I haven’t done a music theory puzzle in a while.  Here’s one to keep everyone’s brain sharp over the weekend, taken from Ludwig van Beethoven’s Symphony no. 6 (Pastoral).  This work is noted for its rustic feeling.  One way Beethoven got this sound was to intentionally utilize parallel 5ths and 8vs, normally avoided at the time.  The following excerpt from the 1st movement of this symphony contains one example of parallel 8vs and 2 examples of parallel 5ths.

Until the 20th century, most European composers (and composers highly influenced by “classical” music) avoided writing separate parts that moved in parallel octaves or 5ths.  They were heard as destroying the independence of each part.  Listening with our ears today it’s not so obvious, but at the time that Beethoven lived these sounds would be noticeable to many listeners.

Can you spot them all?  Answer after the break.

I do a lot of my composing directly into Finale, but I find that it’s easier for me to sketch out ideas at the very beginning on staff. One of the reasons I like to is because it feels more organic to me. Basic inputing with Finale makes you follow notation rules, while when I’m playing around with themes or motives I like to be able to simply mark in note heads and not worry about rhythm. Or start at the end of a phrase and work my way backwards.

But one of the main reasons I like to work out initial ideas by hand is so that I can keep a composition notebook. Over the course of composing a piece I end up rejecting a fair bit of material. I like to think that what I’m doing is putting only my best ideas into the completed piece, so this elimination process is a good thing. However, a lot of what I leave behind isn’t necessarily bad, it just didn’t fit the spirit and mood of the composition I happened to be working on. So I save those rejected ideas and tuck them away for later.

A lot of times those half finished ideas grow into a composition of their own. Other times they just sit there in the stack and collect dust. Every once in a while, however, I like to go through all the rejected themes and see what I’ve left behind. I never know when something that didn’t speak to me when I first jotted it down on paper will suddenly inspire me. Sometimes I find myself stuck for a second theme or bridge to a composition and find just what I needed in my composition notebook.

I like to think of composition as similar in practice to performing on an instrument. You have to practice to get good at it and if all you work on is what you can already do well you’re not going to make fast improvements. You don’t necessarily have to finish a piece to get something out of the experience. Excellent performers are always practicing their instruments and I’ve found that the composers I admire also are always working on some project, even if it never sees the light of day. For me, adding to my composition notebook is a good form of composition practice.

Last Friday’s annual Christmas Concert fundraiser was well attended and we managed to raise some good money on top of having a good time.  I was particularly excited about this concert because I had written a brand new composition for last year’s show, but winter weather forced us to cancel it.  We finally got to premier my composition for narrator and big band, music set to the poem A Visit From St. Nick.  Rodney Hagans is the narrator, but unfortunately he’s out of the camera frame for the whole video.  Still, you can get a good idea of how the chart sounds.

Many of my compositions have been published by PDF Jazz Music, an online publisher that sells music as downloadable PDF files.  Because they only deal with the PDF format music is really quite cheap (around $20 for big band chart, less for combo charts).  You can also listen to recordings of the music and view a score on the web site, which will allow you to hear whether or not the music will suit your needs before you purchase it.

Recently they got another one of my big band charts published, called The Rocket.  I wrote this tune for the Asheville Jazz Orchestra to play at our old weekly gig at the now-defunct Rocket Club.  I wanted to have a section that could be opened up for different soloists in the band and give some of the band members who might not otherwise get to play solos a chance to stretch out a bit.  In retrospect, there are elements of both Sammy Nestico and Thad Jones in the arranging and the changes are loosely based on Sonny Rollins’s St. Thomas.

You can go listen to this tune (and purchase a copy, if you’re so inclined) at my composer’s page on PDF Jazz Music.  Be sure to check out some of the other composers.  There are some “heavy weights” who have music available there, like Jim Martin, Frank Mantooth (a former teacher of mine) and Don Ellis.

Here’s a music theory puzzle for today’s post.  This one comes from J.S. Bach’s setting of Freuet euich, ihr Christen alle.  The workbook assignment I gave my music theory students asked them to write a roman numeral analysis of the harmony (in F minor, not according to the key signature) and spot and label the non-chord-tones.  What tripped me up was finding the parallel 5ths that Bach uses in this excerpt.  It took me quite a while to find them.  See you can can spot them.  The answer after the break.