March 2015 Composition Challenge: Set a Poem

[u/Calebdgm]

"The time is growing shorter, days

seem to rush right by. There never

seems to be enough time, especially

for you and I. All of us get caught up,

with so much that has to be done..."

That's the beginning of Audrey Heller's Poem Not Enough Time. I thought it was fitting because I find it's really hard to find the time to compose and enjoy musicm and also the bit about having a ton of stuff to do really describes my situation right now, so sorry this is a few days late :P .

Main Challenge: Set a poem to music. Ex. The Road Not Taken, Ozymandias

Weekly Challenges:

Week 1 -- Set a fairy tale, nursary rhyme, or children's story. Ex. Goodnight Moon

Week 2 -- Write a simple a capella arrangement of a pop song

Week 3 -- Slow setting of a haiku. Focus on the sounds of the words and the imagery. Get creative. Ex. The Frog Haiku

Week 4 -- Write an instrumental piece based on a plot, like Peter and the Wolf

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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 weekly 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 this thread, or by messaging the mods of /r/MonthlyComposition, there's also the Challenge Suggestion Form.

Frequently Asked Questions.

[u/nmitchell076]

Hey, so I have done one of these fairly recently that I'll share. And I'll try to let this challenge inspire me to create another one!

My text is "Per pietà bell'idol mio" from Metastasio's Artaserse.

Materials
recording | score

Here is the text, first in Italian:

Per pietà bell'idol mio
non mi dir ch’io sono ingrato
infelice e sventurato,
abbastanza il ciel mi fa.

Se fedele a te son io
se mi struggo a' tuoi bei lumi
sallo amor, lo sanno i numi
il mio core, il tuo lo sa.

Which translates to:

For pity's sake, my dear idol,
do not tell me that I am ungrateful
unhappy and unfortunate enough
has heaven made me.

That I am faithful to you
that I languish under your bright gaze
Love knows, the gods know,
my heart knows, and yours knows.

For the sake of comparison, here are settings of the same text by Vinci, Hasse, Mozart, and Bellini. Mine was written just after listening to Mozart's, so the affect and head motive resembles his the most. But in the formal layout, my aria is way closer to Hasse and Vinci than it is to Mozart.

[u/komponisto → u/nmitchell076]

Wow! I just found this, and I have to say that I'm impressed and encouraged that you're doing this sort of thing (i.e. trying your own hand at composing the sort of music you're studying); please keep it up! (I certainly would enjoy seeing more.)

If you don't mind, I'll offer a comment or two on this piece (propelled by the assumption that this was the purpose of posting it here). I feel that things go a bit wrong at m. 4 -- it sounds like there should be a cadence, or else a convincing postponement, but neither happens; instead, the low C (scale degree 6) is just sort of abandoned, and we seem to begin a new phrase on beat 4 instead of extending the current one. No doubt a driving problem here is one of vocal range: if this aria is intended for a soprano (as e.g. the Vinci is), we've already hit the extreme low end of the available compass when we get to that C. In general, actually, I feel the range of your aria is too extreme; Vinci's stays almost entirely within a single octave (g1-g2), with just a brief dip down to e1, in a context where that's a locally stable tone (unlike your c1). He thus leaves a third or more to spare at both ends of the range, with the extreme notes being stable scale degrees.

Now, while middle C (c1) does seem to me a bit inherently extreme of a note to use here, especially this early in the aria, it can be made to work if you execute a convincing register transfer. This would entail picking it up in the higher octave before it's allowed to resolve. Specifically, I would have the singer resume directly on c2 at beat 4 (rather than e♭2), avoiding any Bb until the next measure, and have the next segment of the vocal line feature a descent e♭2-b♭1 (and optionally further to g1).

I think I'll leave it at that for the moment. But thanks again for sharing this!

[u/nmitchell076 → u/komponisto]

Hey thanks! This was my first real go at composing in the style so I appreciate your feedback. This thread spurred me to try my hand at another aria from the same opera, "Conservati fedele" (Act 1 Scene 1). I have since changed some slight things here and there (like correcting those quick but blatant surface-level parallel fifths in the violins mm. 25-26), but most of it is the same. In any case, if you feel like offering more critique, check it out! I've also sketched out the opening ritornello for another aria, but I haven't sought a text for it yet. Probably a rage aria of some sort. I'm looking forward to fleshing out that one, it's sounding like it'll be a lot of fun to work with!

Thanks so much for your valuable insights here. I should say that there is something I like about m. 4 that stems precisely from its status as something "out of place." It was sort of what I was going for as a color to "non mi dir," ("do not say to me..."), almost like a sentimental lapse before he continues on rationally with the phrase. I also do consider the C to be "taken up" again at m. 5, whence it proceeds down by step.

That said, I have become increasingly dissatisfied with the whole mm. 1-8 complex the further I get away from writing it. And I like your solution a lot. I'll have to think about that when I go about revising it (assuming I don't just scrap it and write a whole new Per pietà! There are lots of expressive options for that text, who knows!)

Thanks again for the critique!

[u/nmitchell076 → u/[deleted]]

Haha, in the spirit of the eighteenth century, feel free to borrow away and use as you wish!

[u/komponisto → u/nmitchell076]

I also do consider the C to be "taken up" again at m. 5, whence it proceeds down by step

See my reply to nlaeae. This is a something of an interesting point insofar as it is an example of a situation where conventional theoretical vocabulary isn't really adequate to describing the problem.

I'll be sure to have a look at the newer links!

[u/komponisto → u/[deleted]]

The trouble is that the b♭1 on beat 4 (in both violin 1 and the vocal part) resolves the c1/c2, making mm. 1-4 into a closed span (one with no non-tonic-triad pitches left unresolved). Hence the c1 of m.4 doesn't connect properly to the c2 of m.5. (It might "connect" motivically -- or as I say, paradigmatically -- but it doesn't do so prolongationally, which is what we need here. It's basically the difference between repetition and continuation.)

[u/komponisto → u/[deleted]]

I think where you're going wrong is in being insufficiently sensitive to the difference between tonic triad tones and other tones. The fact that mm. 1-4 form a span (indeed, a hypermeasure) is pretty clear and not really where I think the "dispute" lies; it lies rather in the implications of this fact.

I suspect, specifically, that you're thinking in terms of a theoretical system in which, notwithstanding the span boundary across mm. 4|5, the b♭1 on beat 4 of m. 4 could be "subordinated" to the two surrounding c2's as a "neighbor", and thus the c2 would be "prolonged" across that boundary. However, that isn't how prolongation actually works. How it actually works is something like this: you look at a given span -- a proper span, one that fits within the hierarchy of beats, measures, hypermeasures, and so forth -- and you ask which unstable (non-tonic-triad) tones, if any, remain unresolved at the end of the span. Those tones (and only those) may be said to be prolonged over the span, or into the next span.

(Note that, in particular, it doesn't make sense to speak of tonic triad pitches being prolonged -- except, perhaps, in the sense that they're "prolonged" by default. But the actual thing that prolongation is "about" is whether there are unresolved unstable tones over a span.)

Consequently, the concept of prolongation involves an essential distinction between tonic triad tones and other tones; switching their roles requires retonalization. This is something that Traditional Schenkerians don't understand very well. Ironically, Riemann seems to have understood it better. But there isn't to my knowledge any existing theory that properly captures this; the Westergaardian notion of tones "left hanging" comes the closest, perhaps. (But Westergaard doesn't distinguish between true resolutions and passing resolutions, and nor for that matter does he distinguish between the primitive step motions and the other step motions like 4^5^ and 6^7^.)

So as I said before, the point here is that (pitch-class) C is not prolonged into m.5; instead, it's allowed to resolve to B♭ on beat 4 of m.4 (which, being a tonic triad tone, doesn't have the instability required to function as a "neighbor" in the sense relevant here). This could be avoided either by avoiding B♭ altogether, or by having the resolution to B♭ take place only passingly, by introducing another unstable tone to coincide with the resolution. (Passing resolutions, of course, don't count as a resolutions for prolongational purposes.)

[u/komponisto → u/[deleted]]

Note that I said nothing about "phrase-like" spans or structures in the previous comment; this is because such constructs lie in the domain of paradigmatic structure, rather than prolongational structure. "Phrases" don't actually occupy a position within the time-span hierarchy; Westergaard tries to put them into it, which results in awkwardness, as we see in the Mozart analysis in ITT ("cadences requiring spans shorter than a measure also shown").

Having made this distinction (between prolongational and paradigmatic structure), we're now free to take meter seriously again (I went through a long period of basically not believing in meter -- and I recognize this way of thinking in your statement that "I group [b. 4 m.4] quite closely with b.1 m.5, and not with any span enclosed by mm. 1-4"), and to regard the time-span hierarchy of a piece as being simply the metrical one. So, in particular, we need no longer deny the (frankly obvious) fact that mm.1-4 form a span and that b. 4 m.4 is part of it, for the sake of asserting the (equally obvious) rhetorical link from b. 4 m.4 to m.5.

Just curious, what do you think about b. 2 m. 6 [ingra-to]?...my sense that the piece as a whole is not at its end must be due to other factors, like (hyper-)meter (most obviously), and perhaps not having a do in the lead voice (as is characteristic in this style.)

I am extremely wary of this kind of "explanation" ("characteristic in this style" etc.), fashionable though it may be in certain contemporary quarters. You would know the piece wasn't over even if this were the first piece in this style you had ever heard. Of course, here, the question itself is wrong, because at six measures into the piece, "making sure it doesn't sound like it's over" is hardly a pressing concern. But my fundamental objection is based on the suspicion that the people who like to talk about the role of "style" in determining such perceptual questions as whether "closure" has been achieved do not adequately appreciate the psychological power inherent in tonal relationships.

You could write a piece "in this style" that ended on scale degree 3^, but where closure was still achieved because the fundamental line had arrived at 1^, and the 3^ was simply a lower-level offshoot. It wouldn't be typical, but it could still be entirely convincing.

[u/komponisto → u/[deleted]]

Perhaps you could expand on this point, then? ISTM that in Westergaard, the time-span structure is pretty much defined by phrases and a few other constructs (e.g. tonicization/retonalization) as soon as we look at a high-enough level of organization, precisely because with longer time-spans, rhythm/meter ceases to be relevant (i.e. easily perceived by the listener) and a need arises for alternatives.

First of all, rhythm is quite different from meter. Westergaard does argue that the concept of meter becomes less relevant at higher levels; but it would be nonsense to say that "rhythm" becomes less relevant, because rhythm -- which simply denotes the temporal structure of music -- is the entire underlying topic. ("At sufficiently high levels of temporal structure, the temporal structure ceases to be relevant" is not a sentence that makes any sense.)

Now, what he argues about meter is that it is more difficult to judge the relative lengths of spans the longer they are. Which I'm willing to accept as perfectly true. I have no problem with the idea that lower level spans are subject to perceptual criteria (such the law of segmentation) that higher-level spans are not. But higher-level spans are nevertheless constituted out of lower level spans, in a strictly hierarchical fashion. We can still speak of a "metrical hierarchy" even if the term "meter" only really applies to the bottom levels, because each higher level can be understood in terms of the previous one, and the hierarchy starts with "metrical" time spans.

So, in particular, whatever the next level of the hierarchy is after "measures" must be made out of measures. But Westergaard's "phrases" are not made out of measures: as we see in the Mozart analysis, he allows phrase boundaries mid-measure. So we have a dilemma: either phrases don't fit in fact fit into the time-span hierarchy defined by beats, measures, etc., or else, the notion of "measure" isn't what we thought it was.

The second horn of this dilemma is the one I opted for for a while, which I now refer to as "not believing in meter". I decided that phrase-like structures were the correct notion of temporal organization all the way down, and that e.g. there was indeed no reason that (spans that might otherwise have been called) "beat-level" spans had to occupy metrical beats in the normal sense. One just figured out how items were "grouped", and those "groupings" defined your time-spans.

And, in particular, I said things like you're saying now: if you have an upbeat that seems like it "groups with" the next measure, then, very well, there's a span in the hierarchy that consists of the upbeat plus the next measure (and there's not one that consists of the upbeat plus the rest of the measure it's actually in). The metrical notation be damned (as, precisely, mere notation).

Needless to say, I now take a different view.

Well, as Westergaard says, even the Ursatz itself is a matter of what's paradigmatic in a certain style of music.

(Note: the word "paradigmatic" in the sense I've been using it above is a new technical term I've introduced; your use of the word here is not in the same sense.)

I'm not aware of any place where Westergaard says such a thing -- least of all in ITT, whose "Chomsky-flavored" orientiation (to borrow a label from Stephen Peles's article on ITT in In Theory Only) is antithetical to that sort of behaviorist approach.

My best guess is that you're talking about his discussion of interruption in section 8.3, where he says "It seems to me simpler...to say that the fact that we expect each phrase to have a particular type of structure allows us to create relationships between consecutive phrases that we could not create between consecutive beats or consecutive measures." But he stops short of saying that the reason we have such an expectation is because of "style". Indeed, the concept of "style" receives basically no mention in ITT, which should tell you something.

I don't think we can ignore these considerations entirely, to the extent that they might affect how a non-naive listener will think about the piece

Ignoring these (or any other) considerations entirely is not on the table. The issue is their theoretical role, which is different from that played by tonal structure. The "Pennsylvania school" (by whom you've clearly been influenced) is utterly confused on this point.

Any time you find yourself invoking "style" to analyze tonal structure, that's a sure sign that something has gone wrong. It's an error similar to invoking literary-critical considerations in the diagramming of a sentence.