the Mozartian diminished-dominant alternations that you have can before a cadence."

Can you think of any examples in his piano concerti?

*deja vu*

Don't scraggy on the drummers guys. They're your lifeline. They drive the bus and are the only band member capable of singlehandedly derailing entire performances...

Not to mention, they're probably the only member of an ensemble who will sight-read the whole part perfectly the first time through, even if the part includes nested tuplets and time signatures that read like 10/12, 15/18, etc.