Schoenberg & dodecaphony; or, How I Need to Stop Worrying...

[sloop_john_b]

As some of you may know, i'm a music major in college and nearing the end of my tenure there. That means that coming soon will be - you guessed it - my "Senior Recital"! Every graduating music major has to have one.

But interestingly, mine will be a first at my school, in that I won't be performing a song or playing/singing a single note, for that matter. Instead, my recital will be several of my compositions, performed by far-more-talented-than-I students. I've been studying composition at school for about two years now, and the recital will make for an interesting timeline - since some music will be performed that I wrote very early on in my studies, it'll show just how my music has progressed over that time (a LOT).

I have to admit though, that i'm slightly worried about how my music going to be received. I *know* this is going to come off as at least slightly egotistical, but I feel as if i've been writing above most casual music listeners, who don't understand what it is to be immersed in Arnold Schoenberg or to painstakingly analyze the work of Ralph Vaughan Williams. There will be a lot of music people there who will "get it", but what about everybody else?

For example, one of the pieces is a two-part invention for flute and clarinet based on Schoenberg's Twelve Tone Technique (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twelve-tone_technique). To put it simply, the composer takes all twelve pitches, arranges them in an order so that they don't form any tonal arpeggios or more than two-note chromaticism. Once the pattern is established, the composer writes a piece using it, but the caveat is that you MUST use all twelve intervals in the order they were written, and can't go back to the first one until you get past the 12th one. They could also be inverted, reversed, but MUST follow the pattern still.

As you can imagine, it sounds totally atonal, well, because it is!

As I progressed in my writing, I got a bit more freedom to do what I wanted, instead of having to be avant-garde all the time. The last piece I wrote - and it was a doozy - was a six part choral piece set to the Billy Collins poem "The Parade". It's a far more "tonal" sounding piece that even ventures into pesudo-jazz a bit, melodically speaking.

After logging hour after hour after hour of tedius, painstaking writing that often had me completely creatively drained, I am a tad worried about the reception the music will get. Should I be?

(BTW: I have MIDI files of my compositions - i'll work on getting them up here somehow)

[jdogric12]

After logging hour after hour after hour of tedius, painstaking writing that often had me completely creatively drained, I am a tad worried about the reception the music will get. Should I be?

(BTW: I have MIDI files of my compositions - i'll work on getting them up here somehow)

I don't think you have anything to worry about. I did a similar thing for my junior recital with contemporary trombone music. I, too, was worried about the reception, but it turned out to be pretty light hearted and fun by the end. That was a pleasant surprise. And most of the people there were at least familiar with that weird stuff, if not totally into it. So if you're in good company, it should be a blast. If a bunch of strangers wander in with no preconceptions, it will at least be fun to watch them silently freak.

When is it? Where? We want info!!!

[sloop_john_b]

I don't think you have anything to worry about. I did a similar thing for my junior recital with contemporary trombone music. I, too, was worried about the reception, but it turned out to be pretty light hearted and fun by the end. That was a pleasant surprise. And most of the people there were at least familiar with that weird stuff, if not totally into it. So if you're in good company, it should be a blast. If a bunch of strangers wander in with no preconceptions, it will at least be fun to watch them silently freak.

When is it? Where? We want info!!!

Y'know, it will be fun seeing people "silently freak". I just want to please everybody, you know? It's not really possible.

It's December 8th, here at the performance center at my school.

[charlyg]

I'm rootin for ya jb!

[jps]

John, do what Timothy Leary would have done, drug the audience by injecting it into the HVAC system. They will LOVE the music by the end of the performance!

[jimk]

John B. I thought you might be interested in this little story from NPR since the thread is about Arnold Schoenberg and his method of composition.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/stor ... d=14947215

JimK

[sloop_john_b]

John B. I thought you might be interested in this little story from NPR since the thread is about Arnold Schoenberg and his method of composition.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/stor ... d=14947215

JimK

Interesting, thanks Jim. He's dead on about 20th century music being met with skepticism; I can certainly be guilty of that at times.

[charlyg]

It's the blues baby!!

ducking and running.........

[jimk]

Actually Charlie, you're more to the point than you think. Duke Ellington (Black & Tan Suite) I think along with Scott Joplin (his entire ragtime oeuvre) are two underrated composers of the 20th century. And because Schoenberg, Hindemith, & Co. didn't really understand the blues, Western music didn't have anyplace else to go in my estimation, except to head for the 12 tone row.

Dodecaphony is elegant looking on paper, and interesting in theory, but sonicly, aurally it doesn't really work. As the NPR interview points out, folks don't leave the concert hall humming 12 tone melodies on the way out to the parking lot. Schoenberg tried to pave a new road, and it turns out to be a dead end, IMHO.

It's the Blues, baby.

JimK

[charlyg]

I always try to have at least a grain of truth in my snide remarks!

[lyle_from_minneapolis]

Wow, John, best of luck on your recital. Your collected works debut on the sad anniversary of Lennon's death...a bright spot on a cloudy day.

Ask yourself what you're worried about...? Guaranteed, one of those twelve-tone puzzle pieces will not please most people, but I predict everyone at that recital will respect the work and the creative intelligence that pulled it off, they will marvel at the effort, their minds will drift and they will remember all the things they never attempted in their lives and they will feel inadequate that they really, deep down, don't understand this stuff...and they will all clap like hell. Yeah, you need to stop worrying.

The important thing is what it all means to you and where you plan to go with it. From everything I've read, you are already respected as an excellent player...a deep background in music history, theory and composition just means your future is wide open.

(Now, have a listen to today's five top selling hits...draw the curtains and despair.)

[sloop_john_b]

Well, my recital was yesterday. It went great! People really liked the stuff, and my parents finally got to see something i've done - they loved it too.

For posterity, it was also recorded:

This is "The Snowman", a piece I wrote using the text from a poem of the same title by Wallace Stevens. Kathleen Pactong, soprano, is the singer. Barbara Wesby is the pianist. Notably, on this one, I wrote the entire melody before any sort of accompaniment or chord progression - the result is dissonant at times, but as a whole, I think I captured the mood of the poem - "One must have a mind of winter..." (Click for text)

This is "The Parade", a piece I wrote using the text from a poem of the same title by Billy Collins. There were four sopranos, three altos, and four baritones for the performance. Roger Wesby is the conductor, Barbara Wesby is the pianist. This was the penultimate piece of the entire recital - it was performed twice! (Click for text)

[jps]

Nice work, John!

I just wish the recordings were better done. I have done my share of classical recording and I feel the sound is too middle to back of hall, especially the piano. Do the high res sound files sound better?

[sloop_john_b]

Nice work, John!

I just wish the recordings were better done. I have done my share of classical recording and I feel the sound is too middle to back of hall, especially the piano. Do the high res sound files sound better?

Sadly, these are about as good as it gets.

Myself and my buddy Mike were very limited in what we could do; we were faced with restrictions on where we could place microphones. They couldn't be too close to the singers and they couldn't be obstructing the view of the audience. When I tell you we did the absolute best we could, we did!

I am considering having the players come into my studio to do a better recording, perhaps after the new year.

[tmossman]

Nice stuff John. The piano interlude at around 4.20 in "the parade" needs to pulled out into a pop song on its own. There is a nice melody there.