Assignment 3: A Little Polyphony
I have learnt so much information in this section
of the course that I am keen to experiment with a number of the methods
mentioned in this assignment to ensure that I really ‘firm in’ the
information. Therefore, I am calling
this piece A Study in Wonderland and plan it to reflect three characters
falling into a magical, mystery world, then struggling to find their way out.
I plan to achieve this theme using the following
basic structure:
|
Primary Section (A
+ B)
|
Subsidiary Section
(C)
|
Principal Reprise
and Closing (B+A)
|
|
4/4 q=76
(A) C minor
Catch with Descant
(8 bars)
(B) Chromatic Scale
Twelve-note technique
(5 bars)
|
4/4 q=76 (with rit. and acc.)
D major
Florid Counterpoint
(12 bars)
|
4/4 q=76
(B) Transposed/ Reflected to B minor
Twelve-note technique
(5 bars)
(A) Adapted/Transposed to B minor
Catch
(8 bars)
|
Above all, I plan to experiment with the freedom of
polyphony. Despite it going against my
musical inclination, I plan to try to use dissonance as a feature, especially
in section C, and will try to resist the urge to shift notes back into a
traditional harmonic pattern!
ASSIGNMENT 3 – A STUDY IN WONDERLAND
This assignment seems to have taken an age to
complete and has really put me through my paces in terms of woodwind
composition. This, teamed with the vast
amount of information I have learnt in this section of the course, has inspired
me to try to use a number of different techniques I have learnt, as mentioned
in my original plan.
However, when composing the piece, I found that it
took a huge amount of tweaking and carefully chosen dynamics to make dissonance
work well within a polyphonic piece. The
tweaking of this composition took a lot of time as I was determined to display
the character of each instrument whilst retaining the original story of the
piece. Due to this, my original plan has
been altered slightly, as seen below:
|
Primary Section (A
+ B)
|
Subsidiary Section
(C)
|
Principal Reprise
and Closing (B+A)
|
|
4/4 q= 50
(A) C minor
Catch
(9 bars)
(B) Chromatic Scale
Twelve-note technique
(3 bars)
|
4/4 q= 65
D major
Florid Counterpoint
(18 bars)
|
4/4 q= 55
(B) Chromatic Scale
Twelve-note technique
(4 bars)
q= 60
(A) Inverted/Transposed to B minor
(5 bars)
|
Primary
Section (A) + (B)
The first section of this piece tells the story of
three characters lost in the woods. I
composed this section by composing a simple catch in C minor and taking only
the section in which all three voices were present. As mentioned earlier, these melodies were
drastically ‘tweaked’ in both pitch and with articulations and dynamics.
To achieve the varied effect I wanted, my original
catch was based on the chords progression of Cm (I) – Fm (IV) – Cm (I) – Bb
(VII) – Cm (I) – Fm (IV)– Bb (VII) – Cm (I) – Bb (VII) – Cm (I). I feel
that the use of the jumping progression gives the piece a harmonic but varied
sound, which reflects the three characters of the story. The flowing tempo and dynamics of this
section, arcing from p to ff back to p, represents the travellers lost in the forest, moving
closer and then further away as they move deeper into the forest.
The ninth bar provides a segue to section B,
which is the dream-like stage that the travellers pass through before entering
Wonderland. This section, using an
atonal key signature, was great chance to experiment with Schoenberg’s Twelve-Tone
techniques, as studied earlier in this section.
To compose this piece I chose twelve varying note durations for each of
the three melodic lines and inputted notes from three lines of a twelve-tone
matrix that I devised (see below).
Once again some minor tweaking was necessary, in
terms of octave, articulation and one or two connecting notes at the end of
section to provide a steady movement into section B. I was pleasantly surprised to see how such a
simple method could provide such a harmonic sound. The dynamics are much more simple in this
section using crescendos and decrescendos to escalate up to pp.
Subsidiary
Section (C)
This section represents the ‘Wonderland’ in which
the travellers have found themselves.
The idea of this section was to experiment with using polyphony to
create stable dissonance. In order to do
this, I created three separate melodies to try to reflect the madness and
uncertainty of this magical land. I have
used a large number of accents, staccatos and dynamics to create a whirling,
slightly psychedelic feel. I have tried
to use some bars to represent the travellers tiptoeing or dashing through this
world, trying to find their way out. I
have achieved this feel by using bars containing all staccato notes to
represent tiptoeing and quick demisemiquaver section to represent the quick
movements of the travellers.
Throughout this section I have used a varied chords
progression in the scale of D major. I
chose a major scale to brighten the feel of the piece and have also used a
slightly faster tempo. I moved in a
cycle of all 7 chords in the scale in the pattern D7 – A – D – Bm (VI) - Gsus2 – Em – C#dim – F#m – D - D sus2 – D sus4 – D. I specifically wanted to experiment with the
use of diminished and suspended chords for their feeling of suspense. However, the notes between the harmonic
intervals were composed entirely separately and as a result, do contain some
elements of the stable dissonance I was hoping for. Once again, due to this method of independent
composing of the three lines, it took some tweaking to iron out some of the
more unstable elements.
I also added a line for a woodblock to represent
the ticking of time in Wonderland. Here
I have used an unsteady, repeating rhythm to represent the feeling of time
passing erratically.
Principal
Reprise and Closing (B+A)
Once again I used twelve note melodies to represent
the travellers finding their way out of Wonderland. Although I have used the same notes, I have
swapped each instruments part to add variation from the last time this section
was heard.
The last section (A) is a reprise of 4 bars of the
original melody in C minor. However, this time I inverted the melodies, then
transposed them to B minor and once again swapped the parts between the
instruments. I also used different
dynamics in this section to communicate the travellers’ elation at finding
their way out of Wonderland.
Despite this assignment taking a very long time to
complete, I am pleased with the result.
This section of the course has been so packed with new information for me
that I was concerned about forgetting the information if I did not use it. My studies of atonality were very enlightening
and have opened up my mind to new ideas about what is considered as music, and
the limitations placed by the diatonic system, which our ears have become
accustomed to.
Working with catches was probably my favourite part
of this section, as the simplicity of these harmonic ditties makes them very
quick and easy to compose, yet very impressive when played or sung. In addition to this, the potential of using
catches is vast in terms of adding harmony and depth to any piece.
However, it was the study of polyphony that has
blown my mind! The ability to
independently compose multiple melodies, based around a minimal number of
‘meeting points’ has the potential to be used in any form of music, for many
different things. I suspect that polyphony
will feature heavily in my future compositions.
