Assignment 3: A Little Polyphony

 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.