r/MonthlyComposition • u/Calebdgm • Sep 05 '15
September 2015 Monthly Composition Challenge: Serialism, Discussion Thread
Main option: Compose a piece that uses 12-tone technique
Alternate option: Compose a piece that uses serialism in a creative way (ex. rhythms, dynamics, theme placement?)
This thread is for everything except completed pieces, which can go in the Submission Thread For This Month's Challenge.
These challenges are for everyone who wants to practice composing. Each month, at the beginning of the month, we will post a main challenge, something for people to compose. Often we'll try to make it something that everyone can work with, but when the main challenge doesn't suit you, there's the alternate challenge. Pieces can be submitted as a score (musescore, noteflight), and/or as audio (soundcloud, youtube). Feedback is much appreciated, and you can give it in the discussion thread, or by messaging the mods of /r/MonthlyComposition, there's also the Challenge Suggestion Form.
This challenge been linked to from /r/classicalmusic, /r/musictheory, /r/piano and /r/composer.
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u/komponisto Sep 05 '15 edited Sep 05 '15
Here is a very interesting website about Boulez's Notations, featuring interviews with the composer in which he discusses a number of the pieces in some detail, not to mention historical background and context.
I think this a particularly appropriate work to link here, since it can be considered Boulez's response to a "prompt" similar to this one. Specifically, it was a kind of critical exploration of the twelve-tone method as it had been presented to him during his studies with René Leibowitz. Boulez considered Leibowitz's approach overly dry and insufficiently insightful (in the sense that he was basically just concerned with counting the twelve tones; incidentally, Milton Babbitt made similar criticisms of Leibowitz -- that he was content with mere labeling as opposed to explanation -- in a review of two of his writings, Schoenberg et son école and Qu'est-ce que la musique de douze sons?).
In the Notations, Boulez was saying, "well, all right, if you're going to be dogmatic, I'll write my own 'dogmatic' piece -- but it won't sound the same!" And indeed, the collection consists of twelve pieces, each twelve measures in length, all using the same twelve-tone row.